The Quran is one of the most influential texts in the world, being the ultimate religious authority for the Muslim community, which is estimated at 1.5 billion people worldwide. This paper provides...Show moreThe Quran is one of the most influential texts in the world, being the ultimate religious authority for the Muslim community, which is estimated at 1.5 billion people worldwide. This paper provides a closer look at the Japanese translations of this important text, with focus on the translation of the cultural references (CRs) within it. The aim of this research was to provide a set of translation techniques that can be used in the translation of CRs from Arabic to Japanese. Furthermore, it aimed to test the applicability of the Retranslation Theory to the Japanese translations of the Quran. Both these aims were fulfilled by analyzing Japanese translations done by three different translators of a group of CRs found in the Quran. The analysis was done using the translation techniques proposed by Pedersen (2005). The result showed that Pedersen’s list of techniques was able to account for the majority of the techniques used, with the need for one additional technique, resulting in a total of 8 techniques that may be used in future translations of texts from Arabic into Japanese. The analysis also proved that the Retranslation Theory is applicable in the case of the translations of the Quran from Arabic to Japanese.Show less
