Translation Norms: An Investigation into the Reflection of Holy Defense in the News (A Case Study: Ettelaat and Tehran Times Newspapers)

After the triumph of Islamic Revolution in Iran, the most significant historical event was the eight-year period of imposed war of Iraq against Iran known as Holy Defense which contained many translations; investigation into these translations would open new insights for better understanding of that period and its effects on the present era. Among all, the study of translations of political news would be of great benefit for the reflection of war news and the situation of the society. The purpose of this study is to scrutinize the influence of norms on translating Holy Defense newspapers. A number of political news from Persian Ettelaat newspaper are analyzed parallel with their English translations based on Toury’s theory of norms of translation behavior. The research method is descriptive based on a comparative analysis of ST-TT pairs to identify recurrent patterns and regularities for reconstructing norms. The results reveal how norms govern translation process. Moreover, they clarify the ideology overriding translations in Holy Defense era.