American Research Journal of English and Literature

This paper is carried to find out if the translation of irony from Arabic,” the Holy Quran” into English might change the intended meaning. To tackle this problem, the study ventures into a contrastive analysis with reference to a number of linguistic and non-linguistic devices and concepts. It concentrates on the interpretation and the linguistic realization of irony in both languages. The study takes the view that ironic devices are the foundation of the structural development of the texts in question. To demonstrate this, the speech act and conversational theories have been used. The interaction between the ironic devices and the text development constitute a framework for the overall rhetorical meaning of the text. Thus, contrastive analysis and comparative stylistics analysis have been implemented. A thorough contrastive analysis is made of when translating irony from Arabic into English using two versions of translations;the translations of Mualawi Sher Ali and Yusuf Ali.It is found that the meaning of the ironic lexical words have been to a high degree maintained in the process of translation. Similarities and differences between both texts have also been found. In addition, both translators have implemented the literal translation strategy to render the examples of irony.