Translation Problem and Problem Solving in Translations of the Glorious Qur’an: A cognitive psychology ‎approach

Abstract

Problem solving is an interesting subject of study in cognitive psychology. It is cognitive processing ‎directed at transforming the problem situation from the initial state to the goal state, when problem ‎solver has no obvious solution at hand. Translation is a higher-order cognitive task involving a chain of ‎decision-making activities of problem solving behavior. I investigate problem-solving stages for the ‎process oriented problems, mentioned by the translators of the Glorious Qur’an in their metatexts. ‎For this purpose, I adopt problem-solving stages proposed by Mayer (1379) and Mayer and Wittrock ‎‎(2006). Problems of these translators are ill-defined and they use creative thinking in order to produce ‎ideas for solving them. Defining translation problem and identifying problem-solving stages are among ‎prerequisites for research in translation process such as the relationship between problem-solving and ‎expertise of translators.‎