فصلنامه مطالعات زبان و ترجمه
سال چهل و هفتم شماره 2 (تابستان 1393)

Language is a system by which all sorts of thoughts and concepts are transmitted and exchanged. On the other hand، translation performs like a tool which eases this exchange of information and makes it interculturally possible. Yet، the translation of cultural terms and concepts has always been a tricky area of translation practice، and for which numerous translation strategies have been proposed. Newmark has also contributed to this area of translation and suggested many strategies and even classifications. Newmark divides cultural terms and concepts into five categories which assumingly should apply for almost all cultural terms. Through a quantitative and qualitative study we attempted to investigate the application of Newmark''s Cultural Categories on Persian cultural terms and concepts. To fulfill this aim، three short stories by Jalal- Ale- Ahmad (which were enriched with cultural terms and concepts) were selected as the corpus of the present study. At the end، based on the extracted and later analyzed data، the five categories although quite handy، did not apply on all Persian cultural terms and concepts. Eventually، three categories were suggested to compensate the Newmark''s model.

Nima Youshij، the founder of modern Persian poetry، composed several poems challenging conventional Persian meters، forms and contents. He manipulated rhyme، rhythm، and length of a verse. Similarly، Walt Whitman، the father of free verse in American literature، published Leaves of Grass to challenge conventional forms and contents of poetry. They both showed resistance and questioned dominant literary discourses of their time in order to make their voices heard. This can be interpreted from the point of view of Cultural Materialism. Allan Sinfield، a notable figure amongst cultural materialists، suggests dissident reading of texts and talks over faultlines in texts that challenge dominant discourses. This study argues that the difference between the poet’s voice and the ruling literary discourse of the era depicts faultlines in such a discourse and thus challenges it.

Considering the reciprocal relationship between culture and language and the fact that culture finds its reflection in the language people employ، we can understand the society’s world-view through culturology of language. Hence، the current research is about to dissect and analyze the speech act of cursing in Persian and English languages. To this end، 200 movies (100 English movies and 100 Persian movies) were watched، cursing phrases were transcribed، and then scrutinized. The collected data was analyzed based on Hymes’ (1967) model of SPEAKING. The findings of this study revealed that Iranians utter curses to express anger، whereas English people mouth swear words on the same occasions. Furthermore، based on the obtained results، it was found out that females employ curses more frequently than males do. In the end، people’s intentions of cursing were examined and categorized into ten groups.

In discussing the notion of style، whether in literary or linguistic studies، we are in fact referring to the author''s language habits. That is why we can assign each writer a particular style and call that style in the name of its author، for example، Shakespearian، Joycean، or Woolfian style. Given that modality and the repetitive use of modal verbs and adverbs is a determinant factor for the fictional universe represented by Virginia Woolf’s The Waves، this study aims to examine what the Persian translators do with these terms and whether their choices contribute to a change in the fictional universe represented in the texts and change the ‘feel’ of the text. To this end Virginia Woolf’s The Waves and its two Persian translations، one by Daryoush (1977) خيزابها and the other by Najafipour (1990) امواج، are selected and Bosseaux’s model (2004)، based on Simpson’s model of a grammar of modality (1997) is chosen to see how the translators handle certain modals. The results showed that modality، i. e. the personal obligations، negative shading، possibilities، capacities and abilities of the focalizing characters are less emphasized in the translations than in the original but Daryoush translates them more systematically than Najafipour.

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 hierarchical، anarchic، and external styles and metacognitive awareness. However، results manifested no significant relationship between 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 external style was positively and significantly correlated with the other component of metacognition called regulation of cognition.

Gender is still one distinction in our society as well as textbooks، which is the core of materials in second/foreignlanguage learning/teaching. Gender bias and inequality can exert particular ideologies on learners and negatively affect their views about language learning. This study is an attempt to investigate gender representation in American English File، commonly taught at advanced levels in some language laboratories and schools in Iran. To this end، a content analysis was done on the texts and pictures in terms of the order of gender presentation in a phrase، the type of occupations for each gender، the references to famous male and female characters in the textbook. Theresults from the quantitative and qualitative analysis showed that there was not a balanced representation of females and males in this instructional textbook، though published in a western country، and female representation، to some extent، was based on the stereotypical and hegemonic gender roles and prejudices.