2

Islamic Azad University Science and Research Branch

Language and Literature Faculty

A thesis submitted to the school of Graduate Studies as a

prerequisite in partial of Master of Arts in Translation Studies (M.A.)

Naturalness in Translation

Advisor:

Dr. Hossein Vossoughi

Reader:

Dr. Ahmad Sedighi

Researcher:

Shahrzad Akbari Haddad

1389-90

5

List of Figures

Figure ‎4.1 Percent range of shifts in Najafi‘s translation ..................................83

Figure ‎4.2 Percent range of shifts in Karimi‘s translation .................................83

Figure ‎4.3 Percent range of shifts in Ansari Yazdanjoo‘s translation ...............85

Figure ‎4.4 Percent range of shifts in Ansari Far‘s translation ...........................85

Figure ‎4.5 Correlation coefficients of shift types for various translation titles .89

Figure ‎4.6 Cross correlation between title 1 and title 2 .....................................92

Figure ‎4.7 Cross correlation between title 3 and title 4 .....................................93

Figure ‎4.8 Shift percentage for natural texts ......................................................94

Figure ‎4.9 Shift percentage for unnatural texts ..................................................94

Table of Contents

Dedication ..................................................................................................... III

Acknowledgment .......................................................................................... IV

List of Figures ................................................................................................. V

Abstract ............................................................................................................ 1

Chapter I: Introduction ................................................................................10

1.1 Statement of the Problem and the Purpose of the Study ......................12

1.2 Significance of the Study ......................................................................13

1.3 Research Question .................................................................................13

1.4 Theoretical Framework .........................................................................14

1.5 Definition of Key Terms .......................................................................14

1.6 Limitations of Study ..............................................................................15

Chapter II: Review of the Related Literature ............................................17

2.1 Translation and Translation Studies ......................................................18

2.2 Historical View of Translation ..............................................................20

2.3 Translation Theory ................................................................................24

2.4 Norms and Strategies ............................................................................30

2.5 Naturalness ............................................................................................35

2.6 Translation shifts ...................................................................................54

Chapter III: Methodology ............................................................................67

3.1 Corpus .......................................................................................................68

3.1.1 Size of the Corpus ..............................................................................69

3.2 Design of the Research .........................................................................69

3.3 Procedure ...............................................................................................70

3.4 Unit of Analysis ....................................................................................71

3.5 Data Recording......................................................................................73

3.6 Data Collection......................................................................................73

Chapter IV: Results and Discussions ..........................................................80

4.1 Data Processing .....................................................................................81

4.2 Findings and results ..............................................................................89

4.3 Discussion on Findings .........................................................................93

Chapter V: Conclusion and Implication .....................................................98

5.1 Restatement of the Problem ................................................................100

5.2 Conclusion...........................................................................................100

5.3 Implications .........................................................................................102

5.4 Suggestions for Further Research .......................................................103

REFERENCES ............................................................................................104

Appendix I: Results of Subjective Test .....................................................110

Appendix II: List of Sample Sentences and Shifts ...................................111

Appendix III: Questionnaire ......................................................................132

9

Abstract

Naturalness is one of the controversial concepts in translation. Translated texts

belong to different cultures, therefore they contain culture specific items which are

the difficulty of translation if they are to be understood and realized by the reader.

This study concerns with the linguistic elements of languages that are different in

expression because of cultural gaps between nations. This research studies the role

of shifts in the process of natural translation. Subjective tests are designed for two

translations of two sample English novels. Readers‘ opinions on quality of

naturalness are collected to provide the conceptual foundation for the research. The

achieved results were analyzed according to a statistical evaluation to find a

correlation between naturalness of the translations, and quality and quantity of the

shifts. Cross correlation between two natural and unnatural texts is 66 percent

which is the highest value of all calculated correlations. It reveals that these two

natural texts use almost identical shift types. Various criteria for verification and

validation of the results are performed, and they show the value of correlation is

the least and equal to 18 percent for natural and unnatural translations. The results

also show that the most frequent shifts for natural translations are ―Transposition,‖

―Equivalence,‖ and ―Modulation.‖

104

REFERENCES

A: List of English References

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University Press

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Summer Institute of Linguistics

Bassnett, S. and Lefevere, A. (1988), ―The Translation Turn in Cultural Studies‖, In

Constructing Cultures: Essays on Literary Translation, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters

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Caford, J. C. (1965), “Translation Shifts‖, in Venuti L., (ed.), Translation Studies Reader,

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Chesterman, A. (1997) Mems of Translations, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John

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105

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106

Malakoff, M. and Hakuta, K. (1991), ―Translation skill and metalinguistic awareness‖, in

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107

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108

Van Leuven-Zwart, K. M. (1988), ―Translation and Intercultural Studies: Selected Papers of

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109

ب: فشست مىاتغ فاسسی

(، یؽ لك آال ؼـ آفیىب. سفا: ف ز4881یكؼاد، دیب )

(، یؽ لك آال ؼـ آفیىب. سفا: ف ی4881ابـی فف، یبـ )

(، بسـ ؼز. سفا: یال4888دفی، طؽ. )

(، بعـ ؼز. سفا: لمن4884وفیی، اضؽ، )

138

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