Optimal Constraints on Arabic-English Translation: a Case Study of Translating Surat AlFatiHa ‘The Opening’

Abstract

To add a useful brick to the huge mansion of translation theory in its modern scientific sense, this paper intrinsically endeavors to reduce the wide hiatus between the premises of conventional translation studies and modern linguistic theories in general and Optimality Theory (OT) in particular, in a very earnest hope that translation methods and techniques can find a solid and robust systematic ground that may enable professional translators and institutionalized translation agencies to conduct their translation quality assessment more accurately. Drawing on the assumptions and the mechanism of linguistically-channeled theory of Optimality in phonology, syntax and semantics, this researcher, therefore, banks on setting and implementing major OT constraints that specify the range of choices translators may opt for while oscillating between the clashing Faithfulness and Markedness principles in their vehement quest to achieve optimally the least detrimental effects to the source text and to the target text, instead of looking for the myth of closest equivalence, while translating Arabic texts into English and vice versa. Four different translations have been examined and optimally evaluated. The study shows how any choice that translators make must, therefore, be deliberately rationalized and precisely prioritized over other possible choices and candidates in light of universal violable constraints. Therefore, translation studies should be descriptively constraint-oriented and motivated instead of being prescriptively rule-controlled.