A Comparative Analysis of Two Translations of The Play Dirty Hands Based on Antoine Berman’s Theory of Deforming Tendencies

A Comparative Analysis of Two Translations of The Play Dirty Hands Based on Antoine Berman’s Theory of Deforming TendenciesDrama has been one of the most important subcategories in the field of literary and this genre presents a special case because play translation is different from other types of translation in that it involves paying attention to both verbal and non-verbal aspects of the texts in their translations. Antoine Berman (1942-1991), a prominent theorist in the field of Translation Studies, claims that translators are prone to 13 deforming tendencies in the process of translation, particularly in literary translation, which results in textual deformation. The present descriptive-analytical research aims at analyzing two translations of the first act of the play Dirty Hands by Jalal Al-e-Ahmad and Qasem Son’avi, employing Berman’s deformation theory. In translation assessment two factors are of significance: conveying the meaning and conveying the mood. The mere fluency in source and target language and a touch of literary creativity will not result in a translation of high quality. In this case, both of the translators have conveyed the meaning successfully. However, Jalal Al-e-Ahmad seems to be successful in capturing the mood and establishing hypertextual relations, thus; the context of the original was also translated successfully. In the present research, we will try to introduce the theory of deforming tendencies, criticize the translation of Dirty Hands, and analysis the extent of its applicability on the stage.