Strategies From

A newer strategy ‘insertion strategy’ in translation of Persian texts

A newer strategy ‘insertion strategy’ in translation of Persian texts

 

Introduction

    Translators use different strategies to solve translation problems. The application of these strategies depends on the type of sentence in different texts and taste of translators. Although some of the strategies are recognized in the field of translation studies, by comparing and contrasting source text with their translated equivalents the researcher intends to present a newer strategy in this discipline.

 

    Contrastive analysis of source text structures with their translated equivalents helps us recognize the strategies better. By comparing and contrasting different types of shifts as well as formal equivalences of ST sentence structures with their Persian counterparts, we may be able to detect the strategies employed in the translation. If the frequency of the strategies is high, they may be considered as a norm. In this regard, Yarmohammadi (2002, p. 20) says, “Applied contrastive analysis aims at making use of theoretical contrastive analysis for some specific purposes, of which language pedagogy and translation.”

     Strategies are thinking procedures used in reaching a goal in translation. These conscious and unconscious strategies are used by translators. As it is posed by Brown (2000, p. 122), strategies are those specific ‘attacks’ that we make on a given problem. They are actually moment-by-moment techniques that translators employ to solve ‘problems’ posed in translation process.

     The researchers or linguists who consider translation studies as a discipline can change these unconscious and conscious thinking procedures into better and conscious techniques to be used globally. Toury’s second view as cited in Dehbashi Sharif (2005, p.33) can be a fundamental method in translation. Toury believes that researchers can compare the ST and TT for shifts to identify relationships between ‘coupled pairs’ of ST and TT sentences.

     Most of the target text structures are ‘formally‘ equivalent with their source structures. Formal equivalence (Hatim & Munday, 2004, p.40) or ‘Structural correspondence’ is a relationship which involves the purely ‘formal’ replacement of one word or phrase in the SL by another in the TL. For instance, the following sentences are formally equivalent since clauses are translated in the same place.

 E: Uncle John said, “We’ve never been paupers before.”   (شريعتي1386 ص 1 )

 P: .عموجان گفت: قبلا هرگز فقير نبوده ايم

  Reduction strategy is mostly used when translator deletes a constituent from the source text. For example, to translate the following sentence better, the translator has deleted “it/to be” in the Persian counterpart which is generally a common practice among the translators and he has used ‘نكته اي’ as the subject of the Persian sentence. In fact he has thematized the predicate and used ‘reduction strategy’.

E: It is a point that must be settled, comrades, he said.  (امير شاهي 1389ص12)

P: . اوگفت رفقا در اينجا نكته اي است كه بايد روشن شود

   “This strategy happens when a source [removed]AB) is partially mapped onto a target counterpart (A) and partially omitted from translation.” (Malone, 1988, p. 17)

  Another strategy which is used in translation of Persian sentences is called ‘reordering strategy’. If you have a look at the translation of following sentence, you can see that this translator has shifted the position of subordinate clause to the beginning of the sentence in Persian. It can be said that he has applied reordering strategy (Malone 1988, p.18) or ‘word order shift’ (Munday, 2001, p. 68).

E: Let me know when he returns. (Mollanazar, 2007, p.93)

P: .وقتي برگشت به من اطلاع بده

   But it is not a permanent rule. If we have a look at the following case, we can see that the translator has not used the ‘reordering strategy’.

 E: We can find out where work is. (شريعتي 1386 ص121)

 P: . مي توانيم بفهميم كجا كار است 

    Reordering (Rrd) involves a difference in positioning between source and target element; AB→BA. (Malone 1988, p.18)

    Substitution strategy is used when a translator substitutes a constituent instead of the other one. For example a passive voice is shifted to an active one. In this regard Malone (1986, p.20) says this strategy is used when something substitutes instead of something else; A→S.

    For example, in the following English sentence we see a ‘definite article’ before the relative pronoun, but it is substituted with an indefinite marker or suffix added to the antecedent in the Persian equivalent. Therefore the translator has used a ’substitution strategy’ by adding ‘ي’ in the following sentences.

