Translator’s Intercultural Awareness: Faithfulness or Lack of It: A Case Study of Three Plays by Moliere Translated by Mohammad Ali Foroughi

From the first half of the nineteenth century and more precisely from the reign of Fath-Ali Shah Qajar, Iranians became more familiar with European culture through activities such as the establishment of Dar al-Funun (polytechnic college) and translation bureau, sending students to Europe, recruitment of European teachers at Dar al-Funun and establishment of missionary schools. The translation bureau of Naser al-Din Shah’s court and the first generation of translators of this era had an undeniable effect on the expansion of European culture into Iran. According to the resources, one of the norms governing literary translation during this period i.e. the Iranian Constitutional Era and afterwards, was the Persianization of European literary works. For this purpose, in accordance with the cultural and social tastes, expectations and interests of Iranian readers, the translators made changes to the source text to the extent that they sometimes only adopted the main theme of the work and started writing a new work in Persian language and named it adaptation rather than translation. As such, the translator being aware of cultural and social norms governing the target community plays the role of an intercultural mediator. Therefore, theresearchers believe that the translator’s cultural competence and awareness should not be limitedsolely to the knowledge of source culture and its transfer to the target community. Instead, thetranslator sometimes creates a work that is in line with the needs of the target culture, which allowsthe connection between the two cultures, and more importantly, leads to the acceptance of thatwork in the target community and culture. Thus, this research first investigates the definitions ofintercultural competence and awareness of translator in research literature, and then, with ananalytical-historical case study, attempts to add another dimension to the concept of culturalawareness of the translator. For this purpose, the Persian translation of three plays by Moliere, thewell-known French playwright of the 17PthP Century, translated by Mohammad Ali Foroughi werecompared with the French text selected via random sampling in order to trace the traits of thetranslator’s interventions in the text.

کلیدواژه ها:

cultural awareness ، intercultural competence ، translational norms ، Persianization ، Mohammad Ali Foroughi