Investigation of patterns of reciprocal English-Persian translation of idioms by Iranian EFL learners

The present study was aimed at investigating patterns of reciprocal English-Persian translation of idioms by Iranian EFL learners. 20 intermediate and advanced level students at different private language schools in thecity of Tehran participated in this study. The instrument of the study was a researcher-made questionnaire fortranslating idioms which involved 40 items. The questionnaire was translated into Persian and both the Englishand Persian versions were given to the participants to complete. The data was gathered and analyzed using SPSS. The results showed that there were meaningful differences between the two translations in ‘verb + noun’;‘prepositions of time, place and manner; ‘verb + adverb’; and ‘adjective + preposition’ correlations. The mostfrequently used strategy in English-Persian translation and Persian-English of idioms was paraphrase. Thesefindings indicate that idiomatic differences between Persian and English bring about errors in the production of Iranian EFL learners and a good number of errors in translations of collocational and idiomatic errors are directly caused by interference of learners’ mother tongue. The finding of the study had implications for teachers, material developers, and policy makers.

کلیدواژه ها:

idioms ، translation ، interference ، mother tongue ، Iranian EFL learners