Journal of Language and Translation Studies
Year:2012 | Volume:44 | Issue:4|Papers Count:7

Sadeq Chubak (1916-1998) in one of his most renowned short stories entitled "The Baboon Whose Buffoon Was Dead" (1949) (Antar-i ke luṭi-as morde bud) masterfully delineates a graphic account of man's slavery. In discussing this story, the present paper starts with the characteristic features of the traditional genre of the fable as seriously modified by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and employed by Naturalist writers. It then proceeds to show how Louis Althusser's ideas can be drawn upon to comment on man's destiny within the confines determined by "ideology" which eventually leaves him no choice but to submit to the overpowering hardships surrounding him. Revolt and "freedom" can hardly be anything more than a temporary solace to his sores and will only aggravate his frustration and bemusement.

Regarding the importance of critical thinking in education and society, this paper investigates the relationship between critical thinking and translation competency. After homogenizing the participants in terms of their level of proficiency in English and Farsi, 90 students from Ferdowsi university of Mashhad were chosen. The participants were asked to translate one paragraph from English into Farsi and vice versa. They were also asked to take the Watson-Glaser critical thinking appraisal. The test measures the participants’ inference, deduction, evaluation of argument, recognition of assumption, and interpretation. The results showed that there was a significant association between critical thinking and translation competency, and individuals with higher critical thinking scores outperformed those with lower critical thinking scores in translation. The regression analysis of the results also revealed that critical thinking and some of its components could predict the translation competency of individuals. In the end, some suggestions were made for further research.

Many studies have been done concerning translation of the Quranic words. Polysemous words are among several problems confronting translators. The word “fitna” and its derivatives are among polysemous words which are frequently used in the Holy Quran. According to several researches and Quran interpretations, the word “fitna” has 9 different meanings in the Quran, including: try, persecute, apostatize, seduce, dissent, grief, lesson, excuse and madness.The present paper aims to investigate how four translators of the Quran (Arberry, Pickthall, Yusuf Ali and Shakir) have translated the word "fitna" and its derivatives and to what extent these translations are in accordance with the different meanings of this word.To do this, all verses containing “fitna” or any of its derivatives were identified. Then, translations of these verses were analyzed in all four Quran translations. The results showed that in 60 percent of the verses containing "fitna" the translators had taken into account the various meanings of this polysemous word.

Dictionaries as old translation tools have always been considered as a determining factor in facilitating the translation process. This study, with a descriptive-experimental approach, aimed at examining the effects of online dictionaries on the work of Iranian translators. This study has two separate phases. In the opening phase of the project, a questionnaire was given to 100 Iranian translators in five Iranian state universities to investigate the type of dictionaries they use while translating Persian articles into English. In the main phase of the study, four groups of translators with different types of dictionaries were selected and given a task of translating three Persian article abstracts, and their translations were assessed in terms of the accuracy of the words and expressions of the source text and the speed of the job. Results indicated that translators using online dictionaries rendered the texts more accurately and much faster than the other three groups. Translators using computer software occupied the second rank, hardcover dictionary users were the third, and mobile dictionary users, bringing up the rear, were the last group to finish the job.

The perceived importance of focusing on fluency through a cognitive outlook has motivated this study to explore the main L2 speech-production deficiency sources (DSs) and problem-solving mechanisms (PSMs) of non-fluent Iranian L2 speakers using a psycholinguistic model of speech production (Levelt, 1989, 1999). The task-based speech samples of 180 L2 speakers were audio-recorded, and an analytic fluency scale was developed and used to identify 50 fluent and 50 non-fluent L2 speakers. Two questionnaires and a series of output-related retrospective interviews were employed to survey the (non) fluent speakers’ DSs and PSMs. The findings indicated that the non-fluent participants mainly suffered from resource deficits, processing time pressure, and perceived deficiencies in the interlocutor’s performance. Meanwhile, they resorted to ineffective oral-production strategies such as message abandonment and reduction, resulting in an unnatural or non-fluent speech. The fluent participants, however, did not suffer from these DSs and employed effective PSMs more consistently. They were able to dynamically reformulate the preverbal message, apply a revitalized encoding mechanism, use various stalling mechanisms, and negotiate meaning in order to monitor the articulation. The findings can have implications for the assessment of L2 speaking and fluency as well as for L2 education.

This article focuses on ambiguous verses of Hafez’s Divan. The whole Divan of Hafez was selected, the ambiguous lines were distinguished, and compared with their translated versions by Clarke (1998), Arberry (1987), Bell (1985), Aryanpur (1965), and Saberi (2002). Ambiguity, as a device on its own, was classified into lexical, structural, and syntactic categories. The focus of this article has been on lexical ambiguity. Lexical ambiguity arises when there is multiple ways to define individual words within a sentence. This kind of ambiguity is mostly due to homonymy, homography, and homophony. The results obtained from the comparison between the original Persian text and the English versions revealed that ambiguity is a strongly culture-based and language-specific phenomenon. In case a word is ambiguous in a certain language, there is no guarantee that it would appear ambiguous in other languages too. Therefore, one of the great challenges of a translator in the translation of Hafez’s Divan would be the translation of ambiguous items. In this case, different translators have used different translating methods in dealing with translation of ambiguity.