Quranic Puns in Translation: a Case of the Arberry’s Rendition of the Holy Quran

Pun is a form of word play that suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. Pun is a highly frequent literary device in the holy Quran. Yet, few studies have explored its transference during translation. This article aims at investigating the procedures applied by Arberry in rendering various types of Quranic puns into English. Our findings revealed that most of the Quranic puns have been lost in the English translation. This loss has especially occurred in homonymic, homophonic, and homographic puns; which are not associated with meanings. The main implication of this study is for translators of the holy Quran to focus most oftheir attentions on polysemous and derivational puns since their approximate recreation seems to be much more feasible

Keywords:

pun , translation , Quran , Arberry