The Translation of Metaphor and Simile: Study of the English Translation in the Selection of Golestan

Translation of literary text has always been a hard task to accomplish by translators. The task includes several parts one of which is to translate literary devises. The present study planned to consider the strategies applied by three main translators of Saadi s Golestan from Persian in to English in order to translate metaphors and similes. A close look the samples accepted from the three versions discovered that among the strategies defined by Newmark (1988), the strategy of reproducing the same image in target language was the most popular. The current study was an attempt to analyze the metaphors and similes in Golestan in order to find the types of strategies used in translating the Golestan from Persian to English based on Peter Newmark classification. Furthermore, the study tried to find the least and the most frequent strategies used in rending the Golestan from Persian to English. In translation of similes, the researcher concluded that all the translator tried to offer, as Newmark proposes, semantic translations for translating similes. Based on the data analysis the result should that the strategy of reproducing the same image in the target language was most popular one. Deletion and translation of metaphor by simile, retaining the image is the low-frequency strategy.Since saadi is one of the seventieth century poets, he definitely has a special language for his time therefore the readers who study these literary products need a perfect understanding. Thus, according to Mr. Jaavad Rezaie research who has done the same thing, semantic translations or Newmark strategy 1 (reproducing the same image in the target language) is not so ideal strategy for translations of these products. The researcher concludes that it would be better that translators apply the strategies, which has clearer translation, thus communicative translation can be the most useful translation.