فصلنامه مطالعات زبان و ترجمه
سال چهل و پنجم شماره 1 (بهار 1391)

The aim of the present study is to explore manipulation in the subtitled version of ‘The Fitna’ movie released in Western mass media. To accomplish this, the film was analyzed to see how visual semiotics was applied to represent the stereotypical implications in Islam to Western audience. To define manipulation, this study drew on van Dijk's cognitive approach to manipulation in the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) which maintains that manipulating people involves manipulating their minds, that is, people's beliefs, such as their knowledge, opinions and ideologies which, in turn, control their actions. Following the CDA approach, it is hypothesized that among the manipulative techniques available to translators, Re/De-contextualization has been widely applied to form a "preferred mental model" for Western audience through which Islam is perceived negatively in English. The results show that five translated texts of the Quran have been used in the film. The Analysis of translated texts based on hypothetical model of translational manipulation in developing news stories showed that the translated texts have been re-contextualized, spreading stereotype by constructing a new mental model.

This paper aims to make a quantitative comparison between translated and national novels within polysystem theoretical framework. Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory attempts to position translated and non-translated texts in literary polysystem. This article concludes that, regarding the number of publications, translated novels occupy the centre of Iran’s literary system. Using Even-Zohar’s concepts, the writers believe that Iran’s literary polysystem is experiencing a “continued crisis” which dates back to many years ago.

In translation history, adaptation is one of the concepts that has attracted the attention of many scholars. Although there is no unanimous definition for the meaning of adaptation, and theorists have defined it variously, this term has been frequently used as part of the title of numerous books. Among those in favor of this concept, Mattew Arnold, an English poet and literary critic, chose this method for the translation of Rustam and Suhrab. Even though he had a meager knowledge of Persian language, his interest in the story of Rustam and Suhrab contributed to an acceptable rendition into English which was well received by a vast readership. The purpose of this research is investigation and justification of the domesticating approach adopted by Arnold in his English rendition of Rustam and Suhrab. The analysis of domestication examples in terms of the size, character relationships, the unity of time and place, among others indicate that Arnold’s mediations and appropriations in Sohrab and Rustam were due to the effect of the dominant Victorian socio-cultural requirements of the time.

The emergence of any literary work by famous writers like Lev Tolstoy, Theodor Dostoyevsky and Anton Chekov in the 19th century, the culmination of Russian literature and criticism, provoked various reactions and viewpoints. "The Student" was not an exception in this regard, so after its appearance various viewpoints were presented concerning that story. This article first considers the opinions of experts, writers and critics about the story, and then explains the methods Chekov applied to express his ideas and religious opinions. Afterwards, we refer to the key role of nature in description of the spiritual moods of the hero of the story and his spiritual change. Getting help from the subject of Jesus Christ's story, nature and historical tools like time and place have proved that the events that happened more than 19 centuries ago are still taking place at present, and no unpleasant event in social, political and historical life of human beings throughout their life can prevent them from achieving divine knowledge.

Throughout the recent decades, within the realm of educational psychology, learners’ thinking styles and metacognitive awareness as influential factors on learning and thinking have received considerable attention. The present study explored the relationship between thinking styles and metacognitive awareness of Iranian EFL university students majoring in English Literature, English Translation, and English Language Teaching. In addition, the study pursued whether thinking styles could act as the predictors of metacognition. Thinking Styles Inventory (TSI) and Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) were administered to 100 Iranian senior undergraduate EFL students at the University of Sistan and Baluchestan and Islamic Azad University of Zahedan. The reliability of TSI and MAI was confirmed, and the analysis of data through Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient indicated that functions and levels of thinking styles were positively correlated with metacognitive awareness. Moreover, positive and significant correlations were found between the hierarchical, anarchic, and external styles and metacognitive awareness. However, results manifested no significant relationship between the monarchic, oligarchic, and conservative styles and metacognitive awareness. The analysis of data also showed positive and significant relationship between the two scopes of thinking styles, namely internal and external, and knowledge of cognition as one of the components of metacognition, whereas merely the external style was positively and significantly correlated with the other component of metacognition called regulation of cognition. Furthermore, regression analysis suggested that the executive, hierarchical, and conservative styles could predict metacognition.

Language is as much a means to express ideas and establish communication as it is a means to hinder the dissemination of certain ideas, thoughts and ideologies. An example of this function of language is taboos. Rooted in the worldview and beliefs of different nations toward specific categories, the rendering of taboos can pose a plethora of linguistic and cultural problems. Since cinematic products constitute a major channel for transfer of culture-bound elements, including taboos, the translation of these items in the form of subtitles and dubbing is of paramount importance. However, this research area has not been adequately addressed in literature. This study seeks to explore the strategies of translators in rendering of taboos in dubbing of English movies to Persian through a descriptive approach. For this purpose, the Persian dubbing of three contemporary English movies was selected and after comparison with the original version, the translation strategies used in translation of taboos were investigated according to Sharifi’s categorization of taboos. The results of the study suggest that direct translation of taboos and compensation were the most common strategies in translation of swear words while with regard to other types of taboos, manipulation and the use of non-taboo equivalents were the preferred strategies. The extent of application of these strategies, however, varied in IRIB and private dubbing institutions, with the latter showing a tendency toward using indirect, watered-down strategies in translation of western taboos into Persian.