Explicitation

This paper aimsto reveal how the universals of translation (henceforth, UsT) can beregarded as a manner to examine the translator'sstyle in the TL. In doing so, this paper examines how Saleh Hosseini, as an Iranian literary translator,  made his style through the changes he completed at each micro-and macro-levels shift to result in his discursive presence and/or style in the novels he has translated into Persian. After having reviewed the main theories on shifts  including Nida, Catford, Leuven-Zwart, and Baker, this paper takes Baker’s definition of style as the translator’s ‘thumbprint’ as a way to approach the UsT in Hosseini’s Persian translations. Having occurred with the translated texts than with the original, the UsT are: ‘explicitation’, ‘normalization’, ‘levelling out’, and ‘simplification’ (Baker, 1996). Having selected 44 sentences from the three translated novels into Persian by Hosseini as a corpus, this paper indicates that the ratio of ‘normalization’ is much higher than the other three universals, meaning that Hosseini, through adhering to the norms of the Persian language, came to this universal as one of the signposts of his discursive presence, voice, and style in his translations.

The issue of literal versus free translation has always been a controversial matter in the translation of the Holy Scriptures, including the Holy Qurʼān. Explicitation, as a translation universal, has received increasing attention in the area of translating religious texts. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of explicitation on the translation of coherence in the first 13 surahs of Part (Juz) 30 of the Holy Qurʼān. In doing so, the model proposed by Vinay and Darbelnet (1995), along with coherence aspects in Sherman’s (2010) framework were used. To this end, the first 13 surahs of Part (Juz) 30 of the Holy Qurʼān in Arabic and their five English translations by Asad, Shakir, Pickthal, Yusufali and Saffarzadeh were examined. The overall goal of the analysis was to find whether explanatory coherence was used in the English translation and how explicitation affected the coherence of the content in all translations. Findings show that explicitation not only resolved ambiguity but also strengthened the coherence of the text. However, translators, in some translations, preferred to be loyal and faithful to the original and did not add anything to their translation. Additionally, in a few cases, the addition of more words to the translation turned it into redundant mess, leading to an incoherent translation.

Situational context plays a crucial role in translation studies. In Qur’ān translation, understanding Asbāb al-Nuzūl (occasions of revelation) is essential, as misinterpretations may arise without it. This qualitative study explores the impact of situational context explicitation on the quality of English translations of the Qur’ān. Four Shia translations, Nasr, Shakir, Saffarzadeh, and Mir, were selected due to their shared exegetical sources. Klaudy’s (2008) explicitation typology provided the framework for classifying types of explicitation. Analysis of 100 randomly selected verses revealed that explicitation of situational context, particularly the occasions of revelation, is present in all four translations. Pragmatic explicitation was the predominant type observed. The findings suggest that incorporating situational context into translations enhances readers’ comprehension of the Qur’ān’s meaning.