Metaphors in Arabic and English Texts: A Case Study of Translation of Metaphors in the English Versions of Al-Sahifah Al-Sajjadiyyah

Abstract

The aim of the present research is the study of translation of metaphor as one of the literary devices of Al-Sahifah Al-Sajjadiyah from Arabic into English. Al-Sahifah Al-Sajjadiyah contains 54 valuable supplications regarding political, social, military, family, religious, etc, issues. The secret of its permanency among Moslems and Shi'ites, in particular, has been its elegance and fluency. It is replete with literary devices such as proverbs, parables, metaphors, etc. It contains beautiful metaphors throughout. This study is an attempt to examine the translation of this literary device from Arabic into English based on Roman Jakobson’s (1956) framework. Therefore, a group of 65 metaphors of that book was selected from the entire book. The translation of selected metaphors by two English translators, namely William C. Chittick (2008) and Sayyid Ahmad Muhani (1984) were compared with the original ones according to the Roman Jakobson’ s (1956) syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes.On the syntagmatic axis, the axis of combination, words are linked, or chained, together according to grammatical rules, but we make choices about which words to link together on the paradigmatic axis, the axis of selection. The study finally comes up with the conclusion that Chittick has tried to render the metaphors as literally and of course faithfully as possible. He has observed two axes in his translation more than second translator, Muhani and for this reason approaches the original text’s literary style. Muhani mostly has converted the metaphors to their senses. He has more attention to meaning and content rather than linguistic form and in some cases ignoring the form to present the meaning.

Keywords: Al-Sahifah Al-Sajjadiyah, Metaphor, Jakobson, Syntagmatic axis, Paradigmatic axis.