Recreating relevance: translated Arabic idioms through a relevance theory lens

Relevance theory investigates how humans interpret utterances and other acts of communication. It proposes that humans are geared towards maximizing relevance, i.e., looking for information that connects with background knowledge and yields worthwhile cognitive effects for the least processing effort (Gutt, 1990, p. 139). Relevance theory has significant implications for translation studies, as translating intrinsically involves communicating intended messages across linguistic and cultural barriers. The relevance-theoretic approach suggests that successful translation requires preserving the cognitive effects envisaged by the original communicator as receivers in the source language (SL) and target language (TL) may not share the same cognitive environment. Gutt put forth a relevance-theoretic translation framework centered around the communicative clue—stylistic and informational cues that guide the audience to the intended interpretation. Translators should recreatively formulate communicative clues that lead target readers to intended cognitive effects while minimizing processing effort, balancing explicatures and implicatures and adapting when communicative environments differ. This aligns with functionalist views of translators as cross-cultural communicators and provides a model for assessing whether translational choices (explicitation, idiom substitution, deletions) maintain relevance for the TL audience. Literary language often flouts pragmatic norms to achieve poetic relevance, making literary translation an interpretive act requiring creativity, especially in verse, where versification and rhetorical devices generate core communicative clues. Contextual and extra-linguistic factors, including audience, function, motive, time and place of reception, crucially shape interpretation; translators must infer culture-bound expressions and situations and adopt TT-oriented strategies to avoid presupposition mismatches. Objective of the study: This study uses relevance theory as a practical tool to assess the quality of Arabic idiom translations into English and French via a case study of a classical Arabic verse containing two idioms. It argues that translating an idiom requires more than lexical equivalents: translators must consider connotative meanings encoded in component words and their manipulation in context to gauge intended relevance. A successful idiom translation should preserve cognitive effects and communicative clues that achieve optimal relevance for target readers, conveying similar implicit content and impact rather than mere formal correspondence.

Idioms are expressions unique to a language whose meanings are not predictable from their components; they are conventional multi-word units that are semantically opaque and structurally fixed, performing discourse-communicative functions embedded in a speech community’s lexicon (McArthur et al., 2018; Abdou, 2011; Langlotz, 2006). As repositories of cultural data, idioms reflect values, experiences, and norms (Abdou, 2011; Al-Shawi & Sepora, 2012). Translators face two key challenges: recognizing and correctly interpreting idioms, and rendering their various meanings in the TL (Baker, 2018). Misinterpretation can occur when idioms seem transparent or when close apparent counterparts differ in meaning. Idioms vary in compositionality and analysability (Vega-Moreno, 2003); understanding idioms is driven by relevance—encoded concepts serve as clues to intended explicatures and implicatures, which, combined with context, yield the intended reading (Vega-Moreno, 2002). Without deep cultural knowledge, translators confront a labyrinth translating culture-laden idioms (Awwad, 1989; Al-Batineh & Alsmadi, 2021). Translators must provide clues to implicatures and explicatures, choosing between ST-oriented (borrowing, literal, calque) and TT-oriented strategies; the former risk translation loss if they hinder the translator’s strategy (Dickins et al., 2017). Abdou classifies idiom functions as informational, evaluative, modalizing, and organizational (2011). Baker proposes strategies: using idioms of similar meaning/form, similar meaning/dissimilar form, paraphrase, and omission (2018), while compensation (by splitting, merging, in kind, in place) helps reduce loss (Dickins et al., 2017). This article proposes TT-oriented strategies incorporating compensation as effective for translating idioms, facilitating preservation of communicative cultural functions. Within the selected pre-Islamic Arabic verse by Tarafa (Mu‘allaqa), two evaluative idioms—banī ghabrā’ (metonymically “sons of the dusty” for the poor/guests) and ahl al-ṭirāf (people of distinctive leather houses for the rich)—encode cultural values of generosity, honor, hospitality, and prestige. Their lexical choices (family-register collocations bani/ahl), internal rhyme, and acoustic patterning intensify tone and contribute to communicative clues. Idioms here act as intensified versions of literal statements; losing them or paraphrasing risks loss of intensity and communicative functions. Classical commentaries are crucial for grasping full interpretations.

A qualitative, multilingual case-study methodology is employed. The study examines a single classical Arabic verse (Tarafa’s Mu‘allaqa, verse 54) that contains two idioms and analyzes a corpus of thirteen translations into English and French. The corpus, compiled since 2003 from academic libraries in the UK, France, and Tunisia, includes five prose translations and the remainder in verse. Both synchronic and diachronic analyses are conducted: each translation is compared against the source text (ST) and then evaluated relative to one another; prose translations are assessed separately from verse translations, with some cross-comparisons to delineate similarities and divergences. Chronology is considered throughout. The analysis applies relevance theory to assess whether translations preserve communicative clues, cognitive effects, idiomatic intensity, and cultural resonance, noting use of explicitation, paraphrase, modulation, idiomizing strategies, compensation techniques, and stylistic devices. The author’s language familiarity restricted analysis to Arabic, English, and French. Prior work using translational hermeneutics on aesthetic transfer informs the approach (Lahiani, 2022b).

