پژوهش نامه انتقادی متون و برنامه های علوم انسانی
پیاپی 89 (فروردین 1400)

This article is a critical review of The History of Translation in Iran (in Persian), written by Abdolhossein Azarang. Having fluent prose and exact editing, not having typing mistakes, and providing good information about translation in some periods of Iran’s history are among the good peculiarities of this book. And, repetition of some points in different parts of the content, relying excessively on some sources, generalization in some parts of the content, the content being deprived of a good and clear categorization, and inaccuracy of some of the historical information provided are among the shortcomings of the book. On the other hand, since about some periods of the history of translation in Iran the number of studies are more than the other periods, it is argued in this article that it was better and more useful if the focus of the book had been on those periods of the translation in Iran about which there is not any or adequate research.

Šahrestānīhā ī ērānšahr is a Middle Persian treatise about the historical geography of Sasanian cities in Iran. So far, this treatise has been translated and published in Persian by Hedayat, Oriyan, Taffazoli, and Daryaee. In 2002, Daryaee published this text with Persian and English translation, and in 2009, Jalilian translated Daryaee’s book into Persian. In the present study, we examined Jalilian’s translation of this treatise. It is noteworthy that Jalilian mentioned in his book that the translation of the Middle Persian text is from Daryaee himself. To make the review more accurate and to compare it with other translations, Daryaee and Taffazoli’s translations are cited and compared. First, the transliteration of each sentence is mentioned, and then the translation is written in chronological order. Then, the review of the translations is mentioned. It can be concluded that each of the translations of Middle Persian texts into Persian has new points that, in turn, will help us to better understand Middle Persian texts and ancient Iranian thought.

The book of Twelve Ancient Texts is the result of years of research and follow-up by Bijan Gheiby in ancient Iranian texts, especially Middle Persian texts. In each of the articles, the author first presents the sources and then deals with the Pahlavi text, transliteration, translation of the text, lexical notes, and explanation of the ambiguities of the text. This book includes a report on twelve short pahlavi texts such as Wizārišn ī čatrang, mādayān ī yōšt ī Yošt ī Fryān, māh ī Farvardin…, ayādgār ī zarīrān, āmadan ī šāh Bahrām ī warjāwand, Sūr ī saxwan, xwēškārīh ī rīdagān, Rēdakān, Farroxnāmag, čim ī kostīg, āfrīn ī žardšt. This book is very important because of its careful translation of texts and commentaries and the author’s valuable notes. However, the above-mentioned authorship is not without significant shortcomings in terms of scientific principles and methods in correcting and translating ancient texts. These shortcomings have sometimes damaged the principle of authorship. What has seriously damaged the whole collection is the lack of critical correction of the Pahlavi texts; that is, comparing of the manuscripts, transliteration and transcription of the texts, and the mention of the differences in the manuscripts. Obviously, without such a method, reliable translations of the texts cannot be obtained.

The book on Language Curriculum Design elaborates the process of curriculum design and provides opportunities for practicing and applying them. The book, which was written by Paul Nation and John Macalister (2010), was translated into Persian by Mirdehghān, Majidi,  Hajibāgheri and Farahi, and it was published in 2016. In this paper, the Persian version of the book was reviewed and criticized, and its strengths and weaknesses (formal and content shortcomings) were mentioned. Findings showed this book has some positive points, such as introducing the concept of curriculum and the process of designing second/foreign language curriculum in Iranian general linguistic society. However, neglecting some of the principles of writing and editing, not paying attention to some grammatical points, using some incorrect equivalents for some technical terms, and being inconsistent in using the equivalents for some terms are among the negative points which could somewhat prevent the readers of the book from getting the essence of some parts of the book that much. However, due to the fact that the curriculum and, in particular, the foreign/second language curriculum has been somehow neglected among Iranian general linguists, so the translation of this book in Persian has been necessary to fill this gap; hence, the effort of its translators is valuable and needs to be appreciated.

