فصلنامه مطالعات زبان و ترجمه
سال پنجاه و یکم شماره 1 (بهار 1397)

Coleman Barks’ translations of Rumi’s works have played the largest role in Rumi’s popularity, especially among American public audience. Thus, it is very important to study how Rumi’s works are represented in the target language and culture. In this regard, the translator’s approach toward the universe of discourse of a literary work in relation to the universe of discourse of the target audience is an important factor in the representation and reception/rejection of that work in the target community. Therefore, the present research examines how the universe of discourse elements of the Masnavi’s poems are translated and how this has affected the poetic elements. The analysis of Barks’ translation of a poem from the first book of the Masnavi reveals that Barks has either omitted a great portion of universe of discourse elements of the original poem or removed them from their Quranic, Islamic and mystical context. In some cases, he has even changed the universe of discourse completely by conflating the poem with concepts of Taoism. Barks’ approach toward the universe of discourse elements has led to the omission of some poetic elements and the change of content of some others. Barks’ approach can be interpreted in terms of adapting the universe of discourse elements of the original poem to the New Age thinking and the spiritual needs of a wide range of American audience.

    In the present postmodern world, so many of the biased remarks heard about one nationality or another can be traced to a failure to appreciate the different conventions of politeness and courtesy in different societies; therefore, it can be referred to as an instance of cross-cultural pragmatic failure (Mirza Suzani & Armiun, 2011). Furthermore, while a set of underlying social and linguistic conventions are assumed to exist universally in all cultures, contrastive pragmatic analysis needs two kinds of categories to contrast: one linguistic and the other sociological (Mirza Suzani, 2006). In the same vein, despite the idea that the formulaic nature of compliments- their syntactic and lexical predictability- makes them attractive materials, probing compliments in translation can be a troublesome aspect for language learners from different cultural backgrounds (Mirza Suzani & Armiun, 2011). Hence, the study of the speech act of compliments in both source and target languages can be important because paying appropriate compliments and identifying them in each culture is an aspect of communicative competence which may differ in a variety of ways from one culture to another. Moreover, compliments are more often than not culture-specific and reflect fundamental values of the society and the accurate interpretation of illocutionary force of compliments involves knowledge of subtle cultural norms of both source and target languages. Having considered the above points, the present research aims to investigate speech act of compliments in Persian, English and French from a sociocultural perspective. In this regard, it is attempted to probe cross-cultural problems of communication in the three languages to assist readers to make a better understanding of underlying universal social and linguistic conventions in Persian, English and French cultures and hence bridge the gap between socio-pragmatics and translation.   To link socio-pragmatics and translation and as a matter of concern for both translators and other educators, the present study attempted to direct the readers' attention to cases in which the pragmatic force mapped by Persian native speakers onto a given utterance was systematically different from the force most frequently assigned to it by English and French native speakers of the target language. This study sought to delve into cases in which speech act strategies are inappropriately transferred from source language (SL) to target language (TL). For this purpose, in the current study, a variety of compliments on both greetings and social interactions in Persian, English, and French languages were used to check the perception of Persian, English and French native speakers. The appropriate implementation of compliments in different speech contexts and communities were probed and discussed as well. In this qualitative comparative research study, a corpus of 87 high frequency expressions of compliment performed in greetings (18) and social interactions (69) in the aforementioned languages were presented and content analyzed from a sociocultural perspective. Then, instances of cross-cultural (mis)match in each language were meticulously elucidated. The results of this study showed that in Persian the use of compliments is mostly less positive in comparison with those of English and French. Also, Persian speakers seem to be more reticent, indirect, ambiguous, lengthy and vague than English and French speakers. Besides, Persian speakers, unlike English and French speakers, tend to leave compliments somewhat hazy and they avoid assertive statements. Alternatively, compliments in French, as a socio-cultural norm, are not as philosophical and lengthy as they are in Persian, yet they are not as plain and straightforward as English ones either. English native speakers prefer direct responses more than Iranian and French speakers. One of the most indirect strategies employed by Iranians is “giving excuses, reasons, and explanations” for which English speakers show less preference. British speakers prefer another strategy which is “acceptance that functions as a refusal”. On the other hand, the French speakers tend to pick words which, compared to English language, belong to the formal language register. All these differences may bring about mismatch in the process of communication.