E: We went back to the cellar of the house where he lived. (صفارزاده 1388 ص 126 )

P: . با هم به اتاقك خانه اي كه او در آن زندگي مي كرد بازگشتيم

    Diffusion and condensation strategies are two opposite strategies that are highly used in translation process. If we run across any ‘loss’ or ‘gain’ of ideas, it is possible to declare that translator has made use of these two strategies. As it was pointed out earlier loss of ideas is because of deletion shift which will lead to reduction or ‘condensation strategy’ and gain of ideas is because of expansion shift which result in ‘diffusion strategy’.

     Diffusion is a trajection whereby a source group AB, in any of a variety of ways, unpacked or spread out into a more loosely organized target counterpart, a situation to symbolized AB→A│B. ( Malone,1986, p.18)

    Condensation strategy, whereby a source string is, again in any variety of ways, more tightly bound together in the target; A│B→AB.  (Malone, 1986, p.18)

    A closer look at the following explanations will show these two strategies better.                               

    As it is cited in (Vossoughi, 2009, p.70) all the relative clauses are directly used after their antecedents, whereas this is not the case in Persian. The relative clauses can be connected or disconnected with some interval or intermediation, depending on the Persian natural context. In other words, when the Persian adjective clause is disconnected, we can say that the translator has used a disconnection shift which leads to the ‘diffusion‘ strategy. You can see connected and disconnected relative clause in the following example.

E: The only thing that was left for them was the lamp, which I had given them.

 (قايد شرفي 1385 ص 146)

P: . تنها چيزي كه برايشان از آن خانه باقي مانده بود همان فانوسي بود كه من به آنها داده بودم

    The following example shows that a ‘condensation‘ strategy has been applied in the translation of the following example since the relative pronoun has been omitted and the clause after it is changed into a phrase ‘ دور از دسترس ’.

E: She was seen one day sitting on a roof and talking to some sparrows who were just out of her reach.(امير شاهي 1389 ص 33)

P: . يك روز دوستان ديدند كه بر بام نشسته و با گنجشگهاي دور از دسترس حرف مي زند

    Concerning the equation strategy, (Malone, 1988, p.16) states that ‘equation strategy’ obtains when an element of the source text (A) is rendered by a target element deemed the most straightforward counterpart available (E); schematically A→E.

    For instance, to connect the clauses in a Persian sentence, translators mostly add ‘كه’. However, this is a general and optional rule or “norm” for most of the ‘indirect reported sentences’ in English and Persian. That is to say this word is generally used in both languages. Since there exist “كه” and “that” in both English and Persian equally, it is considered as ‘equation strategy’ in translation science.

   In addition, changing all the English relative pronouns to ‘كه’ can be considered as ‘modulation’ strategy. Vinay and Darbelnet (cited in Munday, 2001, p. 57) propose that modulation is a kind of shift within which the semantics and point of view of a category changes. That is, each of the relative pronouns has some specific features but all these features are changed into the Persian neutral relative pronoun ‘كه’. For example, ‘who’ and ‘whom’ have features such as (+ animate, + subject) and ( + animate, + object) respectively, whereas all these features are condensed or changed into just one isomorphic term called ‘كه’.

   Another strategy is ‘transposition‘. Vinay and Darbelnet (cited in Munday 2001, p.57) state that transposition means the changing of part of speech without changing the sense. And they also see transposition as probably the most common structural change undertaken by translators.

    A close look at the following example depicts that ‘متوجه چبزي شد’ is a main clause in Persian, whereas “What he saw…” is a subordinate one in English. The subjective noun clause of the English sentence is changed into the main clause of the Persian sentence. Because of this ‘rank shift’ which the translator has applied, the general meaning of the sentence is not changed.

 English: What he saw seemed to make him afraid. (Vossoughi, 2009, p.74)

 Persian: . متوجه چبزي شد كه وي را متوحش ساخت

     ‘Intrasystem strategy’ is used when something changes to a different type of its own. For instance ‘كه’ and the ‘English relative pronouns’ all have the same function within the relative clauses. In other words, the Persian relative pronoun can be translated for all the English relative pronouns. The following example shows that the translator has used ‘كه’ instead of ‘where’.

