Analysis of Novel Title: A Case Study of Agatha Christie’s Works Translated from English into Persian

It goes without saying that the title of a book has always played a seminal role in its sale, as the first factor that draws the attention of potential readers is the title. This research aims to analyze 70 book titles by Agatha Christie that have been translated into Persian based on Vinay and Darbelnet’s model (1994, 2004). After reviewing the selected titles from Agatha Christie's novels, it was revealed that the most common procedure used by translators is the literal translation, adopted in the case of 35 titles and 50% of data. Modulation with 18 titles and 26% of the data holds the second rank. Equivalence and transposition, each with 5 titles and 7% of the data, took the third and fourth ranks. Next, adaptation and calque were used equally in the case of 3 titles comprising 4% of the total data. The least common translation process used by the translators to render the titles was “borrowing”, with only one title translated in this way which made up 2% of the cases. This study would raise the awareness of the translators to choose more communicative and creative titles for literary translation tasks at hand, including novels and other literary works.