Additionally, languages differ in how they express politeness. In English, phrases like "I wonder if I could…."can be used to make a request politer; however, the French tend to pick words which, in English language, belong to the formal register. Also, as for compliments, what might be part of everyday French would sound majestic to English ears. The interjection “please” is one interesting example. Although it entered the English language in the 14th century via French and is used in polite requests and questions, the French equivalent is quite longer: “s’il vous plait” literally meaning “if it pleases you” which quickly reminds one of “if you please”, a phrase considered to be old-fashioned and formal in Modern English. There are many examples of words and formulaic phrases that the French speaking people use on a daily basis; these words and phrases that have well established themselves in Modern English are not usually of informal use. As a whole, a quick look at slang and formal expressions in English language would suffice to assert that the more formal a word or an expression, the more likely it is French.
As a whole, it can be said that while the differences between French and English compliments are mainly a matter of linguistic registers, Persian compliments are different from both in that they are carved deep in the Iranian culture in which courtesy is intertwined with indirectness and vagueness. In analyzing the causes of cross-cultural misunderstandings arising from complimenting behavior, the distinction between pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure can be a very useful one. Pragmalinguistic failure refers to a misunderstanding of the intended illocutionary or pragmatic force of an utterance, while sociopragmatic failure can be accounted for by inadequate knowledge of relevant cultural and social values and may occur when a speaker selects an inappropriate linguistic strategy to express a speech act in a particular context.
Analysis of the responses among the speakers of the languages in the present study showed that the tendency to leave the compliments somewhat vague in the English/French of Persian speakers seems to reflect Iranian socio-cultural norm. Besides, the choice of refusal strategies, in times, reflected the different characteristics of Persian speakers compared to the speakers of English and French. A reason for this characteristic can be that deeply-held culture values are not easily given up. Therefore, it has to be remembered that non-native speakers in the process of interpretation/translation are likely to engage in socio-cultural transfer in just those speech acts, like compliments, that involve delicate interpersonal negotiations.
The present research could be extended in two broader areas. One such area concerns compliments given in settings different from the ones studied here; the other area concerns the study of response tokens. The present study mostly looked at compliments in formal conversations in a limited scope. Further studies could investigate compliments in settings in which participants are on less familiar terms with each other in order to see whether compliments in these settings are formed in a similar fashion and serve similar or different interactional functions. Such settings would for example be service encounters or encounters in public places such as sport events, campuses, cinemas, etc. Similarly, the design and function of complimenting behavior in talk in institutional settings, such as at the workplace or in educational settings, can be of interest.
This study implies that Iranian EFL language educators and translators’ primary concern should be appropriately directed to cases in which the pragmatic force mapped by a Persian speaker onto a given utterance is systematically different from the force most frequently assigned to it by native speakers of the target language i.e. English or French, or when speech act strategies are inappropriately transferred from source language to target language. The best cases can be those drawn from the individuals’ personal experiences as they are learning/translating foreign texts. Therefore, Iranian English instructors and translators have to acquire a high level of pragmatic competence both in the source and in the target language. Having such a pragmatic competence can prove extremely valuable in the fields of translation studies and pragmalinguistics.

One of the ways through which the holy Quran attempts to convey various messages is repetition; this may hold true for a single word, a phrase, or a sentence. The holy Quran was revealed to the Prophet gradually during 23 years. Consequently, it was necessary for a number of phrases and anecdotes to be repeated in order to guide and nurture people. This demonstrates the fact that Quran is not merely a history book in which an event is described only once and then neglected for the rest of the book, but it is a book of education and humanization; as it is perfectly known that certain events ought to be repeated again and again, given the educational conditions, by looking at subjects through various dimensions and reaching conclusions in every direction. In other words, education sometimes requires reliance on an important matter for a number of times in order to induce a profound impact on the readers’ minds and orient the minds towards more subjects.