• Corpus and scope: Thirteen translations (English and French) of a single verse containing two evaluative idioms were analyzed; five are prose and the remainder verse. The idioms denote, respectively, the poor/guests (banī ghabrā’) and the rich (ahl al-ṭirāf), and their strength lies in cultural connotations, family-register collocations, and acoustic effects. • Literalism/paraphrase often lose idiomatic force: Jones (1782) translates literally with an explanatory gloss for the first idiom but loses the communicative function of the second; intensity and cultural nuance are reduced. Caussin de Perceval (1847) and Johnson (1894) paraphrase to semantic equivalents, maintaining overt meaning but attenuating idiomatic resonance and contextual effects. Arberry (1957), Berque (1979), and Sells (1986) employ “sons of dust” biblical allusion/literalism; while denotations may be approximated, the idiom’s intended referent (the poor) and intensity are weakened or misdirected. The Blunts (1903), Khawam (1960), and O’Grady (1990) paraphrase or literalize with misreadings (e.g., “the poor showed pity,” “les étrangers”), inverting the poet’s stance and erasing idiomatic solidarity; attempts at rhyme sometimes produce doggerel and further dilute function. • Effective idiomizing strategies preserve relevance: Schmidt (1978) modulates the first idiom into a French hyperbolic idiomatic structure (“les pauvres d’entre les pauvres”), preserving communicative import and affective overtones; interpolated additions clarify implicatures for the second idiom, balancing explicature and processing effort. Nouryeh (1993) compensates in kind with a TL-filtered idiom/allusion (“the poor of the earth”) plus synecdochic “my generous hand,” retaining parallelism and intensity while avoiding unintended religious connotations; the second idiom’s meaning and function are preserved via paraphrase. Larcher (2000) coins an idiom (“fils de la cendrée”) justified in endnotes, maintains family-register collocations, and uses sound patterning, achieving poetic quality and capturing implicatures, mood, and tone. • Role of compensation and structure-level modulation: Shifting from lexical equivalence to structural idiomaticity (e.g., hyperbole) and using compensation (in kind, in place) enables recreation of cognitive effects and cultural resonance, aligning with the communicative principle of equivalent effect. • Overall: Translations that treat idioms as relevance-yielding stimuli and reconstruct communicative clues (through idiomizing, modulation, explicitation judiciously, and stylistic compensation) best preserve intended meanings, intensity, and reader response. Rigid literalism or surface paraphrase commonly results in loss of message, effect, or cultural assumptions.

The study’s findings address the research question by demonstrating that successful idiom translation, within a relevance-theoretic framework, requires preserving intended cognitive effects and communicative clues rather than seeking formal lexical equivalence. The comparative assessment shows that when translators reconstruct or modulate idiomatic structures (hyperbole, TL-filtered idioms) and apply compensation, they bridge gaps between source and target cognitive environments with minimal processing effort and optimal effect. Conversely, literalism and uncontextualized paraphrase neglect encoded cultural assumptions and implicatures, impeding relevance optimization and diminishing solidarity-building functions inherent in evaluative idioms. The analysis underscores that idioms function as intensified communicative acts; thus, translations must attend to connotative lexicon, collocational registers (e.g., family terms), acoustic/poetic devices, and contextual allusions to recreate the ST’s inferential pathways. Applying relevance theory provides a principled lens to evaluate when explicitation is necessary, when allusion aids or hinders, and how compensation can recover lost effects, thereby offering actionable guidance for literary translators confronting culture-bound idioms.

Idioms are not merely linguistic units but cultural, rhetorical, and literary tools whose evaluative and affective power arises from informational content, imagery, collocations, and habitual contexts. The study shows that literal and surface-paraphrase approaches often abrogate solidarity and intensity by overlooking encoded assumptions and implicatures. Idiomizing translations—those seeking dynamic equivalence via communicative equivalence of effect—most effectively preserve meaning and impact. Translators must examine component connotations, contextual manipulation, register, rhetorical effect, and overall style, and can strategically employ modulation, compensation, and judicious explicitation to optimize relevance. Over-adherence to versification at the expense of communicative function risks loss; TL-oriented procedures can retain poetic qualities without detriment to meaning. The study advances an interdisciplinary relevance-based heuristic for assessing and guiding idiom translation, highlighting successful pathways (structural hyperbole, TL-filtered idioms, compensation) and common pitfalls (literalism, misallusion). Future research could extend this framework to larger corpora, additional languages and genres, quantitative reception studies on reader effects, and exploration of computational aids that flag idioms’ cultural load and suggest relevance-preserving strategies.

The analysis focuses on a single verse as a case study, which limits generalizability. The corpus is restricted to English and French translations due to the author’s language proficiency, excluding other target languages. The qualitative approach emphasizes interpretive assessment without quantitative reception or processing-effort measures. Some translator intentions are inferred from paratexts; availability of complete translator notes varies. No new empirical data were generated; findings rely on textual comparison and theoretical application.