Construction and Embedment in Translation: A Study of Narrative Patterns in English Translation of Surah AL- KAHF ‘The Cave’
Abstract
Narration and narrativity has always been considered as an influential means of creating, reconciliating and representing ideologies, themes, systems, and conflicts at all levels; social, educational, religious, and political. The present paper utilizes the Narrative theories and paradigm for the purpose of rationalizing the Translated text of Narratives as legitimate and well-constructed text. For this purpose, the present paper endeavours to trace and underline the narrative patterns of English Translation of Surah Al Kahf, The Cave, through the narrative theory given by Baker (2006), and the narrative paradigm by Walter Fisher (1997). The matter of fact undertaken in the paper is that narratives in Translation do present the world of reality than merely representing it. The result of the study revealed the fact that typologies, dimensions, and axes of Narrativity and narrative theories and paradigms are directly applicable to the translated text of the Quran, making the text stand the test of reliability; both linguistically and theoretically. Above all, the theoretical application renders the translated text of the Quran as valid and authentic text for the EFL learners to teach and learn Narratives.
Keywords: Narratology, Narrative theory, Narrative Paradigm, Narrative Construction, reconstruction, re-narration, constructedness, embeddedness
References
Asad, M. (1980). The Message of Quran. Gibraltar: Dar ul Andulas.
Bajwa, R. (2012). Divine Storytelling as Self-Presentation: An Analysis of Surat al-
Kahf. A doctoral dissertation submitted to the faculty of Graduate School of Arts
and Science of George Town University
Baker, M. (2006). Translation and conflict: A narrative account. London and New
York: Routledge.
Baker, M. (2008). Ethics of renarration: Baker is interviewed by Andrew Chesterman.
Cultus (1): 10-33.
Briggs, L.C. (1996). Narrative, Conflict, and Inequality. Oxford University Press.
Bruner, J. (1991) ‘The Narrative Construction of Reality’, Critical Inquiry 18(1): 1-21.
Even-Zohar, 1990.
Fisher, W.R. (1987). Human Communication as Narration: Towards a philosophy of
Reason, Value, and Action, Columbia: University of South Carolina press. Fisher
1997.
Fisher, W.R. (1985). The narrative paradigm: In the beginning. Journal of
Communication
Ghazali, M.A. (2000). A thematic commentary on the Quran. Herndon: Institute of
Islamic Thought.
Haneef, S.A. (2011) Overcoming Trails: The Message of Surah al Kahf.
http://muslimmatters.org/2014/07/11overcoming-trails-the-message-of-surah-al-Kahf/
Itmeizeh, M.J. (2018). Pedagogical and Psychological implements in the Holly Quran:
The Case Surah Al-Kahf. Arab World English Journal. 2 (4), 89-99
Jahn, M. (2005). Narratology: A guide to the theory of Narrative. Dept of English. University of Cologne.
Kenan, R. (1983). Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Fiction. Routledge. London.
Labov,W. (1972) Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Netton, I.R. (2000). Towards a Modern Tafsir of Surat Al-Kahf: Structure and Semiotics. Journal of Quranic Studies, 2(1), 67-87
Prince, G. (1987). A Grammar of Stories. The Hague: Moutin.
Schmidt, C. (2008). Sleeping towards Christianity: the form and function of seven
sleepers’ legend in medieval British oral tradition (Doctoral dissertation,
University of Missouri-Columbia
Yimam,W. (2008). Narrative Techniques in the Holy Quran with special reference to
the Five Surahs (Chapters) (Doctoral dissertation, aau.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors are free to:
- Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
- for any purpose, even commercially.
- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
