المستخلص: |
Falling within the burgeoning body of research applying the scientifically-grounded concepts to translation study, the centerpiece concern of the present paper is to account for lexico-semantic entropy in the Quran translation. Having its roots and premise in the second law of thermodynamics and mechanics, the concept of entropy in our context is taken to serve as a conceptual tool for explaining the interplay of disorder, asymmetry, ambiguity, probability and uncertainty seemingly bearing upon the cognitive reception of the conceptual continuity of the translated versions of the Quran. Methodologically, we associate entropy with the translational use of language as a complex dynamic system and with the communication of somehow ideologically motivated conceptual units configured in the surface textual network. By way of assumption, we draw a focal line that entropic behavior of a given lexical item (e.g. 'wadribuhunna') in various translations of the Quran is relatively proportional to the rampant cognitive noise of translators. We argue that translators project such a noise into many differently conceptualized semantic frames encapsulated and verbalized into a number of lexico-semantic probabilities. This being the case, we argue that concepts such as context and coherence are challenged when it comes to the Quran translation.
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