Of the highly repeated phrases in Quran, “بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم” has been mentioned over 114 times. It has been repeated 113 times at the beginning of 113 surahs, and once in “Naml” surah at the beginning of Solomon’s letter to Belcais. Given the similar appearance of this phrase throughout Quran, one may consider a same meaning and interpretation for the phrase; however, it can also be interpreted according to where it is used in Quran as well as its subsequent verses.

Following the analysis of the phrase in Quran in this study, 10 accessible translations of the phrase were examined using the descriptive-analytical method with reference to valid interpretations in order to identify the suitable translation. Ultimately, several recommendations were provided for the correct translation of the phrase.

In fact, “بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم” is a part of each surah and is in compliance with its contents. As each surah includes a theme different with others, “بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم” then conveys a different meaning in each of the surahs. Undoubtedly, the purpose of each surah is different from the others, and the purpose remains the same to the end of that surah. As a result, this phrase in each surah denotes the very single intention that is followed in such a surah. Taking into account the significance of the phrase as well as the fact that it contains the Almighty’s name, we should translate the Quran through proper means so as to convey its true meaning to the reader. In this study, 10 French translations of this phrase were analyzed. It was revealed that the translators had only transferred the formal meaning of the words and failed to transfer their true meanings. Consequently, it is essential to examine the meaning of the words in this phrase in order to provide a proper platform for a profound understanding of its true meaning, so that a suitable equivalent could be found in French.

Based on the results of the current study, the researchers have proposed the following recommendations for translating this phrase:Though the phrase consists of only four words, its translation to another language is considerably difficult; in this regard, none of the ten selected translators had been able to offer a correct translation and failed to correctly convey its meaning. These translators could have referred to interpretation books so as to decode such Quranic words and then attempted to transfer their meanings to French. This could have resulted in fewer mistakes in transferring Quranic notions, at least by specifying the semantic difference between the two adjectives, “raḥmān” and “raḥīm”. A sole fluency over Arabic and French is not a sufficient qualification for translation as the translators have to fully comprehend Quranic words and phrases prior to any attempt for translation; doing so requires translators’ complete familiarity with the Quranic language along with using Hadith and narratives in cases where the words are vague or ambiguous. In these ten translations of the phrase, “بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم”, it was observed that the translators had only paid attention to the formal meaning of the words, selecting equivalents that failed to transfer the true meaning of the verse. Subsequently, it would have been better if they had considered such words through a more scrupulous perspective, searching for their hidden meanings as well. Nonetheless, this requires a collective attempt for translation. A more suitable and uniform translation of the phrase could have been provided if there were unvarying, proper dictionaries in the area of translating Islamic texts, specially the holly Quran. The absence of such books has led to the emergence of various translations of a single phrase, as the majority of translators act according to their ideological orientations. Such ideological perspectives of translators could easily be identified through a closer look at their chosen equivalents. For instance, Chouraqui had attempted to use equivalent terms with Hebrew origins in order to translate the words of the phrase. As the Hebrew language belongs to the Jewish community, it can be inferred that he was unable to disregard his ideologies which had affected his selection of words.

