Revisiting Interpretive Translation Method: A Case Study of Muhammad Thalib’s Quranic Translation*

Abstract

Although research on the literal and interpretive translation methods have been extensively explored, little attention has been invested in criticizing these translation methods. This research aims to evaluate the interpretive translation method from the canon of translation studies by investigating some techniques, methods, and ideology of the translation in Muhammad Thalib’s Quranic Translation of surah al-Wāqiah into Indonesian. This research employs a critical qualitative-cased study design. The results indicate that the translator applied several translation techniques in the translation of surah al-Wāqiah: established equivalence (47.05%), amplification (explication) (25.16%), implicitation (8.31%), modulation (6.12%), amplification (paraphrasing) (5.03%), transposition (2.85%), compensation (2.63%), discursive creation (1.31%), reduction (0.66%), pure borrowing (0. 44%), particularization (0.22%), and paraphrasing discursive creation (0.22%). These techniques are categorized under communicative translation method and domestication translation ideology. This research implies that the interpretive translation method is not dependable and serves as a unit of analysis to dissect Qur'anic translation text, given that it lies at the meso level. Therefore, this method must be reconstructed using translation techniques at the micro level. For this reason, the translators need to be more competent not only in bilingual, transfer, and cultural competencies, but also in declarative and procedural translation competencies as well.