TradTerm (Jul 2017)
Units of translation adopted in Persian term-formation
Abstract
Two trends exist for Persian term-formation. In the first method known as calquing, words are rendered morpheme by morpheme. Thus, the unit of translation (UT) is a morpheme. In the second method known as conceptual equivalent-finding, the definitions of words are considered and the UT is a word. The present study was designed to identify which of the two UTs was more favored in Persian term-formation. To this end, 40 English prefixes were studied in 2354 English words together with their Persian equivalents approved by the Academy of Persian Language and Literature (APLL) as the official term-formation agency in Iran. It was noticed that calquing was more frequent, i.e. morphemes were more frequently considered as UTs. Moreover, strategies of translating prefixes were introduced and examined in both methods. In conceptual method, prefixes were ignored and not translated morpheme by morpheme. However, in calquing, English prefixes were translated into Persian prefixes or lexemes.