The critique of translation in Iran, as a country where translation is a long tradition, focuses primarily on content of the text (Kamali, 2017, pp. 21-32). Thus, several questions, all based on the content of the text arise: Are the equivalents correct? Do they have the correct terminology and counterparts? Does the translator understand the meaning of some complex expressions? Is the translator successful in translating the author's style? In other words, the criticism of a translation becomes a means of assessing the linguistic knowledge of a translator. What we have just said is valid for translations done from all languages (Kamali, 2017, pp. 21-32). From a methodological point of view, the main tool we used in this article was the traductology. We can say that the critique of translations in Iran is usually confined to the verbal aspect. Contemporary research in the field of translation studies also concerns metalinguistics, that is, anything beyond language (Genette, 1987). Translation studies or traductology, as a new scientific approach, teaches us that translators’ activity is not limited to language translation, for the simple reason that translation is tinged with creativity. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone who speaks a second language is necessarily a good translator; one can very well master a foreign language without being able to translate from that second language. anguage conveys a culture and not just a linguistic message; we must keep it in mind that the translator translates the text, not the language. However, the book is not limited to a text that is exposed to the reader; the book is a compilation of text and everything around it, the title of the book, the cover design, the preface, the footnotes and descriptions of the text have a significant role in readers comprehension. The aforementioned elements, the paratext, are the ones that convert the text into a book. These are the elements that surround the text or, literally, those that lie on the margins of the text, those that accompany it, extend it, offer it and, finally, send the text to the market, so that the reader establishes a personal relationship with this whole that we call a book. Gérard Genette (1930-2018), French literary theorist and critic proposed new approaches and strategies for reading literary texts. In the 1980s, he developed other concepts in two of his key works, Palimpsestes (1982) and Seuils (1987) and chose the concept of paratext for literary tex , but he also reminded that his discussion on paratext is more of an introduction. After him, in 2004, a traductologist named José Yuste Frias spoke of the concept of paratext in translation and he introduced a new approach and called it paratranslation, to show that the reader also had to pass a threshold to enter the world of translated text. Therefore, paratranslation means the translation of the paratext from the source language to the target language (Frias, 2010: p. 67). We believe that the loyalty of the translator to the author's text, which is one of the main criteria for a good translation, is different in paratranslation. Since the submission of a translated book into the market requires the development of a paratext adapted to the target culture, the translator should not and cannot translate the original paratext as it was and would rather create a new paratext for the sake of book's better presentation and reception. In 2002, a translator named Michèle Brognetti published a number of short stories by Mahmoud Dolatabadi in France which introduced this author for the first time to French readers. Dolatabadi (1940) is a well-known writer in Iran and Iranian readers have followed the evolution of his writing over the years. Brognetti (1962) chose from a set of novels, those that seemed to be the representative of a certain image of the Iranian culture. This image conformed to what the media in the West had constructed of contemporary Iran, a country of cruelty, violence and barbarities. The significant changes made in the paratext of this new book have encouraged us to examine and analyze the magnitude and nature of these changes and, based on the ideas of Gérard Genette and José Yuste Frias (1972), see how these changes lead the new readers and inspire them with data that is not necessarily true, nor is it the same as the Persian reader’s conception of the original paratext. By studying paratextual elements that are translated, we will find that the representation of the translated paratext is in accordance with the mentality fixed by the target culture. We will see that these strategies reflect the attitude of the target culture towards the original culture.

In studying how teachers work, learn, and grow, there seems to be an expansive interest in teacher identity (e.g., Abednia, 2012; Alsup, 2006; Kayi-Aydar, 2015). The concept of situated, multiple, and dynamic identity forms a common feature across studies grounded in multiple theories (MacLure, 1993). One issue in language teacher education, particularly pertinent to the study of teacher identity, is teacher agency (Vongalis-Macrow, 2007). When individuals take on agentic positions, they have the capacity or willingness to act. Agency and positionings are therefore closely linked, one influencing the other (Kayi-Aydar, 2015).
However, the identities of novice teachers, especially possible differences among native and non-native ESL teachers, have not been adequately addressed. To our knowledge, little is known regarding their identity negotiation in relation to their educational context and English language learners, and how such negotiations influence their agency, interactions, and practices.
Thus, to better understand the identity construction of novice ESL teachers, this study, drawing on positioning theory (Davies & Harré, 1990) is investigating how novice native and non-native ESL teachers position themselves and are positioned by others in their oral and written narratives, and how their positioning interacts with their agency.
