Cultural products, particularly films, are considered tools for exporting and diffusing the culture of one society to another. Films selected for international festivals are a case in point. However, subtitling such films for an audience of other languages is a demanding task. This challenge may negatively impact the films' qualification, although they may technically and aesthetically be evaluated and ranked on top. The attraction of the films screened depends largely on how successfully certain features of the films, such as cultural references, including the lexical gaps, are treated in English subtitling. The present study aimed to study the lexical gaps in several Iranian films screened at international festivals. To identify lexical gaps between Persian and English, as the international and common language of subtitling for international film festivals, Darwish’s (2010) taxonomy of lexical gaps is used, and to explore how they were handled in the English subtitles, Pederson’s (2011) source-oriented, target-oriented, and neither-source-nor-target oriented subtitling strategies were employed. The results revealed that cultural substitution and generalization (paraphrasing) were two target-oriented strategies more frequently used in subtitling the lexical gaps and cultural terms.
For training translators in academic settings, the notion of translation bilingual sub-competence is fundamental. However, little research has addressed the practical methods for developing the trainees’ translation bilingual sub-competence. The present study investigated the impact of Group Dynamic Assessment on trainees’ translation bilingual sub-competence development and the ways it helps them develop their bilingual sub-competence. Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development and PACTE translation competence model served as the theoretical framework for the study. Methodologically, a mixed-methods study was designed. For the quantitative phase, a semi-experimental method, and for the qualitative phase, interviews were administered. The results confirmed that implementing a Group Dynamic Assessment developed the trainees’ translation bilingual sub-competence. The findings of the study can be used in professional development and in-service courses for the academic staff and could pave the way for further empirical research in translation pedagogy.
Despite the popularity of comics, the subject of their translation has remained notably underexplored. Comics swept into the market of Iran in the 1970s; however, they were a new and unfamiliar genre in the country. One of the earliest comic series to appear in Iran was Les Aventures de Tintin, translated by Khosro Sami’i and published by Universal Publications before the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979. Following the Revolution, Universal discontinued the series in Iran and other publishers briefly took it up; after a few years, publication of the books was discontinued. It was not until 2000 that the series was re-introduced by Tarikh-o Farhang and Andishe-ye No Publications. Moreover, as a result of the ubiquitous availability of comic books on the Internet, scanlations made by Tintinophiles have burgeoned recently. This study examines the translations into Persian of Les Aventures de Tintin from these three groups (the early editions of the 1970s and 1980s, the revived publications of 2000, and the Internet scanlations) and attempts to shed light on the position of comics in the translated polysystem of Iran. For this purpose, Even-Zohar’s Polysystem theory (“Polysystem Studies” 9-26) and Tamaki’s approach (119-146) are employed. The synthetic model of translation description proposed by Lambert and Van Gorp (42-53) is used to examine the translations in three layers: 1) preliminary data, 2) macro-level, and 3) micro-level. Onomatopoeic representations are analysed at the micro-level to investigate the extent to which their translations have broken target culture norms and conventions. The results of the study reveal a gap for comics, an empty niche to be filled, in the translated polysystem of Iran and, accordingly, a canonized position for this genre and its translations. This position, however, has migrated to a less central place in more recent translations.
Translation scholars have been applying the Gricean maxims as analytical tools to handle pragmatic issues in translation. Not always this genuine application is successful regarding that the maxims are culture-bound in nature and may not have the same utility in a different culture and/or in translation. Rarely any attempts have been done to adjust these maxims to the needs of translation. The present article, while does not intend to criticize the basic applicability of the maxims in translation, aims at reformulating them, within a framework of faithfulness, to be more flexible and responsive to the needs of translation. To illustrate this and evaluate the maxims, examples are analyzed and re-analyzed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.