The current study deals with the face and content analysis of the Language Learning, Sentence Construction and Writing Textbook, developed for the third grade. It is a descriptive-analytic research study, using both qualitative (including focus group and content analysis) and quantitative methods. For the qualitative process, a targeted sampling technique was applied, and the data were gathered through semi-constructed interviews. Some strengths of the textbook were the good title, no racial/ethnic and gender biases, and attention to students’ favorite activities. However, the lack of appropriate content list, too heavy content, disregarding language competence or the ability of students with hearing impairment were among the weaknesses. Using the census method for the quantitative assessment, the statistical population consisted of teachers of third-grade hearing-impaired from Isfahan province (n=35). The quantitative findings revealed that the correlation between the scores of the two characteristics mentioned was 0.85 (p<0.01). The t-test value obtained for the two correlated sets of scores was not significant at the 0.05 level (t=0.103, df=33). To put it differently, there is no difference in the average teachers’ evaluation scores for content and face analysis of the Language Learning, Sentence Construction and Writing textbook.

Given the important role of oral corrective feedback (OCF) in developing language learning and due to the fact that no study has ever investigated Persian language teachers’ attitude toward providing oral corrective feedback, the purpose of the present study was to investigate and critically analyze the attitude and performance of Persian language teachers while providing OCF. To this end, 15 Persian language teachers were selected and given a questionnaire to complete. The questionnaire included both 5-point Likert scale and open-ended items. The findings revealed that Persian language teachers had a positive attitude toward OCF and that elicitation feedback was the most frequently used type of OCF, while repetition, clarification request and metalinguistic feedback were observed to be the least frequently used type of feedback. It can be concluded that Persian language teachers’ positive attitude toward OCF resulted in the effective use of feedback in the process of Persian language teaching. It can also be claimed that Persian language teachers made use of a variety of feedback types; the most frequent of all was elicitation feedback. The findings of this study have implications for Persian language teachers, researchers, and teacher educators.    Keywords:

This article is an introduction and critical review of the Farsi translation (by Mohammad Ghaffary, 2nd edition) of Roger Fowler’s book “Linguistics and the Novel”. It also introduces briefly the backgrounds of the main ideas discussed in the book. In this regard, a brief discussion of linguistics criticism and the critical translation are covered, with Fowler being an expert on the latter subject as well. Doing research on Fowler’s postulations can be seen in the works of other fields in humanities, such as linguistics and sociology.  In this study, it is attempted to use a formalism approach with a critical point of view to evaluate the equivalents and appendices (glossaries and bibliographies) show that looking for equivalence in translations needs experts who do not confuse the readers.

Lexicography: Theoretical and Practical Issues contains articles on lexicography by a group of reputable lexicographers. Modern lexicography in Iran is a new science, and there are few published works in this field in Persian. This, as well as some shortcomings in the selection and translation of these articles, prompted the author to refer to a few points and draw the reader’s attention to some of these issues in order to assist him in choosing the right work for his needs. In this critique, the features of this book are examined in terms of both formal and content aspects. In this review, the drawbacks of the book are mainly attributed to the selection of the articles and their non-alignment, the incorrectness of some of the equivalents, and their lack of uniformity.

The book The Routledge Companion to Semiotics is a collection of articles published under the supervision of Paul Cobley. Raheleh Ghasemi and Siyahrood publication have translated and published it alternatively. This book contains ten chapters, and the main issue of the chapters is the interaction of semiotics with the environmental world and the experience of presence. The authors of this book share one point: immanent structures cannot meet the needs of the domain of semiotics studies, and it is necessary that the world’s practical realities be translated or transmitted to the sign system. For this reason, the cultural, social, biological and ethical elements have been introduced in interaction with the world of signs in this book. Although the theoretical viewpoints presented are good and understandable, they do not encounter us with the pattern of studies that can be used in the design and research in human issues, especially anthroposemiotics. Our main goal is to show how we pass through the hard semiotics into anthroposemiotics. Our method is based on practical semiotics and semiotics of discourse. The most important achievement of this research is studying the role of phenomenological and cultural pragmatics in the evolution of semiotics.

Prolegomena to a Theory of Language”, the main work of Louis Hjelmslev, is an account of his “Glossematics” which is a complex formal theory about the nature of linguistic knowledge and the structure of human understanding in general. The current paper starts with a brief evaluation of a newly released Persian translation of this work; the problem triggering a hermeneutic interpretation of Hjelmslev’s theory in the light of Kant’s “pure reason” in the second part of the current paper is a claim about the potentials of “Glossematics” to be revived as an operational theory of linguistic epistemology in the current mainstream of Linguistics. I have shown that, like any other structural theory of human understanding, basing the “necessity” of the formal propositions of “Glossematics” on the notion of “structure” is the theory’s Achilles heel making this initially intended “self-contained” theory change into a paradoxically “transcendental” epistemology. This transcendence in turn, puts Glossematics in the same boat with Nativist epistemological schools, which are all vulnerable to similar challenges. In conclusion, Hjelmslev’s theory of “Glossematics” is shown to be another “Objectivist” theory that is ruled out by the current findings in Cognitive Sciences.

