Evaluation of the Translator's Performance in Rendering Documents and Conciseness in the Arabic Translation of Khayyam's Quatrains

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Assistant Professor. Department of Persian Literature. Faculty of Humanities and Physical Education, Gonbad Kavos University, Gonbad Kavos, Iran.

2 Assistant Professor Department of Arabic Language and Literature, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Zabol, Zabol, Iran.

10.22108/rpll.2025.144140.2424

Abstract

In addition to possessing profound themes and addressing fundamental philosophical and ontological concepts, Khayyam's quatrains exhibit a highly poetic, expressive, and meaningful language. This language is crafted and organized in a way that evokes the main concepts and themes of the quatrains. Therefore, the present article first addresses two linguistic topics: attribution (asnad) and conciseness (ijaz), along with their linguistic and semantic functions in Khayyam's quatrains. Considering these two principles, Ahmad Zaki Abu Shadi's translation of Khayyam's quatrains is critiqued. This research attempts to clarify the role of poetic language (especially at the levels of attribution and conciseness) in shaping meaning and emphasizes its importance in translation. The research findings indicate that Abu Shadi, in parts of his translation, has not correctly rendered the attribution system of the quatrains into Arabic. This has resulted in the subtle rhetorical nuances of the quatrains, as well as their concepts and meanings, not being accurately conveyed into the Arabic text. Among the shortcomings of Abu Shadi's translation are changes in the positions of the subject and predicate, disruption of the semantic relationships of words in the linear system of language, disruption of syntactic parallelism, and alterations in the order of presentation in the target text. These issues have prevented the correct translation of the message development system in the target text.

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