جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « narrative theory » در نشریات گروه « ادبیات و زبان ها »

The present article draws on Ghomi and Farahzad’s (2020) model of renarration in audiovisual translation to explore different types of reframings effected in the interlingual dubbing of animated films broadcast on Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. Given that audiovisual narratives are of multimodal nature and involve nonverbal sites as well as verbal sites, they provide audiovisual translators and audiovisual translation institutes with more opportunities to reframe the target narrative. Therefore, Ghomi and Farahzad’s (2020) Multimodal Narrative Analysis is used to compare and contrast original and dubbed animations at the micro-level of verbal and nonverbal sites. The results of the study revealed 15 types of reframings that participated in the construction of reality in the target animations. They were categorized under 3 groups of reframing through selective appropriation, reframing through labelling and reframing through repositioning characters. Temporal and spatial reframing was found to be underlying all types of reframing. The study concludes that Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting has an active role in constructing reality in the target language and uses translation as a tool for accentuating or undermining certain narratives in the target animated films.

Thanks to modern literary theories, critical approaches will help the critics to appreciate and explore a literary work. The practice of traditional literary criticisms was based on incorporating the intentions and biographical context of the author, while the modern literary theories provide the critics with different lenses allowing the critics to consider literary works based on certain assumptions within that school of theory and yield to new conclusions. Morphology of stories is one of those approached addressing the literary work (fiction) in a structured way and attempts to analyze the story on the basis of the roles of the characters and the movements in it. Using the descriptive method based on content analysis technique, library sources, and applying Vladimir Prop’s morphological theory, this paper aims to investigate the story of Mem û Zîn (Mem and Zin) by Ahmad Khani (1650– 1706) based on the story of Mam and Zayn by Mohammad Saeed Ramazan bouti. The findings demonstrate that the story of Mem and Zin has 21 functions out of 31 functions of Props and has two main and minor stories. The main story comprises of 6 moves and the minor one has 3 moves. The sequences of the functions, especially in the initial seven functions are not observed, and some of them appear in the middle and late stages of the story. There are also 13 characters in the main story and 7 characters in the minor story appearing in the following personae: Hero, Helper, Villain, False Hero and Donor.

This paper first describes Baker’s narrative theory so as to introduce a new research area in Translation Studies. In so doing, it defines the concept of narrative in social sciences, which is the basis of Baker’s work, and explains Baker’s proposed model for the analysis of translation in terms of this type of narratology. It then presents the research potentials of the theory by sketching some research conducted within the framework of the narrative theory. It is intended as providing a map for other Translation Studies scholars.  Having analyzed the studies in this field, the present paper suggests the following potentials: investigation of the existing metaphors and concepts on translation and translators; analysis of the role of translators in narrative-making,  analysis of narratives made through translation, examination of narratives made by organizations and institutions, studying different strategies of framing in the works of translators, news agencies, publishers, websites and organizations and analysis of narrative-making through such frames; and finally assessing the coherence of the narratives made by activist translation groups and similar organizations on the basis of narrative paradigm.