 E: We went back to the cellar of the house where he lived. (صفارزاده 1388 ص 126 )

 P: . با هم به اتاقك خانه اي كه او در آن زندگي مي كرد بازگشتيم

    The last strategy which is coined by the researcher is called ‘insertion strategy’. Here translators just insert the subordinate clause within the main clause when translating the English sentence into Persian one. Translators prefer this shift since it is more natural and eloquent to insert the subordinate clause in the main clause than translate it formally. The following examples clarify the point better.

E: We went back to the cellar of the house where he lived.  (صفارزاده 1388 ص 126 )

P: .با هم به اتاقك خانه اي كه او در آن زندگي مي كرد بازگشتيم

 E: The secretary did not leave until she had finished her work.  (Vossoughi, 2002, p.341)

 P:  . دفتردار تا زماني كه كارش را تمام نكرده بود به منزل نرفت        

 E: She is more intelligent than her brother is. (پازارگادي 1386 ص 92)

 P:  . او از برادر خود باهوش تر است   

 E: He came as quickly as he could. (پازارگادي 1386 ص 92)

 P: . او به حداكثر سرعتي كه برايش امكان داشت آمد       

 E: I am no so rich as you are. (پازارگادي 1386 ص 92)

 P: .من به اندازه شما متمول نيستم   

 E: It is capable of affording food in abundance to an enormously greater number of animals than now inhabit it. (صفارزاده 1388 ص32)

 P: .اين سرزمين قادر است كه غذاي فراوان بتعداد عظيم تري حيوان از آنچه كه اكنون در آن ساكن هستند عرضه نمايد                                                                                                       

 Conclusion

    All the strategies mentioned above can tell the researcher that translation is not always individual inclinations. If these strategies are tested on a number of different categories and sub-categories of different structures of languages, it may be possible to get to generalizations which might substantially be important for those who want to study translation objectively.

 References

                                                                                                                                انگليسي

 

Brown, D. (2000). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching 4th ed.

        San Francisco State University: Longman. 

Dehbashi Sharif, F. (2005). An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Translation

       English-Persian. Tehran: Zaban Ketab.  

 Hatim,  B. & Munday, J. (2004). Translation an advanced  

         Resource Book. New York: Routledge.

 Malone, J. L. (1988). The Science of Linguistics in the Art

         of Translation. New York: State university of New York Press.

 Mollanazar, H. (2007). Principles and Methodology

          of Translation. Tehran: Samt.

 Munday, J. (2001) Introducing Translation Studies.

        London and New York : Routledge.

 Vossoughi, H. (2009). A Descriptive Translation Study on Shifts,

         Strategies and Norms of English and Persian. Tehran:

          Rahnam.                                    

 Vossoughi, H. (2002). Index or Indicator of Translation for English 

          and Persian Languages. Tehran: The magazine

          of Humanities faculty of Tehran University. 

 Yarmohammadi, L. (2002). A contrastive Analysis of Persian and 

           English.Tehran: Payame Nooor University Press. 

                                                                                                                             

                  

فارسي

 

                                                                                         “امير شاهي ، امير (1389) ” قلعه حيوانات

                                                                                                                        .  تهران٬ فراين

 

                                                            . پازارگادي، علاﺀالدين (1386) “فن ترجمه انگليسي” تهران٬ امير كبير

 

                                                                               “شريعتي ٬ محمد صادق (1386) ” خوشه هاي خشم

                                                                                                                  .تهران٬ گويش نو

 

                                                      . صفارزاده ٬ طاهره (1388) “اصول و مباني ترجمه” تهران٬ پارس كتاب

 

                                                                                     “قائد شرفي ٬ مهوش (1385) ” سالوياي زيبا

                                                                                                                          .قم٬ نجابت

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the Author

I am Bagher Abshirini. I teach English in Bushehr Province in Iran. I am graduated from Shiraz University and Islamic Azad University Fars Science and Research Branch, Shiraz, Iran. My favorite fields  of study are Teaching and Translation. 

ba_ab43@yahoo.com

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