A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF INTERROGATIVE SPEECH ACTS

IN SURAH AS-SAFFAT IN THREE SELECTED ENGLISH

TRANSLATIONS OF THE HOLY QUR’AN

Prepared by:

Adel Ahmed Abdullah Seed

A PhD Proposal Submitted to the English Department in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the

Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in linguistics

2020

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 1. Introduction:

Broadly speaking, pragmatics, as a discipline in the field of linguistics, deals with the study

of language use in communication. It is defined as "the study of the relationships between

linguistic forms and the user of those forms", and it is the "meaning as communicated by a speaker

and interpreted by a listener” (Yule,1996, p.3).

One of the main aspects of pragmatics is the speech act theory which was founded by the

British philosopher John Austin in 1962 and later developed by his student John Searle in 1969. It

is considered to be one of the most pragmatic theories which adds a great value to linguistics. The

most prominent aspects of this theory is Austin's distinction between three levels of utterances:

locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. Illocutionary act is the most important one as it

carries the performative function or the force of an act. It refers to different linguistic functions

such as apologies, warnings, threats, invitations, promises, complaints or requests. Each of these

types of functions has sub-types to perform different functions depending on the context where

they appear. The main concern of the current study is to examine the functions of interrogatives,

as a sub-type of requests, in the English translations of the meanings of the Holy Qur‟an.

Traditionally, it is ascertained that the basic function of an interrogative is requesting /

seeking information. Even though, interrogatives may deviate from their basic functions (primary

meanings) to indicate other functions (secondary meanings). In other words, interrogatives, in

certain languages, could have different objectives and certain other functions to convey meanings

other than the basic meanings. In relation to the English language, it is found that interrogatives

perform more than 30 pragmatic functions (Fareh & Bin Moussa : 2008). Similarly, interrogatives

in the Arabic language may perform different functions including affirmation, disaffirmation,

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wish, exclamation, negation, scorn and mockery, admonishment, expression of awe and exaltation,

reminding, negative imperative, boasting and improbability.(Yusuf, 2000,pp.17.18).

As the main focus of this study is the speech acts of the interrogatives, it is worth noting that

translating the speech acts of the interrogatives from one language into another is not an easy task,

particularly when the two languages have more differences than similarities. Undoubtedly, the

Arabic and English languages are distinct linguistically and culturally; therefore translating the

speech acts of interrogatives, especially the Qur‟anic ones, from Arabic into English could be

hard to achieve.

Taking these points into consideration, it is worth remembering that the Holy Qur‟an is

rhetorical in its language and style, which makes the task of translation more challenging. Besides,

it should be noted that most studies on the Qur‟anic translation, over the past decades, have

focused on the general features of the Qur‟an and have been confined to traditional studies which

concentrate on syntax and semantics like the study done by Khalil Nofal (2011) “Passive Voice

as an Inimitable Linguistic Phenomenon in the Holy Qur'an”. Significantly, the emergence of

pragmatics as a new discipline in the field of linguistics has helped both linguists and translators to

look at languages from a new dimension which is language in use.

With such new type of studies in the linguistic and translation fields, a number of recent

researches on Qur‟anic translation have deviated from the traditional methods of the past. Such

studies include that of Huda Badr‟s (2019) “A Pragmatic Analysis of Speech Acts in Short Surahs

of the Holy Quran”. Other studies include Saad Hatem‟s (2018) “A Pragmalinguistic Analysis of

Selected Translations of Surah Yusuf in the Holy Qur‟an” and Amir El- Al-Azab‟s (2012)

“Pragmatic Losses of Qur‟an Translation: A Linguistic Approach”. Mahmoud (2008), in a further

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study, examines the cultural and the pragmastylistic factors that affect the translation of "Surat

An-Nas" of the Glorious Quran into English as a case study.

In a broader context, pragmatics has been employed in investigating particular topics related

to linguistics and Qura'nic translation fields. Indeed, this has played an important role in throwing

light upon speech acts and the importance of context on linguistic and Qura'nic studies alike.

Translating Qur‟anic interrogatives into English is one of the most important issues to be

discussed in the field of Qur‟anic translation studies. Only few studies discussed this issue in

some chapters of the Holy Qur‟an. These include Nurul Khikmah‟s ( 2018) “A Pragmatic Analysis

of illocutionary Act in Interrogative Utterances of English Translation in Surah Al- Qalm”, Faiz

Mubarok‟s (2016) “A Pragmatic Analysis of Speech Act in Interrogative Utterances of Surah Al-

Mulk”, Aly Bayoumy Ali‟s ( 2013) “Interrogative Utterances of Surah Al-Baqarah”, and

Romadhani Wulandri‟s (2012) “A Pragmatic Analysis of Interrogative Sentences in the Noble

Quran Chapter Ar-Rahman”.

This study, however, might be one of the first studies to touch upon this issue in the English

translation of Surah As-Saffat in the Holy Qur‟an. It will tackle the topic of interrogative speech

acts, linguistic structure and context relationships.

