What will an adapted Bible look like in practice? First, the shape will change: “Larger letters, lighter spacing and text presented in a single column to avoid visual overload”details the French Bible Alliance. The paragraphs will also be shorter, the words will not be cut off at the end of the line and the thicker paper will limit transparency.
A work which therefore primarily concerns material readability. “Adaptations intended for dyslexic people often focus on form rather than substance”underlines Marie-Ève Damar, Doctor of Languages and Letters and lecturer at the Free University of Brussels. “If we limit ourselves to formal adaptations, the question of meaning remains unresolved. They do not distort the text, but make it more readable, including for non-dyslexic people,” insists the linguist.
Improving reading comfort is not always enough to guarantee comprehension.
But, here, the adaptation does not stop at the layout. As Marie-Ève Damar points out, “Improving reading comfort is not always enough to guarantee comprehension. It is not because we enlarge the font, for example, that a text becomes easier to understand”. The content of the Bible will therefore also be reworked with “shortened sentences, simplified syntax and more common vocabulary”according to the elements presented by the organization.
In certain already existing foreign versions, the adaptation goes even further. Passages are shortened, others expanded with explanations, to make the text more understandable. Which can lead to a certain distance from the original formulation. But, as Marie-Ève Damar points out, “to read is first to decipher, and then to access the meaning. However, access to the meaning of the Bible remains difficult for many people, dyslexic or not.” Which underlines the challenge: making these texts accessible to all, beyond the sole question of readability.
