Investigating Lexical and Syntactic Multi-Meaningfulness in the Contemporary Translations of the Holy Qur’an

Abstract

“Multi-meaningfulness” referring to several meanings of a word is one of the disputed linguistic principles in the Qur’an, which is divided into two types of Lexical and Syntactic. Assuming the acceptance of this basis, due to the role of translation in conveying the message of the Qur’an, how to apply it in translation becomes important. This research seeks to find the correct way to apply multi-meaningfulness in the translation of the Qur’an and examine some translators’ opinions about its acceptance by the descriptive-analytical method. To translate multi-meaning phrases, several meanings are expressed with the conjunction “and” in order to avoid distortion and semantic loss by considering criteria such as non-conflict of meanings with each other and with definite reasons. Among the translators under review, Meshkini and Makarem have specified the acceptance of “Multi- meaningfulness” as well as Rezaei has applied this basis with different ranges and methods in translation. Safavi does not accept “Multi-meaningfulness” based on Al-Mizan, as well as Moezzi and Fouladvand have never stated several meanings in the translation of a phrase.

Keywords

• qur’an
• translation
• lexical and syntactic multi- meaningfulness