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2. Statement of the Problem:

This study presumes that Qur‟anic interrogatives are an intricate part of the Quranic discourse, a

complexity that requires a close attention by the translator. Such interrogatives may pose a

translation problem since their pragmatic meanings might not be understood or rendered

accurately by the translator. The problem which may cost a great effort to translate is when a

translator comes across one of the pragmatic functions (secondary meanings) of interrogative

utterances in the Holy Qur‟an context where this type of Qur‟anic interrogatives is not used to

indicate its basic meaning. An interrogative utterance which has its basic meaning as a real

question is not expected to pose a serious problem. If, on the other hand, the translator realizes that

a secondary meaning of an interrogative utterance (pragmatic meaning) is involved, it will cost

him/her a great effort to translate it into the target language.

Generally speaking, Qur‟anic interrogatives, as will be discussed in this study, are not sometimes

used to indicate their basic meanings but to indicate secondary meanings. In this case, a serious

problem may pose if the translator of the Holy Qur‟an renders the basic meanings of such Qur‟anic

interrogatives disregarding their secondary meanings and the purpose behind them as in the

original text of the Qur‟an.

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3. Research Objectives:

The study aims at achieving the following objectives:

(1) To find out and list the interrogatives and the various illocutionary acts performed by them in

Surah As-Saffat in the Holy Qur‟an.

(2) To examine the translations of these interrogatives in three selected English translations of the

Holy Qur‟an.

(3) To examine the adopted translation strategies used by the three translators to convey the

intended meaning of these Qur‟anic interrogatives, with specific reference to illocutionary forces

embedded in these Arabic interrogatives.

(4) To examine the accuracy and professionality of the three translators in rendering these

Qur‟anic interrogatives into English.

4. Research Questions:

To address the above-mentioned objectives, the current study attempts to answer the following
questions:

(1) What are the interrogatives and the various illocutionary forces performed by them in Surah
As- Saffat in the Holy Qur‟an?

(2) How did the three translators of the selected English translations of the Holy Qur‟an render the
meanings of these interrogatives into English?

(3)What are the translation strategies used by the three translators to help communicate into
English similar functions to these Arabic interrogatives?

(4) To what extent are the three translators successful in their translations, with reference to
accuracy and professionality, in reflecting the functional equivalence of these interrogatives in the
target English text?

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5. Rationale of the Study:

The rationales that make the researcher undertake this topic of research are:

(i) The researcher realizes that there are some differences between the translations of the Holy

Qur‟an and that not all of them are as accurate as they must be. In addition, in these translations

there are a lot of deviations, distortions and loss of the meaning of the original text. Consequently,

if a translator does not grasp the right and intended meaning of a certain verse, the result will be a

misleading translation. This means that the reader of the translated text will not grasp the intended

meaning as it is in the source text. Thus, the researcher, as a Muslim, believes that it is his own

duty to help in this field by carrying out the current study to help non-Arab Muslims and non-

Muslims, both readers and translators, understand the implied meanings of Qur'anic interrogatives.

(ii) The researcher is interested in exploring and examining the Qur‟anic interrogatives which

have significance beyond their surface or literal meanings and in rendering their real intentions,

functions and purposes as intended in the original text.

(iii) The researcher is interested in discovering the main reasons behind the challenges of

translating the meanings of the Qur‟anic interrogatives as an urgent necessity for him or for

anyone interested in the Holy Qur'an.

(iv) The researcher realizes the necessity of raising the awareness of the Holy Qur‟an translators

to the unique pragmatic features of the Qur‟anic discourse and the importance of tackling the

speech act expressions when translating the meanings of the Holy Qur‟an in general, and Qur‟anic

interrogatives in particular.

(v) The researcher expects that this study will contribute, as a useful and additional academic

reference, in the field of religious text translation and to the development of pragmatic Qur‟anic

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studies. Moreover, it is expected to bring about an overmodest addition to the library of Sana‟a

University and its results will be a real contribution to the field of translation in general.

6. Scope and Limitations of the Study:

This current study will be limited to the translation of the Qur‟anic interrogatives in Surah As-

Saffat in the Holy Qur‟an from Arabic as the source language into English as the target language.

The study will examine interrogatives in both languages syntactically and pragmatically. And

since speech act theory deals with performing actions, interrogatives in Arabic are chosen to be the

subject of study. The Holy Qur‟an is the text the researcher will choose to be the (source text) in

this study, in addition to three selected English translations of the same text by Muslim and non-

Muslim translators as the (target text). The three selected English translations of the Holy Qura'n

that will be the target text in this study are:

1- Arberry, J. A. (1996) The Qur’an Interpreted,

2- Asad, Muhammad (1980 ) The Message of The Qur’an, and

3- Dawood,N.J ( 1956) The Koran: The Word of God as revealed by Muhammad.

