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Language and Translation - Volume:8 Issue: 2, Summer 2018

Journal of Language and Translation
Volume:8 Issue: 2, Summer 2018

  • تاریخ انتشار: 1397/06/07
  • تعداد عناوین: 8
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  • Samira Afsari, Elahe Abootorabi *, Seyed Nezamaddin Moeinzadeh Pages 1-10
    Translation of humor and transferring its effect is one of the most challenging tasks of a translator due to the cultural clashes between the source language (SL) and the target language (TL). Accordingly, the pre- sent study aimed to specify the most frequently applied strategies in terms of Delabastita’s wordplay model used in SL and their translation strategy by Persian translators according to Gottlieb’s theory. To do so, the wordplay samples were gathered by analyzing the Persian subtitles of the Friends TV series. Next, each translation version was compared with its English version based on Delabastita's model and Gottlieb's translation strategies to see if they had been applied. The results showed that 4% of wordplays in Friends were based on homography and 38.66% on homonymy while paronymy accounted for 60% of the data thus being the most frequently used wordplay strategy proposed by Delabatista. The results also indicated that 78.66% of wordplays were translated based on replacing strategy (the most frequently used strategy), 12% adapting strategy, 0% inserting, while 9.33% of them were left untranslated (not rendering strategy) in terms of Gottlieb’s translation strategy.
    Keywords: Audiovisual translation, Subtitling, Translation technique, Wordplay
  • Yusef Rajabi * Pages 11-24
    The present study aimed at investigating the impact of a genre-specific strategy-based instructional inter- vention on translation quality, dominant translation and writing activities in the persuasive essays of a group of EFL learners within the perspective of activity theory. The main purpose of the study was to see, taking translation as a sort of writing in its own right, whether the kind of instructional intervention im- plemented influence the writing and translation activities of learners similarly or not. To this end, 22 in- termediate EFL learners received 10 sessions of self-regulatory strategy development (SRSD) instruction accompanied by some translation exercises on persuasive writing. Based on the results, SRSD did not have any significant effect on the translation quality of the students. However, the comparison of pretest and posttest scores on the persuasive probe and translation test revealed that the genre-specific strategy instruction influenced the dominant translation and writing activities of the participants. The findings pointed to the fact that the issues related to the students' new learning histories changed the nature of their activity systems both in persuasive essay writing and translation.
    Keywords: Activity theory, Dominant activities, Persuasive writing, Self-regulated strategy development, Translation quality
  • Samad Mirza Suzani * Pages 25-37
    This research aimed at evaluating the types and frequency of category shifts in the Persian translations of English poems based on Catford’s model of shifts. To this end, three English romantic poems of A Histo- ry of English Literature, namely, Blake’s ‘The Chimney Sweeper’, Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’, and Keats’ ‘To Autumn’ along with their Persian translations by Abjadian were investigated in detail and instances of shifts in the words, phrases, and clauses were discovered and analyzed to see whether Abjadian has incorporated category shifts in his translation, what kinds of category shift are made, and how frequently shifts are used in literary translation. The findings of the research demonstrated that shifts are inevitable as a result of the different nature of languages and variations that exist among them, and in order to render an exact and faithful translation of poetry from English to Persian, shifts are indispensable; in addition, while all types of category shifts were used in the studied poems, structural shifts and class shifts proved to be the most and the least frequent shifts, while intra-system and unit shifts in translation were in the second and third ranks, respectively.
    Keywords: Abjadian, Catford’s category shifts, English romantic poems, Persian translation, Poetry translation
  • Zohreh Zafarani, Parviz Maftoon* Pages 39-55
    This study sought to investigate dynamic assessment (DA) - an assessment approach that embeds inter- vention within the assessment process and that yields information about the learner’s responsiveness to this intervention - and the writing performance of the second language (L2) learners in Web 2.0 contexts. To this end, pre and post-treatment writings of 45 participants were analyzed to examine the impact of asynchronous collaborative computer mediation and face-to-face collaborative mediation on L2 learners’ writing performance. Three textual features of syntactic complexity, vocabulary complexity, and quantity of the overall information conveyed in the learners’ pre and post-tests served as the basic units of analy- sis. The findings of the present study indicated that using blogging as a Web 2.0 tool to provide mediation contributed more to the enhancement of the overall writing performance. Moreover, the asynchronous collaborative computer mediated group, as compared to the face to face mediated group, showed signifi- cant improvement in the vocabulary complexity, syntactic complexity, and quantity of overall infor- mation presented in a single paragraph. The findings of the present study also revealed that DA proce- dures were applicable via Web 2.0 tools and were advantageous to L2 learners’ writing performance sug- gesting that L2 practitioners and instructors should dynamically consider the integration of Web 2.0 tech- nology into L2 writing courses.
