Translation Procedures and Ideology of Two Different English Translation Versions of Surah Al-Fatihah: A Contrastive Analysis

Abstract

English translation of the Holy Qur’an comes as solutions for Muslims and non- Muslims worldwide to be able to understand the message of the Holy Qur’an besides its authentic Arabic text. Two of the most famous versions are translated by Saheeh International SI (2004) and Abdel Haleem hereafter AH (2004). Since Arabic and English belong to different language families, the translations resulted in the variation of lexicons and grammatical structures to express the same meaning in English from the Holy Qur’an. This research attempts to reveal how lexical and grammatical differences happened in two different English translation versions of surah al-Fatihah by SI and AH. The data were analyzed using a contrastive analysis method with content analysis. The results showed that firstly, there are lexical and grammatical differences in the five ayats. Secondly, SI used procedures that are mostly oriented to the SLT such as transcription and componential analysis while AH used procedures that are mostly oriented to the TLT such as modulation and contraction. Lastly, the two translators applied different dominant ideologies on their translations. SI represents the foreignization ideology while AH represents domestication ideology.