The dependency grammar is one of the grammar formalisms that is originated according to the dependency relations of lexical elements in a sentence. This dependency is based on the valence of the lexicon; therefore, in this formalism the semantic representation of the words as valence is the backbone of the grammar. The current paper reviews the book entitled “Persian Grammar based on the Autonomous Theory in Dependency Grammar” according to three major contents. Firstly, the chapters of the book are briefly overviewed. Then, the book’s content is evaluated and analyzed and the weak and strong points of the book are studied from different perspectives. In this section, some suggestions are provided for the terminology and expressed concepts. Since dependency grammar does not belong to generative grammar, a comparison is made between the dependency and phrase structure grammar formalisms to understand the content better and to ease the mind of the reader with the generative grammar background about the basic concepts of the dependency grammar. At the end, suggestions are provided to extend the dependency grammar in the book.

This article presents a critical review of the Farsi translation of the book Metaphor authored by David Punter. The book was translated into Farsi by Mohammad Mehdi Moghimizadeh and published by Elm publications. In this book, Punter explores the role of metaphor in different aspects of human knowledge, from literature, philosophy, and religion to politics and psychoanalysis. The translated version of the book was evaluated in terms of both form and content. Form evaluation included technical, organizational and editorial characteristics of the book, and content evaluation assessed the quality and accuracy of translation and equivalents. Including a section titled “Translator’s endnotes” in the translated version, footnoting technical terms and proper names, and fluent language are among the merits of the book. On the other hand, the existence of typographical errors, use of inaccurate equivalents, inconsistent use of equivalents, insufficient command of the source language grammar, and distortion of metaphors during the process of translation are the drawbacks of the book. The book has the potential to open up new horizons to Farsi readership, especially for those who have a background within the domain of metaphor and critical studies. A better understanding of examples and metaphors discussed, however, would require the readers to refer back to the original version of the book.

In this study, the “Descriptive Glossary of Lexicography” compiled by Fariba Ghatreh has been described and evaluated. To do so, on the one hand, the formal appearance of the book concerning the principles of scientific writing has been taken into account, and on the other hand, the content of the book regarding the whatness and the importance of the materials presented has been scrutinized. Concerning the view that the author has been successful in compiling the first “Descriptive Glossary of Lexicography” in Persian, it is extremely valuable, but at the same time, some shortcomings meet the eyes while looking deeply into the book. From the formal point of view, mechanics of writing, proper use of some fonts and sizes for entries and subentries, italicizing or non-italicizing the entries, alphabetical order, reference system and layout of the pages, the book lacks some degree of inconsistency. From the content point of view, some faults are observed in the book, among which they can be referred to as the lack of crystal clear definitions for some entries, overlapping entries, the absence of some necessary terms in lexicography, some blind and confusing references and lack of examples and tables.

The present paper aims at introducing “Verbal Hygiene” by Deborah Cameron (1995, 2012) and assessing the quality of its translation into the Persian Language. In her book, Cameron discusses long-standing debates among proponents of two competing perspectives on language use. On the one hand, there are the traditionalist grammarians who contend that any change is undesirable. Accordingly, they seek to prescribe standards for using language. On the other hand, there are the linguists who argue that language is naturally in a state of flux. “Verbal Hygiene” is a term coined by Cameron to refer to all discourses, practices, and measures directed at regulating language. In this paper, the quality of the Persian translation of the book was assessed based on the model proposed by Katharina Reiss for translation criticism (Reiss, 2000), and it was shown that the translation is poor and quite unsatisfactory. Misinterpretation of the source text, incorrect rendering of the concepts and meanings, grammatical calques, lack of fluency, inappropriate equivalents, and intermingling spoken and written styles of language use are among the deviations in the target text.

