Azam Ghamkhah; Ali Khazaeefar; Jahangir Masoudi
Abstract
Like people, ideas and theories travel from person to person, from situation to situation, and from one period to another. The question that arises is whether traveling theory stays as it is or it undergoes some changes as a result of its move. Drawing on the historiography of translation, we investigated ...
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Like people, ideas and theories travel from person to person, from situation to situation, and from one period to another. The question that arises is whether traveling theory stays as it is or it undergoes some changes as a result of its move. Drawing on the historiography of translation, we investigated one of the most important philosophical discourses of the twentieth century in the West and Iran, namely Foucault’s discourse. We tried to discover which part of Foucault’s work or ideas was the focus of translators in the Reformist period, stretching from 1997 to 2004. To this end, all Persian translations of Foucault’s works, together with Persian translations about Foucault and original writings in periodicals were selected and their common themes were extracted. The findings of this study show that translators were the main actors in importing Foucault’s ideas to Iran. Also, criticizing power relationship was the main theme in the analyzed corpus. Given the fact that Foucault took a controversial stance on the Islamic revolution in the early years of the Islamic Revolution, this study addresses another question related to the issue of Foucault’s reception. Indeed, the paper examines whether translators of Foucault’s works translated his works regardless of his stance on the revolution. For this purpose, all translated and original texts as well as articles in periodicals (1997-2004) were analyzed. The main themes were extracted and tagged according to Foucault’s thought on power. The results indicate that translators were the main actors in this discourse, and Foucault’s thought served as a tool for translators to criticize social phenomena, and the critique of power has been the most frequent concept in all Foucault-related publications (i.e., translations, writings, and magazines).
Soudabeh Ghandehari; Mohammad Javad Mahdavi; Ali Khazaee Farid; Mohammad Jafar Yahaghi
Abstract
Interlinear translation has been a popular method of translating religious texts, including the Bible and the Qur’an. Since religious books are considered to be sacred, translators mostly translate them word by word and they provide readers with the exact original word under the translated text. ...
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Interlinear translation has been a popular method of translating religious texts, including the Bible and the Qur’an. Since religious books are considered to be sacred, translators mostly translate them word by word and they provide readers with the exact original word under the translated text. However, early translations of the Qur’an were not completely word by word and contained numerous language initiatives. The aim of this study is to examine these initiatives. This descriptive-analytic study compares four ancient interlinear translations of the Qur’an dating back to the 4th and the mid-6th Century AH. The translations include the famous commentary on the Qur’an by Al-Tabar, Tafsīr Abū al-Futūḥ in verses, Qods translation of the Qur’an and Rey translation. The translations are analyzed in terms of lexical items and syntax. The findings suggest that the translators were loyal to the syntax and lexical items of the Qur’an albeit in varying degrees. In other words, although all the translations turned out to be word by word, they contained some specific features which made them valuable texts. For example, Tafsir al-Tabari and Qods translation contained many Persian equivalents or Qods translation included a Sistani dialect. In addition, the Rey translation and Tafsīr Abū al-Futūḥ were under the influence of the original language, especially when it comes to lexical items. Indeed, these two translations followed the syntactic conventions and standards of Persian.
Nasrin Ashrafi; Mohammad Reza Hashemi; Hossein Akbari; Ali Khazaeefarid
Abstract
Novel publishing in Iran has always been accompanied by fluctuations arising from socio-political transformations. The present paper seeks to study Iran’s novel publishing market through the lens of socio-political shifts in Iran before the end of the second millennium. The period studied includes ...
