In the Shade of Ideology: Manipulation in Two Arabic Translations of Jostein Gaarder’s Novel, Sophie's World

Based on the premise that translators’ choices could be influenced by their own beliefs, this study explores ideological manipulation (IM) in two Arabic translations of Jostein Gaarder’s novel, Sophie's World. The study has two interrelated objectives: first, to detect manipulative strategies used by translators to feed their beliefs into the target text (TT) and second, to establish how translators’ manipulated narratives contribute to the improvement or distortion of the source text (ST). To that end, Zauberga’s (2004) and Dukāte’s (2009) typologies are employed. Six selected extracts from the novel, along their two corresponding Arabic translations by Lutfi (1998) and Huwaik (2012), are analyzed qualitatively. The study concludes that translators employ IM strategies to construct supportive narratives or avoid counter-narratives in order to shift the primary focus of the ST and reshape its ideological load.