International Journal of English Language and Translation Studies (Apr 2018)
Textual-Linguistic Norms of Translating Religious Texts from Farsi into English
Abstract
The study of translation norms is one of the areas in translation studies which identify regularities of behavior (i.e. trends of relationships and correspondences between ST and TT segments) by comparing source texts and their translations. Norms of translation are mostly done in areas other than religious texts. Therefore, it seems necessary to do a research on religious texts. Textual–linguistic norms govern the selection of TT linguistic material: lexical items, phrases, and stylistic features. To do so, translation strategies adopted by translators were identified through comparing translations and source texts. Translation strategies proposed by Chesterman (1997) are investigated in samples of texts translated by World Ahlubayt assembly, an organization in charge of religious translation in Iran. The texts included seven books from seven translators in World Ahlulbayt Assembly. The strategies investigated in corpus dealt with three linguistic levels: semantic, syntactic and pragmatic strategies and changes done at these three levels. The results showed that syntactic changes were of the highest frequency in all texts. At semantic level, synonymy was the most frequent translation strategy. At syntactic level, clause structure changes and at pragmatic level and explicitness change were the most frequent changes.