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Novel publishing in Iran has always been accompanied by fluctuations arising from socio-political transformations. The present paper seeks to study Iran’s novel publishing market through the lens of socio-political shifts in Iran before the end of the second millennium. The period studied includes 1997 to 1998, when the reformist administration gained victory after the presidential election of 1997. Given the interdisciplinary nature of this research, two theoretical frameworks have been adopted: Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory and Giddens’ theory of structuration. Moreover, Social Network Analysis was used to study the changes in the field of translated novel and domestic novel publishing. Furthermore, in order to understand the structural and causal factors affecting changes in the publication of the novel during this period, semi-structured interviews with publishers were conducted to investigate the structural transformations from agents’ viewpoints. The results of the study show that the structure of the novel has undergone a number of qualitative and quantitative changes over the two years under review, in which the structural and political impact of the situation has strengthened or restricted the active agency of publishers and authors / translators.
Mahbube Noura; Ali Khazaeefarid
Abstract
Although translation is of a historical nature, research on its historical aspects, or the "historiography" of translation, is a relatively new debate, and so far, there has been little research in this regard compared to other areas of research. Therefore, it can be said that the state of translation ...
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Although translation is of a historical nature, research on its historical aspects, or the "historiography" of translation, is a relatively new debate, and so far, there has been little research in this regard compared to other areas of research. Therefore, it can be said that the state of translation history is not comparable with historiography in other disciplines. This research was conducted based on descriptive translation studies including norms and rules of translation, cultural repertoire, and corpus-based studies in translation. The purpose of this study was to describe the linguistic norms of three generations of literary translators in Iran. To this end, seven linguistic norms - intensifiers, Arabic vocabulary, syntactic calque, variety of adverbs describing reporting verbs, variety of reporting verbs, semicolon, and dash- in three corpora from three generations of literary translators after the constitutional revolution in Iran were investigated. The findings of this study showed that, over time, frequency of intensifiers, Arabic vocabulary, adverbs describing reporting verbs, reporting verbs other than "say", syntactic calque, semicolon, and dash have increased. The findings were analyzed based on the translation tradition, the repertoire of the Persian language, and capabilities of the three generations of literary translators.
Yasamin Khalighi; Ali KhazaeeFarid; Ali Nazemiyanfard
Abstract
1. IntroductionThe translation of literary works in Iran has always been subject to social and political conditions, intellectual tendencies, and dominant ideologies of the related historical period. Hence, in each period the translators were inclined to translate specific literary works according to ...
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1. IntroductionThe translation of literary works in Iran has always been subject to social and political conditions, intellectual tendencies, and dominant ideologies of the related historical period. Hence, in each period the translators were inclined to translate specific literary works according to the beliefs and viewpoint of a distinguished political and social group. Thus, the translated literary works of each period have general characteristics originating from the cultural and social-political conditions and the dominant intellectual beliefs (Mirabedini, 1987, vol. 1, pp. 13-14). One of the most important and famous periods whose social and political events have influenced cultural and intellectual changes is the period between 1941 and 1953 (i.e. during Tudeh Party and the leftist ideology dominance). From the beginning of its dominance in 1941, Tudeh Party paid so much attention to translation and it trained the best Iranian intellectuals such as translators; therefore, from 1941 onwards most of the translators of literary works were from political intellectuals and the leftists played an effective role in translation (Amir faryar, 2001, p. 70). Therefore, in the present research an attempt has been made to investigate the influences of Tudeh Party and the leftist ideology on the selection of literary works for translation without any prejudice. To this end, the translated literary works published from 1941 to 1953 were analyzed. The results showed that more than half of the works selected for translation could be placed in one of the following three categories: socialist realistic works, the leftist writers' works, and realistic works.2. MethodologyThe research framework for analyzing the data is the visible and invisible concepts of the leftist ideology according to which the translated literary works published from 1941 to 1953 were analyzed. According to the list of the printed translated books from the beginning to 1991collected by Islamic Researches Foundation of Astan Quds, these works are 260 literary