This study uses Positioning Theory (Davies & Harré, 1990) as what Glaser and Strauss (1967) call ‘substantive theory’. Substantive theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) has been defined as a strategic link in the formulation and generation of grounded formal theory. Glaser and Strauss (1967) believed that although formal theory can be generated directly from data, it is more desirable, and usually necessary, to start the formal theory from a substantive one. Positioning Theory (Davies & Harré, 1990) is an appropriate theoretical lens for capturing two crucial aspects of identity: its fragmentation and its ambivalence and that is why it was chosen as the theoretical framework for this study. This study is a qualitative case study by design. 10 novice ESL teachers, five native and five non-native (Iranian), participated in this study. All of them were teaching at a well-established private English language institute in Montreal, Québec (BLI). They all signed the consent form which ensured the confidentiality of the shared information and agreed to work closely with the researcher for a period of 4 months. They all held a Master’s degree in TESOL/TEFL from recognized institutions and their teaching experience ranged between 6 month and three years. Participants were a mix of 10 male and female teachers aged between 25 and 30 years old. The data for this study consisted of interviews, journal entries, observations and researcher’s reflective memos.   All the transcribed interviews, journal entries, field notes and reflective memos were transferred to a qualitative analysis software called ‘Dedoose’ (version 4.12). Subsequently, data reading and analysis began. In order to answer the research questions, the data were coded in two different subsets of native ESL and non-native ESL teachers. In the open coding procedure, data were examined closely and carefully by the researchers. 258 initial codes eventually emerged from the recursive and line-by-line readings and were then compared to establish their descriptive content and to confirm that they were faithfully grounded in the data. Multiple readings of data and multiple reviews of the codes helped to group the initial codes and categorize them under the 6 headings of the interview (background, self-image, sled-efficiency, job motivation, future perspective and emotional aspect).
After the open coding, in the second phase or the axial coding, data were put back together in new ways by making connections between a category and its subcategories while elevating the level of conceptual analysis. Four major categories were identified for each group and each major category was further divided into three subcategories. Major categories for native ESL teachers were: 1) minimal professional support, 2) reaching stability in seeing self as a teacher, 3) robust agency, and 4) long-term goals. Major categories for Iranian ESL teachers were: 1) inadequate but growing confidence, 2) struggling in creating professional ties, 3) deficient agency and 4) short-term goals.
In the last phase categories were integrated to form a grounded theory. The representation of teacher agency was always the core theme around which all the other explanations and descriptions were organized in both oral and written narratives of participants. Hence, it was logical to choose teacher agency as the core category in each group as it was easier to create the story line with the core category in place.   The results of this study were consistent with those of Beijaards, Verloop, & Vermunt (2000) in which three types of knowledge that may influence teachers’ identity were identified as: subject matter, pedagogical knowledge and didactical knowledge. In the case of non-native ESL teachers it was observed that their perceived lack of knowledge influenced their confidence and consequently negatively affected their agency. Other studies have shown that professional agency is salient in the process of professional identity negotiation, change and continuity (e.g., Vähäsantanen, 2015). This is exactly in line with the results of our analysis. Agency or lack thereof was a prominent theme in the data derived across different sources and that was why it was chosen as the core category in the last phase of the analysis.
Kostogriz and Peeler (2007) have shown that adapting to a new professional community may result in the renegotiation of professional identity. This was also the case for our non-native ESL teachers. One of the main categories of identity in Iranian ESL teachers was identified as struggles in creating professional ties with native colleagues. Moussu and Liurda (2008) have stated that it is critical to recognize the importance of a speaker’s acceptance by a community as one of its members, as it is what will ultimately be determining the social recognition of the non-native speakers’ identity. Not being accepted and recognized by native teachers as an equal member of the community made the integration process into the new professional environment harder for Iranian teachers in this study.