Evaluating the Rendering of Definiteness and Indefiniteness in Al-Baqara and Al-A'raf into English: A Syntactic and Semantic Study | ||||
| Egyptian Journal of Linguistics and Translation | ||||
| Volume 4, Issue 1, July 2020, Page 74-388 PDF (1.92 MB) | ||||
| Document Type: Research in linguistic and literary studies | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/ejlt.2020.201504.1012 | ||||
 View on SCiNiTO | ||||
| Author | ||||
Ahmed M. Abu-hassoub  
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| Department of English. Faculty of Languages. Sohag University. Sohag. Egypt | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| The main objectives of this study are identifying the possible purposes and functions of in/definite nouns in Al-Baqara and Al-A'raf, analyzing how these purposes and functions are rendered into English in some English translations of the Glorious Qur'an and exploring the reasons for variation, if any, in rendering the Arabic in/definiteness into English. Three approaches are followed in analyzing the data of this study; syntactic, semantic and functional. The results of the study show that the overall Arabic-definite function is identification and the two overall indefinite functions are unfamiliarity and indeterminacy. Some functions of the definite nouns are: identification of a person or a thing as unique, mental familiarity (homophora use of al-), conventional inclusiveness, real inclusiveness, situational use (context-specific), genus and class-representative, genus and restriction, genus and intensification, assuring a fact, and the non-linguistic type (denoting things that already exist). However, some functions that are found in indefinite nouns are: unidentified quality/type, glorification, singularization, despising, vagueness, continuity, ultimate negation, generality, generality and unfamiliarity, increase/decrease in quantity, non-restriction and non-identification, confirming an idea and negating another, and confirming an idea without restriction. In addition, the findings indicate that context and the syntactic position in a sentence are influential factors in addressing in/definites. The study also reveals that there are some differences in rendering Arabic in/definite nouns into English. Some reasons for these differences are: unlike Arabic, English can use bare-noun phrases to denote genus, and can use ‘all’ instead of the definite article when used with plurals to denote real inclusiveness. In addition, English does not use the definite article to denote genus and type in negative sentences however Arabic does. Furthermore, unlike Arabic, English uses the generic indefinite article to pick out a member as representative of a certain class. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| Translating definites; indefinite functions; qur'anic studies | ||||
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