The Religiosity of Translator: Is it an Echo of the Heart or the Mind?

Abstract

This article offers a critical appraisal of the daynunah [religiosity] of the mind and its manifestation in the work of the English-Arabic-English translator. It is an attempt to provide a novel concept of the mind and its religiosity from an Islamic socio-cultural-psychological perspective and then apply it to a translator and investigate whether their translation is the echo of the heart or mind. English-Arabic-English translation examples from media translated texts were used for analysis and discussion. Results of the analysis and discussion have indicated that the religiosity of the translator resonates the echoes of the heart more than those of the mind and that there is an urgent need for guidelines to allow translators to work in a more balanced and unbiased manner. Researchers in other fields of knowledge could also apply this new concept to, for example, the religiosities of academics, doctors, scientists, lawyers, businessmen and politicians.