Analysis of the Translator's Voice in the Footnotes of the Arabic and Persian Translations of the Book "Islamic Civilization in the Fourth Century"

Abstract

In translation studies, paratext is one of the fascinating and debatable topics that has recently been widely expressed by translators in the form of footnotes and endnotes, and has caused another voice to appear in the text called the translator's voice. This study attempts to examine the translator's voice in the footnotes of the Arabic and Persian translations of the book "Islamic Civilization in the Fourth Century AH". This work was translated from English into Arabic by Muhammad Abdul Hadi, and then Alireza Zakavoti translated this work into Persian from the Arabic translation. Both translators provided numerous footnotes for the readers in their translations, which in a way reflect their voices in this work. The results of the study showed that the two translators, by using the translation and research strategy and adding new footnotes, have provided detailed information that is the result of their own research in historical texts, with the difference that the main part of the footnotes of the Persian translation is taken from the footnotes of the Arabic translation and in a way, the voice of the Arabic translator is more prominent than that of the Persian translator.