The Untranslatability of the Cognate Accusative in the Holy Qur'an and Methods of Compensation

The Holy Qur'an’s language is highly rhetorical and connotes meanings, forces and music that present its spirit and the secret of its rhetoric. Translating the Holy Qur'an is difficult and problematic. However, there are a number of translations by different translators from different tongues and backgrounds. Some of them have tried to produce a word-for-word translation while others added some margins to explain what is meant by the ayahs (verses). Besides, some have ignored the Holy Qur'an’s rhetorical, pragmatic, semantic and expressive meanings. This thesis discusses the problem of the cognate accusative’s (CA) المفعول المُطْلَق untranslatability from Arabic into English. Because Arabic and English belong to two different language families, the structure of both languages is different, causing linguistic untranslatability. In order to reduce the barrier of untranslatability, some methods of compensation should be used. In addition, one should not ignore the pragmatic aspect of the CA, since by uttering it, something is done. The study presented is expected to shed light mainly on the CA. It attempts to discover how the CA in the Holy Qur'an has been dealt with in the translations done by a number of professional translators, such as Mohammad Khan, Yousuf Ali, Muhammad Pickthall and Zaid Shakir. The study is to be involved with the basis of direct and indirect translation approaches to show how the translators manage to render the source CA in the target language, the ensuing loss of meaning and the methods of compensation. Regarding data collection and analysis, the study is empirical, analytical, and comparative. It intends to observe the translators’ decision-making in rendering the source text in the target language. It also studies whether the translations achieve the optimal meaning and force, both linguistically and pragmatically