The Rotation of Cultural Signs is a Continuum to Repair the Discourse Gap in the Translation of Proverbs (Case Study: Translation of Proverbs from Arabic to Persian)

Translation of proverbs is a cultural translation due to its high cultural capacity and its various levels. The difference between the cultural signs of the source language and the target language and its multiple variables has made the process of translating proverbs one of the most fundamental challenges for translators. Ignoring this leads to the failure of translation and communication functionality and it has led to a gap between the source text and the target audience. Finally, it leads to a discourse gap between the two languages of origin and destination at the general level of communication. Using a descriptive-analytical approach and following the example of literary translation theory, this study seeks to examine the discourse gap caused by cultural variables in the translation of Persian and Arabic proverbs and provide a way to the interaction–oriented translation according to the principle of cultural continuity between the two languages. In this regard, the rotation of the cultural symbols of the proverbs in the two languages is the proposed solution of this article. This is analyzed according to the model of the insightful translation of Roman Jacobsen and Alfred Schutz’s semiotics triangle. In the process of translating Persian and Arabic proverbs in the context of the rotation of cultural symbols, native and cultural schemas of proverbs in the source language are recreated with conventional patterns in the target language. Thus, the unbalanced and unconventional cultural symbols of the two languages turn from an unexplained and understandable set. As a result, there is a discourse attachment between the proverbs of the two languages and their cultural carriers. The process of rotating cultural signs is done only in the context of the association of the cultural signs of the source language among a series of conventional and normal signs of the target language. This chain of conventional and normal signs in the target language is called  ̏Sepehr Sign ̋. According to such a thing, the cultural signs of Arabic proverbs enter the space inside Sepehri and the cultural signs of Persian proverbs interact with other cultural signs in Persian language and as a localized cultural sign in Sepehr, it becomes a sign of the target language (Persian) and thus, the cultural continuum of two-pronged proverbs is performed.