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The retranslator as the propagandist of MOI

The discursive contexts of the (re-)translation of Rumi’s Divan-e-Shams in the United States

| Sheikhbahaee University

Translations are reflections of their historical, social, cultural, and political contexts. Given this, the current study aimed to explore the ways Nicholson (1898) and Arberry (1967) dealt with translating culture-bound terms and Quranic allusions in the translations of Rumi’s mystical poems in Divan-e-Shams-e- Tabrizi into English and then identify the textual relationships between the two. To do so, the comparative model of research and the notion of tertium comparationis was used. The strategies used by (re)translators for translating culture-bound terms and Quranic allusions were first identified and categorized in a selection of twenty poems from Divan-e-Shams-e- Tabrizi. The study’s findings showed strong filial relationships between the two versions, where both had used cultural adaptation and explicitation of cultural-bound terms by using the addition strategy used in their endnotes. However, the dissidence lay in the content of the endnotes, and the way discursive contexts of the (re)translators shaped their translation strategies was discussed.

Keywords: culture-specific terms, dissidence, filiation, intertextuality, Quranic allusions (re)translation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1The corpus
    • 3.2Procedure
  • 4.Data analysis
    • 4.1Analysis of culture-bound terms
    • 4.2Analysis of (re) translation of Quranic allusions
    • 4.3Qualitative analysis of the content of Nicholson’s endnotes
    • 4.6Qualitative analysis of the content of Arberry’s endnotes
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 5 April 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00390.afz
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