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The Relation Between Explicitation and Translation Expertise in the Rendition of Nominalisation and Participles in Legal Qurʾānic Verses Specific to Purification and Prayer into English: A Corpus-Based Study

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Abstract

This paper addresses the relation between explicitation and translation expertise in the rendition of nominalisation and participles in the legal Qurʾānic verses specific to purification and prayer. It uses a corpus-based method: The Qurʾānic Arabic Corpus. The paper argues that most of the expert Qurʾān translators explicitate in rendering nominalisation and participles in the legal verses specific to purification and prayer into English in the said corpus. They explicitate in the form of both addition and specification with varying degrees as the former is adopted twice as much as the latter. The paper claims that most explicitations specific to the rendition of nominalisation and participles in the legal Qurʾānic verses peculiar to purification and prayer in the corpus have been superfluous, albeit justifiable. This may confirm the relation between explicitation and translation expertise in The Qurʾānic Arabic Corpus in the sense that although the meaning of nominalisation and/or participles is wholly translated into English, the Qurʾān translators still explicitate through addition or specification to further facilitate the comprehension process. This paper offers a baseline for examining explicitation exercised on nominalisation and participles in the legal Qurʾānic verses particular to purification and prayer, which may have implications for future studies conducted on the same topic in other similar legal contexts.

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Notes

  1. https://corpus.quran.com/.

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Funding

This research is funded by Literature, Publishing and Translation Commission, Ministry of Culture, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under [Grant Number: 96\2023], which is part of the Arabic Observatory of Translation.

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  1. Department of Modern Languages and Literature, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, King Abdulaziz University, P.O.Box 14354, Jeddah, 21424, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Rafat Y. Alwazna

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Alwazna, R.Y. The Relation Between Explicitation and Translation Expertise in the Rendition of Nominalisation and Participles in Legal Qurʾānic Verses Specific to Purification and Prayer into English: A Corpus-Based Study. Int J Semiot Law 36, 1717–1747 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-023-10025-y

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