TRANSLATION STUDIES
Year:2010 | Volume:7 | Issue:28|Papers Count:7

The present paper contrastively analyses the Persian and English proverbs from semantic and lexical points of view. A descriptive-analytic research method has been used Total data equals to 500 proverbs) and the following results have been achieved I the figures are introduced based on the higher percents): 55.20% of the compared proverbs have no lexical but complete semantic correspondence (LC-, SC+). 30.60% of the compared proverbs have partial lexical but complete semantic correspondence (LC x, SC+). 8% of the compared proverbs have both lexical and semantic correspondence (LC+, SC+).6.20% of the compared proverbs has neither lexical nor semantic correspondence (LC-, SC-).The statistical results revealed that the most common feature of the proverbs in Persian and English is their semantic correspondence. It is interestingly observed that lexical correspondence leather partial or total) always results in semantic correspondence but not vice versa; i.e. semantic correspondence do not necessarily result in lexical correspondence. A by-product of this study has been a group of proverbs in both languages which were semantically correspondent at first glance; however, a further accurate semantic analysis revealed their different semantic load. Moreover, in the course of analysis the researchers came across certain English or Persian proverbs that were the word for word translation of of the Proverbs of the other language.

The question of translating proper nouns in imaginative literature has been of interest to both translators and researchers due to the fact that translation decisions might affect the form, meaning and function of these nouns in literary contexts. Drawing on the results of an empirical research using a multi-method design, this article reports the strategies used by Persian translators in translating proper nouns in high fantasy Young Adults (YA) literature focusing on two book series, Trilogy of Inheritance and Deltora Quest. The strategies are then related to a number of possible factors that might have been considered by the translators in adopting specific strategies and the possible effect of their decisions on the form, meaning and function of the translated nouns. This article concludes that the use of transfer (transcription) and translation as the two major strategies used by Persian translators suggests their tendency to remain closer to the source text. The less frequent use of the substitution and couplet strategies can be attributed to the almost exclusive use of couplets in translating place names and limiting the use of substitution to very special cases where the translators could use the cultural context resources to create new words. In relation to the shift of the grammatical function of the proper nouns in the process of translation, analysis of the data suggests that the grammatical, semantic and pragmatic differences between the two languages are the likely causes among which the semantic differences seem to be the most important ones.

Hybridity is a feature expected to emerge in specific cultural spaces like diasporas; however, not solely the texts produced in a diaspora qualify as hybrid. The texts created in homeland - in this study, Iran - can reflect hybrid ness as well. But it is not clear whether both groups of texts, i.e. Iranian and diasporic, enioy the same kind and degree of hybridity. The present paper then, relying on a huge corpus of 670000 words, consisting of eleven novels and collections of short stories, produced either in Iran or Iranian diaspora, in a period of ten years from 1998 to 2008, attempts to reveal the differences in kind and degree of hybridity in texts produced in Iran (homeland) versus those created in Iranian diaspora.

Religious texts particularly the Holy Qur'an, translated by vanous translators in a given language as well as in different languages, form an appropriate corpus for researchers in translation studies and linguistics. The present study has investigated the frequency of six modal verbs - can, could, may, might, must and should - in seven translations, namely Arberry's, Pickthal's, Irving's, Shakir's, Qaraie's, Saffarzadeh's and Yusof Ali's, of one third of the Holy Qur'an. The study demonstrates that there is a significant difference in the frequency of each of the modal verbs in the above-mentioned translations. Moreover, it is revealed that from among the said translators, Arberry has made use of modal verbs less than others. The study has also indicated that there is a significant difference between non-native translators (NNTs) and native translators (NTs) in using can, could, might and should. NNTs have used the modals can, could and should significantly more than NTs, while NTs have used 'migh’ more than NNTs. One further result is that in addition to the difference in frequency, in similar situations the translators may use different modals.

Equivalence is described as one of the big bugbears of translation theory. In the present study the importance of a pragmatic approach to equivalence and the role of pragmatic notions in making sense in translation are discussed. Of the variety of notions that are central to pragmatics, the researchers have chosen Cooperative Principle and three maxims of quantity, manner and relation as important factors in maintaining text coherence.Three Persian translations of "The Prophet" by Khalil Jibran were compared with the English source text and the role of cooperative principle in presenting an acceptable equivalent translation was evaluated by a questionnaire. The subjects were 40 graduates and students of translation studies at MA level. The results demonstrated that maxims of relation and manner are the most important maxims in transferring the message of the source text and presenting an acceptable equivalent translation; the maxim of quantity, however, can be neglected sometimes. 

Machine Translationas an inevitable and increasing demand of the day needs to be utilized and adapted to meet the needs of our daily-modernized lives. Regarding this, the present research is an attempt to study the effect of pre-editing on output performance of an English-Persian machine translation system namely Padideh Translator. To conduct the research two major stages were set; at the first stage, the researchers explored the output texts to decide on the system's major and recurrent linguistic errors in order to define some pre-editing strategies to lighten their effects, and secondly, they investigated the effectiveness of pre-editing on producing higher quality output by the system. Then, the researchers conducted a declarative testing to evaluate the effectiveness of Padideh machine translation (MT) system. Output quality criteria included intelligibility and fidelity, which were measured and compared using pointed scales. The research showed that preediting does not improve significantly the output quality of Padideh Translator in terms of intelligibility and fidelity.

Nowadays many people talk about machine translation and computers' potentials for this purpose. Due to lack of sufficient or proper understanding of computer power in this area, in this paper first a brief introduction of MT is given. The output of three MT systems dealing with Persian and English, namely Pars, Padideh and Google are then evaluated. It is not the aim of this paper to underestimate the efforts of individuals and companies producing these systems; rather, we are trying to show that machine translation is a huge undertaking and beyond the resources available to individuals and companies. Therefore, there is a long way ahead to attain systems capable of producing perfect translations.