Emphasizing on the value of prefaces as a paratextual device that shapes the mediation among books, authors, and readers, Genette (1987) underlined that each paratextual element has its own history which is worth broad and comprehensive investigations. Based on a narrative account, translatorial prefaces are considered as the story of translators, the story of self, and an “ontological” narrative according to Somers and Gibson (1993, p. 2). Everyone not only has a story, but also has a right to tell his/her story (Bamberg, 2011). Baker (2006) brought the genre, translatorial preface, to the fore as a framing tool. She referred to framing as a way for individuals to “consciously participate in the construction of reality” (p. 106). Foregrounding the agency of translators, she (2006) asserted that narratives construct realities rather than merely representing them. The current study aimed to investigate the translatorial prefaces and their changes during the last sixty years in Iran. Therefore, a representative corpus was required. The corpus included one hundred and four randomly sampled translatorial prefaces written by Iranian translators to the first published editions of their translations of fictions from different languages into Persian during the years 1330-1390. To analyze narratives in a discursive context as translatorial prefaces, a threefold model was devised, examining the form, content, and function of the prefaces. In analyzing the form of the prefaces, the translatorial prefaces were investigated in terms of their title, length, setting, pagination, and signature. The findings of this part were mostly quantitatively analyzed. The second phase of this study was a content analysis which mostly entailed a qualitative approach. To analyze the content, the six-phase thematic analysis method proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006) was applied. The findings of the first two folds were fed into an interpretative functional approach, drawing on the categorization introduced by Dimitriu (2009). To start with a general thesis, it can be claimed that based on the findings of the study, translatorial prefaces have been earning more prominence as time passes; the number of prefaces seemed to be following an increasing trend from 1330 to 1390, hence the reframing strategy of “selective appropriation”, introduced by Baker (2006, p. 71), has been at work, not only throughout the form, content, and function of prefaces, but also from the very beginning with the decision on writing or not writing a preface. The translators’ decision to initiate a preface is one of the main determining steps toward visibility.
The findings of data analyses in all the three folds of form, content, and function can be divided into the concepts which showed meaningful changes, and the ones that remained unchanged or did not follow any meaningful change. Considering the titles or labels of translatorial prefaces revealed that among the five main types of titles, the title “Translator’s”+ a generic term was the most frequent one in the past sixty years. “Translator’s Introduction”; “Translator’s Note”; and “Translator’s Preface” were first, second, and third most frequently observed titles; however, “Translator’s Note” showed an increasing trend during the last sixty years and was utilized more significantly in the last two decades. Concomitant to the rise in the use of the term “Note” in the titles, the length of translatorial prefaces also followed a decreasing trend during the last sixty years. This change was more prominent during the last two decades under study.
Investigating the content of the prefaces demonstrated that “presenting / recommending the text” has been the most frequent theme in all decades. Finding that the “biographical or critical information on the author” has been the second most frequent theme in sixty years was expressive of the status of the source author; however, the focus on critical information on the author has overtaken the biographical aspect through time. Not only has the amount of biographical information decreased, but also cases were observed where their position had changed from the beginning to the end of the prefaces. This change in the emplotment is not of course void of significance. The themes related to the status of the source text and the author have indicated a gradual wane in the last two decades under study. On the other hand, the theme of “readership”, as the fourth most frequent theme in the last sixty years, seemed to be consequently gaining more popularity. The prominence given to readership may not be only because readers were gaining more importance, but also because translators were becoming more conscious of their role in mediating their own narratives to readers through their translatorial prefaces. The theme of “strategies of translating” as the third most frequent theme and as an answer to the theme “difficulties/problems of translating” did not show any quantitatively meaningful change but indicated some qualitative changes.
To conduct a macro analysis, the findings of the form and content analyses were fed into a function analysis. Working out eight distinct functions based on the three main functions introduced by Dimitriu (2009), the researcher found that despite the long-established and still present dominance of informative/descriptive function, the struggle of explanatory function for dominance especially during the last two decades is not ignorable. In other words, translators’ prefaces have been displaying indications of a change from the narratives valuing source text analyses, source authors, and the socio-cultural contexts of the source to the ones pursuing the target text and translators’ problems, strategies, and decision makings. Translatorial prefaces to literary texts, mostly those with explanatory function, are valuable sources to be studied by critics as well as readers because they provide a detailed account, nowhere else available, of the translators’ meeting with texts. Critics and readers can avail themselves from one more narration of a text provided by translatorial prefaces as an effective reframing device. Any change in the Meta/Master narratives on translator and translation must start from within the narratives of translators themselves. This must be the concern and responsibility of the translators, before all, to increase the public awareness and (re)construct the conceptual and Meta narratives which represent translators’ identities and status.

The present research examines the concept of love in two separate and distinct spheres. On the one hand, love is considered as a transcendental experience and concept that is static and related to a meta-human truth. This type of reading of love is mainly initiated and developed through Plato’s writings. On the other, there is a view that considers love (even in its Platonic sense) a humane, cultural and more importantly “textual” phenomenon. In other words, love can only be understood, multiplied and experienced within language (or as Jacques Lacan calls, “symbolic order”). In this paper, I have studied these two views in relation to the collection of short stories entitled, Love on the Sidewalk, written by the contemporary Iranian writer, Mostafa Mastour. In order to do this, I have first studied the concept of ‘absence’ in love and how the experience of love always depends on the absence of the lover or the beloved. I then argue that love, in these stories, is a ‘sign’ that is constructed and signified with a system of signs. And finally I illustrate how the characters in these stories fall in love and understand love through “narratives of love”. All this would give love a plural and narrative significance. Love is therefore a sign that is always in the process of being constructed.