A Critical Discourse Analysis of King Khalid University Students’ Translation of Untranslatability in Islamic Religious Texts

Abstract

The present study studies King Khalid University students’, majoring in English language, translation of Islamic religious texts and untranslatability. It explores the interrelation of discourse structures and translational structures of the students’ translation. The study utilizes the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) model to unmask the use of translational strategies through Islamic religious texts. It also analyzes the relational values of the language configuration in terms of wordings, equivalence, and grammatical structures of the students’ translation. Furthermore, this study tries to show that there are linguistic traces that depict the strategies of translation. The study is a linguistic study revealing how language is utilized in the translation of Islamic religious texts, and it is based on a descriptive-analytic method adopting the critical discourse analysis model presented by Norman Fairclough and van Dijk’s ideological discourse analysis framework. The study sample includes the students’ translational work. The findings of the present study entail that the students translate untranslated items of abbreviated words in the Quran using transliteration, and they rely on language power modulation. The study recommends that students should be taught a discourse analysis course in the academic program before the course of translation III, which is composed of strategies for the translation of Islamic religious texts.