These three translations were selected after the researcher has read many different English

translations of the Holy Quran, and he has chosen these three versions for three reasons. First, the

three translators of the selected translations have different backgrounds. The first translator is

Christian, the second is Muslim and the last is a Jewish translator. In other words, it would be

interesting to know the areas of differences in the three translations related to some factors such as

culture and religion. Second, the three translations are well known English versions among

Muslims and non-Muslims readers and are used for academic and non-academic purposes. The

third reason is that from reading and comparing the translations of the Qur‟anic interrogatives in

Surah As- Saffat in the Holy Qur‟an in the three selected English versions, the researcher has
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found some obvious differences between them in conveying the meanings of some Qur‟anic

interrogatives from Arabic into English.

This study is primarily limited to reveal how the three translators render the illocutionary forces of

the interrogative utterances in Surah As-Saffat in the Holy Qur‟an into English.

Since Arabic is the source language and the Holy Qur‟an is the source text, all the examples

mentioned in Arabic will be taken only from the Holy Qur‟an.

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7. Methodology of the Study:

This study is based on both translation and pragmatic studies; it is a descriptive,

comparative and both qualitative and quantitative study. It is mainly based on text analysis of the

collected data, which will be descriptively examined. By using a descriptive method, the

researcher aims to determine the data of the research, its source, and the techniques of collecting

and analyzing it. The data in this study is the Qur‟anic interrogatives in Surah As-Saffat in the

Holy Qur‟an.

The study data are 28 Qur‟anic interrogatives in the Arabic text of Surah As-Saffat in the

Holy Qur‟an and their 84 English translation cases of the three selected translations. That is, the

data source is the original Arabic text of the Holy Qur‟an and the three selected English

translations of the Holy Quran by Arberry, Dawood and Asad, as the primary source. The

pragmatic contexts of the selected Qur‟anic interrogatives will be provided by consulting three

reliable books of Tafseer by AI-Zemkhshari (1986), AI-Tabari(2000) and Ibn Katheer (1993), as

the secondary data source.

The method that the researcher will use to collect the study data is primarily documentation. The

researcher will examine the data in the form of Qur‟anic interrogatives in Surah As-Saffat in the

Holy Qur‟an and their translations in the three selected English translations. Types of

illocutionary acts will be gathered from these Qur‟anic interrogatives.

With regard to the way of analyzing the different types of illocutionary acts gathered from the

verses that contain interrogatives, the researcher will list the collected data according to the

different types and meaning of illocutionary acts realized through interrogatives. The various

pragmatic functions of these interrogatives will be listed and explained. The secondary meanings

(illocutionary forces) of these interrogatives will be discussed first in the light of what the

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authentic books of Tafseer say about them , and then in the light of Searle's (1969) taxonomy of

speech acts.

With regard to the way the data will be analyzed in this research, Qur‟anic interrogatives in

Surah As-Saffat in the Holy Qur‟an, along with their pragmatic functions will be analyzed

according to Searle's (1969) model. The collected data of Qur‟anic interrogatives and their

illocutionary acts / forces will be listed. Then each of these will be accompanied by its translations

in the three selected English translations. This is first to compare the three translations of each

selected interrogative with the original one in the source text. Then the three translations of each

interrogative will be compared with one another to find out which one renders the best functional

equivalence of the original text of the Holy Qur‟an into English. To achieve this, a questionnaire to

be answered by three expert raters of translation will be designed in order to examine the three

English translations of the Qur‟anic interrogatives under examination and to rate the accuracy and

professionality in rendering them into English.

The taxonomy suggested by Chesterman (1997) for translation strategies will be followed to

examine the adopted translation strategies that the translators of the three selected English

translations used in their translations to convey the intended meaning of the Qur‟anic

interrogatives into English.

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8. Tentative Chapters Division:

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION: This chapter presents the statement of the problem, the research

questions, the significance ,limitations, methodology and organization of the study.

Chapter II REVIEW OF LITERATURE: This chapter provides the literature review of the study.

It consists of the theoretical review and the previous research review. It will introduce some

discussions about pragmatics, Speech Act Theory (SAT) as suggested by (Austin); and

interrogative forms and their primary (basic) and secondary meanings (illocutionary force) in

Arabic and English.

Chapter III METHODOLOGY: This chapter discusses the proposed methodology adopted in

collecting and analyzing the data of this study.

Chapter IV DATA ANALYSIS: This chapter represents the core part of this research. It presents

an extensive analysis of the Qur‟anic interrogative speech acts in Surah As-Saffat as seen in the

Arabic version of the Holy Qur‟an, and in their translations in the three selected English

translations of the Holy Qur‟an.

Chapter V RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: This chapter presents the study finds and discusses

them in relation to the study questions.

Chapter VI SUMMARY, RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER

RESEARCH: This chapter will conclude and correlate the previous chapters with conclusions,

some recommendations and suggestions for further studies.

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