Metadiscourse Features in two English Translations of the Holy Quran: A Comparative, Corpus-based Inquiry

Abstract

Abstract The main objective of this study was to make a corpus-based comparison between two English translations of the Holy Quran in terms of metadiscourse features application and distribution. For this purpose, two English translations of the Holy Quran by Itani (2012) and Yousef Ali (1992) were selected as the corpus of the study. For the theoretical framework, the model of metadiscourse features proposed by Hyland (2005) was utilized. In order to check the distribution of metadiscourse features, Sketch Engine corpus software was used. The quantitative analysis of the data revealed that interactive metadiscourse features were higher in frequency than the interactional ones. Also, it was observed that within the interactive metadiscourse features, transitions were the most frequent type as compared with hedges which were the most frequent among the interactional ones. Finally, while in Yousef Ali’s translation, interactive metadiscourse features were the main trend, in Itani’s translation, the interactional metadiscourse features were the dominant attribute. The findings of this study have useful implications for researchers in translation as well as contrastive and corpus-based studies.