Translation of Culture-specific Phrases in the Holy Quran

Abstract

Translating cultural elements can be a demanding task due to the fact that such elements have specific meanings in the culture and language in which they arise but not necessarily in others. Taking this fact into account, the present study investigated the strategies used in translation of culture-bound elements in three English translation of Holy Quran and the frequency of such strategies. In this study, the data gathered consist of the terms related to Islamic law in the original Arabic text of Holy Quran based on the classification made by Khoramshahi (1990) as well as their equivalents in three English versions by Shakir (1985), Yusuf Ali (1996), and Pickthall (1996). To gather the required data, chapter thirty of holy Quran randomly selected. Then, the culture-specific elements of this chapter of Holy Quran were detected and were compared with their English equivalents to identify the strategies used in translating them. Finally, the frequency of the employed strategies was studied in order to find which strategy has the highest potential for conveying the intended meaning.