A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE MANIPULATION ON THE PREFACES IN TERMS OF PARATEXTS: THE FIRST FRENCH AND ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE HOLY QUR’AN

Abstract

The manipulation in translation is a fact that can sometimes be seen through history. The
statements such as, “All translations imply that the source text is manipulated in some way for a
specific purpose”, and “Translation cannot be thought differently from ideology” are partly correct
especially in the sacred texts, social media translations and translations related to politics because
the translation of a sacred text related to a religion to which you are not connected is very difficult
and it necessitates precision, and also the manipulation in translations of social media and political
texts is a way sometimes used to manipulate. When the translations of the Qur’an examined, the
strategies such as addition, omission, modulation are seen to be used very often. However,even
though the manipulation is not usually deliberate, the using of prefaces is a way sometimes used to
manipulate the readers. In the first Qur’an translation in French done by André du Ryer in 1647
and the first translation in English directly from the French version by du Ryer, it can be seen that
the readers are manipulated through the section “Au lecteur” in French translation and “To the
reader” in English version. In this study, the first French and English translations of the Qur’an will
be examined with regards to the manipulation in the prefaces in terms of paratextes.