works from the literatures of considered countries during this period. Therefore, first, the literary works corresponding to the visible and invisible concepts of the leftist ideology are categorized by the investigation of the translators' introductions and the theories of literary researchers who introduce the writers' background and the subject and content of their works. Then, further evidence would be found about the works corresponding to the leftist ideology by selecting the most important literary works from each categories and applying Leo lowenthal's theory of sociology of literature (1948) to it. 3. DiscussionThe investigation of the list of printed translated books from the beginning to 1991 showed that during the period between 1941 and 1953, the translation of literary works from Russia, France, Germany, England, and finally America along with the literature of South America and Eastern Europe was respectively taken into consideration by the translators of that period. By studying the translators' introductions and the theories of literary researchers who introduce the writers' background and the content of their works, common obvious and unobvious points between different writers and their works are understood, and this is due to the specific political conditions of that period. In this way, the writers and the works that correspond to the leftist ideology are classified.Since the visible concepts of the leftist thinking are found in socialist realistic works in an ideological, propagandistic and biased way, this doctrine was taken into a great consideration by the members of Tudeh Party and the translators were naturally inclined to translate some works from this doctrine under the influence of Tudeh Party. Therefore, 37 works from Gorky, Sholokhov, Ostrovsky, and Chernyshevsky were translated, which formed 14 percent of the whole translated literary works during that period.In addition, during the period between 1941 and 1953 the translation of the other leftist writers' literary works in which the visible concepts of the leftist thinking could be found was developed by Tudeh Party's members and translators (Mirabedini, 2013, p. 93). Therefore, 46 works from France, London, Ehrenburg, Shaw, Barbusse, Aragon, Laffitte, Fuchik, Tressell, Amado, Saghers, Steinbeck, and Voynich were translated, which formed 17 percent of the whole translated literary works during that period.The translation of realistic works was also impressively developed during these years. These works are not necessarily considered as leftist works, but they were taken into consideration by the translators of that period, because they have common characteristics with the leftist thinking according to their social criticism about the current condition and also the negation and change of it. Therefore, 67 works from Chekhov, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Twain, Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, Dickens, Hemingway, Gogol, and Lermontov were translated, which formed 25 percent of the whole translated literary works during that period. 4. ConclusionDuring the period between 1941 and 1953, the translators, who were influenced by Tudeh Party and the leftist ideology in different ways, became active in the process of the translation of books, and they were inclined to translate the literary works corresponding to the leftist thinking. Therefore, the investigation of the translated literary works during this period showed that from 260 translated literary works, 150 works (i.e. more than half of the translated literary works [57%]) were somehow in the realm of leftist thinking or had common characteristics with it. It is found that the translators and the selection of literary works for translation were influenced by Tudeh Party and the leftist ideology in one of the most important historical periods. This is an important issue, because it showed that the selection of an important part of the literary works for translation was influenced by the dominant leftist thinking. Therefore, in addition to the widespread and impressive influence of Tudeh Party on Iranian intellectuals and translators, the direct influence of the leftist ideology on the selection of literary works for translation can be confirmed.
Mohadese Safinejad; Ali Khazaeefar; Mahmud Reza Ghorban Sabbagh
Abstract
Aesthetic equivalence is produced when both the source and target texts enjoy the same degree of interpretability with semantic explicitness. This requires both texts to have the same number of indeterminacies. Roman Ingarden, the Polish phenomenologist and aesthetician, was the first one to consider ...
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Aesthetic equivalence is produced when both the source and target texts enjoy the same degree of interpretability with semantic explicitness. This requires both texts to have the same number of indeterminacies. Roman Ingarden, the Polish phenomenologist and aesthetician, was the first one to consider the concept of indeterminacy as a characteristic of literary works. Then Iser and Jauss, two aesthetic theoreticians, applied it in different theories. In this paper, the concept of “aesthetic of equivalence” is defined based on the literary concept of “indeterminacy”. Then it’s the importance is shown in different translations of Jibran Khalil Jibran’s The Prophet. The analysis of fourteen translations of three sentences of this text shows that the translators has tried to explicate everything so they keep the text far away of the aesthetic equivalence