    Keywords: Asynchronous collaborative computer mediation, Dynamic assessment, Process writing, Syntactic complexity, Vocabulary complexity
  • Shojaa Naynava *, Mohammad Saleh Sanatifar Pages 57-70
    Speaking as an initial goal in language teaching and learning has relationships with many variables including listening, reading, writing, knowledge of vocabulary as well as grammar. The present study mainly aims at examining the relationship between translations and speaking fluency. For this purpose and following an experimental design, three groups of Iranian advanced EFL learners were asked to per- form a number of conversational tasks, and were given a speaking fluency test. The first experimental group (EG1) was taught via intralingual translation, the second experimental group (EG2) via interlingual translation and the third group (control group) was taught in the foreign language without any intralingual or interlingual translation methods. The results reveal that there is a significant relationship between inter- lingual translation and speaking fluency. The study, finally, offers some practical implications for both EFL learners and teachers.
    Keywords: Fluency, Interlingual translation, Intralingual translation, Speaking fluency
  • Rasoul Firouzi *, Salar Manafi Anari Pages 71-83
    This study tried to find the strategies applied in three English translations of the Battle of Rostam and Esfandiyar. To this aim, the source text (ST) was analyzed verse by verse with each verse being compared with its English translations to determine what procedures the translators had used to render the source text. Subsequently, the frequency of usage for each procedure was measured to answer the research ques- tions. Michele Jones’s fourfold classification of poetry translation strategies and Reiss and Vermeer’s skopos theory were used as the frameworks of this study; Jones introduces literal, approximation, adapta- tion, and imitation strategies, ranging from literal which is very faithful to the original form, to imitation that is very free and has little in common with the original. The analyses showed that, regardless of imita- tion not used in this corpus, the translators of this study had mostly rendered the ST using approximation, with adaptation being the least frequently used method. Translators' paratextual materials, including their fore- and afterwords, were used as the sources for identifying the reason for the application of each strat- egy. Moreover, we have concluded that, according to skopos theory, translators use different strategies according to the different functions target texts (TT) will have in the target context.
    Keywords: Approximation, Michele H. Jones, Shahnameh, Skopos theory, Translation strategies
  • Shahram Janbazi *, Abdollah Baradaran Pages 85-92
    This study investigated the comparative effect of consciousness raising tasks on the reading comprehen- sion ability of the high and low risk-taking English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners. To achieve the purpose of this study, 106 students from the Shahid Sattary University in Tehran were selected from among a total number of 150 based on their performance on the Preliminary English Test (PET). A per- sonality trait questionnaire was administrated to determine learners’ risk-taking levels (i.e. high, modera- tor and low). Therefore, 30 high and 30 low risk-taking learners were selected as two experimental groups. Although the learners had different personality traits, they were in the same classes and received the same treatment. The design of this study was quasi experimental and an independent samples t-test was applied to test the null hypothesis. The findings of the study showed that the group with high risk- taking trait outperformed the low group. Therefore, a significant difference was found between the two experimental groups in term of their reading comprehension ability.
    Keywords: Consciousness raising tasks, Reading comprehension, Risk-taking
  • Hamid Marashi*, Mitra Kangani Pages 93-106
    This study was an attempt to investigate the comparative impact of concept map and mind map instruc- tion on EFL learners’ descriptive and narrative writing. To fulfill this purpose, 60 intermediate EFL learners were selected from among a total number of 100 through their performance on a pretest, i.e., a piloted sample Cambridge Preliminary English Test (PET). Then, the students were randomly divided into two experimental groups of 30. The scores of the writing part of PET were analyzed separately and the mean scores of the two groups were compared through an independent samples t-test in order to as- sure that the writing ability of the students was homogeneous at the outset. Both groups underwent the same amount of treatment (14 sessions of 90 minutes) three days a week with one group undergoing the concept map treatment while the other the mind map treatment. A posttest comprising a descriptive and a narrative writing were administered at the end of the treatment to both groups. The result of the Pillai’s Trace Test (F = 12.73 and p = 0.000 < 0.05) indicated a statistically significant difference between the two experimental groups with the mind map group that gained a higher mean in both posttests outper- forming the concept map group.
    Keywords: Concept map, Descriptive writing, Mind map, Narrative writing, Writing genres