Tense Shifts in the Glorious Quran with Reference to Selected Ayahs Translated into English

Abstract

The study tackles tense shifts in the translation of the Glorious Quranic (GQ) into English. It is observed that translators may resort to a shift in tense in order to convey the merit of the original meaning. "And then, some Ayahs are chosen to tackle this issue. The study involves five translators (chosen from different authentic groups) with (12) Ayahs (chosen arbitrarily). The translators are Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali & Muhammad Muhsin Khan, A.J. Arberry, Talal Itani, Sahih International, and N. J. Dawood. The Ayahs are mostly from part (30). The study begins with theoretical concepts about shifts among languages (Catford), focusing on level shifts, and category shifts, and then, Newmark, Jean-Paul Vinay, and Jean Darbelnet, Bear in mind, that the primary focus of this study is to show shifts rather than evaluating the translators". It is concluded that a shift in tense preserves the meaning of the original text. This study recommended that in order to improve their translations, translators should sometimes consider tense shifts particularly, between languages from different families.