Neologisms in Two Persian Translations of ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ Based on Newmark’s Model

Languages are widening every day and new words and structures are born when they are needed. The objective of this study is to survey the strategies that are used in the translation of neologisms in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and to see if there is a significant difference between the strategies used by Persian translators in the novel Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and to find the most and the least strategies adopted by the Persian translators. To address the objectives of the present study, the researcher selected two Persian translations of the novel. To identify the neologisms used in the texts, the source text along with its translations was cross-analyzed sentence-by-sentence. Afterwards, on the basis of Newmark's definitions and classifications of neologisms, the neologisms were identified. The strategies which were used in the translation of various types of neologisms were also investigated. Data analysis involved quantitative analysis. It was concluded that the most frequent strategy used by translator Vida Eslamieh was through-translation and the least frequent strategy was modulation. In Shahnaz Majidi's translation, the most frequent strategy was through-translation. The least frequent strategies were modulation and descriptive terms. According to the results of the chi-square test, there was no significant difference among the strategies used by two Persian translators in translation of neologisms. The results of this study can be useful for translators and students to become aware of the strategies used in English to Persian translations of the neologisms.