Investigating students’ strategies in translations of English proverbs into Persian

A proverb, as a figurative language, has been regarded a translation problem. This is because a proverb is a culture-specific item which usually bears no immediate equivalent in the target language; therefore, translators are usually challenged in choosing the right way to translate proverbs. In addition to the transfer method, the failure to recognize proverbs and then to translate them literally is a common and possible problem in practice of translation which results in transferring ambiguous and erroneous concepts to the target language. This study is an attempt to examine the strategies applied in Persian translations of English proverbs by university students. The strategies applied in translations of the proverbs were analyzed and classified based on the model by Baker (۱۹۹۲). The results of this study indicates that the most and the least used strategies employed by the participants for translating English proverbs into Persian were “translation by paraphrase” and “using an idiom with the same meaning and form”, respectively. The study concludes that recognizing proverbs in the source language articulates concerns not less than those of translatability and transfer methods. Furthermore, a word-for-word translation does not work for proverbs, and the strategies proposed by Bake can be helpful for translators in finding the right way to transfer proverbs into the target language. Moreover, as proverbs demonstrate the uniqueness of the language and culture from which they are originated, translators are required to possess thorough understanding of the source and target languages and cultures.

کلیدواژه ها:

proverb ، word for word translation ، translation strategy ، culture- specific item