This article aims to investigate “Psychology of Language,” written by David W Carroll, translated by Heshmatollah Sabaghi.  The book is described considering the form and the content. Then, the translation of  the book is assessed  based on factors such as the style of writer, Persian equivalents of general and psycholinguistics terms, grammatical structures, punctuations, writing rules and conventions, accuracy and faithfulness. The main problems of the translation were related to the spaces and half-spaces between the word and within compound words, the correct punctuation and the complexity of Persian sentences in translation in spite of the simplicity of their original English sentences, complex and less frequent equivalents and Arabic words instead of simple, frequent and familiar Farsi equivalents. The faithfulness principle in the translation was acceptable. The result of this study showed that although the translation of the book is acceptable, it is not of high quality. The most critical problem of the translation is the complexity of  Persian sentences, so that the readers have to read the sentences several times to understand them. However, considering the fact that there are few Persian sourcebooks written on psycholinguistics, it can be used as a sourcebook provided that the problems are eliminated in the next editions.

It would be significant to analyze the content of these educational resources to see whether they are in line with the students’ needs.  Miekley’s (2005) checklist is considered an effective criterion for the selection and analysis of language teaching materials. The participants were (a) 25 Persian language teachers teaching Persian to non-Persian language learners and (b) 32 non-Persian language learners, majoring in different medicine sciences in Iranian medical universities. They were asked to analyze the textbook entitled as “Pulse of Life” (Nabze Zendegi) (1385) based on categories in Miekley’s (2005) proposed checklist. Descriptive statistics were employed to separately analyze the data of two groups; the results obtained were compared and contrasted. Given the first section, namely, textbook, teacher participants claimed that the textbook was structurally well-designed and it included attractive content and sub-contents as well as relevant vocabularies and grammar structures. However, student volunteers believed that tasks and activities along with grammar structures and vocabularies were not appropriately presented in this textbook. Two groups of participants perceived that the sub-sections of general characteristics, background information, and methodology guide were not suitable. However, they considered the context section appropriate. Teachers graded the vocabulary subsection, and the students ranked the grammar subsection in the second status. Subsections of passage attraction and book appearance were ordered in the third rank. The findings of this investigation could be helpful for researchers and teachers in evaluating the efficiency and appropriateness of instructional resources, possibly available in the instructional resources of teaching Persian to non-Persian language learners.

The need for effective and practical instruction of grammar is accepted based on new second language teaching theories and approaches. The present study tries to answer the question that to what extent the coursebooks used in Persian language training centers are in line with the scientific achievements of teaching grammar, and in this regard, it evaluates the content of grammar in two AZFA coursebooks of “Amoozesh-e novin-e Zaban-e Farsi” and “Amoozesh-e Farsi be Farsi”. The theoretical framework of the current study is the pedagogical grammar approach, in which a forty-nine reviews checklist was designed according to the principles of it. After verifying the content validity of the mentioned checklist, analyzing and evaluating the grammatical content of the two coursebooks was carried out. Examining the grammar content of these books revealed that in Amoozesh-e novin-e Zaban-e Farsi the chain of grammatical contents is not clear and emphasizes the syntactic role of words instead of their use, and the sentences and structures taught do not reflect the real and practical form of the Persian language. In Amoozesh-e Farsi be Farsi, although the move from simple to difficult in teaching grammar is observed, implicit teaching is considered along with explicit teaching, but the situations and functions taught are not practical and communicative tasks are less considered.

The purpose of this research is to introduce and present a critical review of the chapter entitled “The Caspian region and south Azerbaijan: Caspian and Tatic”, by Donald L. Stilo. Formally, his research is encased into a book as a full chapter, including 10 sections. In theory and methodology, this research is based on areal linguistics and areal typology, respectively. The research investigates the geographical, lexical, grammatical, and phonological characteristics of Caspian and Tati, two North Western Iranian (NWI) language families, which are spoken in the south and west of the Caspian sea region. In addition to these two groups, Stilo introduces a new group called ‘Tatoids’, which includes Rudbari and Taleqani. According to Stilo, this special status for this recent type is that these two varieties were originally Tatic which, under the intense influences of Caspian and Persian, have lost all their Tatic grammatical structures. New findings of this research are the introduction of Tatoid language group and the determination of the linguistic isoglosses of Tatic and Caspian language groups which are located almost on the geographical borders among Iran and its northern neighbors.