Assessment of Semantic Adequacy: English Translations of Persian Official Texts in Focus

Translation quality assessment is one of the growing fields of translation studies that focuses on the relationship between the source and target language. This relationship involves vocabulary, grammar, syntax and semantics in both languages. The semantic adequacy of the translation is one of the main concerns of experts in the field of translation. The present study was an attempt to evaluate the semantic adequacy of English translations of Persian official texts done at Iranian accredited translation offices. To this purpose, 90 Persian articles of association done at Iranian accredited offices (in the years 2012-2014), were selected and their quality was measured based on ATA (American Translation Association) framework which includes 22 errors types. Then, the related frequency chart and percentage diagram were devised based on the frequency of errors in each sample. Finally, the total percentage of errors which affects semantic adequacy was calculated. The results revealed that great effort should be made by   Iranian accredited offices translators to reduce the number of errors in the translations of official texts. Actually, it was disclosed that due to the importance of semantic adequacy in translating such texts, translators are in urgent need of continuously enhancing their knowledge of language and translation

Lexico-grammatical Analysis of Native and Non-native Abstracts Based on Halliday’s SFL Model

The present study attempts to qualitatively investigate lexico-grammatical properties of academic journal abstracts written by both native and non-native speakers in educational psychology, based on Halliday’s systemic functional linguistic (SFL) Model. To this end, 30 (15 native and 15 non-native) abstracts were selected and downloaded from two international journals as the corpus of the study. In order to determine lexico-grammatical features of both groups, the frequencies of three variables i.e. lexical density, adjuncts, and transitivity were compared and contrasted. The results showed that no significant difference was seen between native and non-native abstracts in terms of lexical density (59.72% and 59.91% respectively). Adjuncts were used more in the non-native abstracts than in native ones. Moreover, lexico-grammatical features of transitivity items (existential, verbal, behavioral, mental, material, and relational) in non-native abstracts were significantly more than the native ones. The findings of this study can be useful for EFL students as well as teachers to enhance the quality of their writings for presenting them in academic contexts and leading journals

Translation and Anxiety: A Study of Anxiety Effect on Translators’ Performance in Terms of Speed and Accuracy

Translation is a mental process needing sufficient concentration. Anxiety is mental too, but a mental disorder that makes mind busy and can lead to lack of concentration. Since translation requires concentration, the present study investigated the impact of anxiety on translation speed and accuracy. To this purpose, first a Michigan English Proficiency Test was given to one hundred M.A. students of translation to select the most proficient among them. Then, Beck Anxiety Inventory (Beck 1993) was administered to forty participants who were at the same level of language proficiency in order to determine the extent of their anxiety. The selected participants were then asked to translate ten paragraphs about anxiety to estimate their translation accuracy and speed. The analysis of their performance showed that anxiety affects translation accuracy insignificantly, but there is a significant difference between translation speeds of translators with different levels of anxiety

Translation of Binomials in Hard News: A Contrastive Study of English and Persian

This study was an attempt to appraise the naturalness of translated binomials in hard news and to recognize the most frequently-used translation strategies in this respect. To this purpose, the researchers used Vinay and Darbelnet’s (1958) categorization of strategies as the model of study. The obtained results showed that the most frequently-used strategies are respectively as follows: “Literal translation”, “Modulation”, “Transposition”, “Loan translation” (borrowing), and “Calque”. “Adaptation” was not used in this research by the participants. Also, males used “Literal translation” more than “Modulation” possibly because of their background knowledge and their interest in hard news, while females used “Modulation” more than “Literal translation” because of their psychological and emotional attitudes towards hard news. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n2s1p51

A Comparative Study of the Picture Of Dorian Gray and Its Two Persian Translations in Terms of Cohesive Devices

Having considered the importance of cohesion in producing a fluent and meaningful text, this study attempts, based on Halliday and Hassan (1976) 's model of cohesion, to compare the English text The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde, 1982) with its two Persian translations by Tahami (2013) and Mashayekhi (2008), to investigate the strategies applied by the two translators in transferring cohesive devices, and to scrutinize the effects of the translators’ choices on the transference of the intended meaning to the target language. To this purpose, the cohesive devices (reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion) of the source text were identified and compared with those in the target texts. These devices were compared intralingually between the two target texts as well. The results of this quantitative and descriptive study revealed that there is not a one-to-one relationship between the source text and target texts in terms of cohesive devices due to the grammatical differences between the two languages and the deletion or addition of some information to the target text to convey the meaning. However, such differences do not damage the transference of the intended meaning to the target language. Also, it was shown that the patterns of use of cohesive devices, except the substitution element, are not the same in the two target texts either, because of stylistic or other differences. These findings require more attention on the part of translators when dealing with these devices which can finally will lead to higher quality renderings. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n20p237

A Multimodal Analysis of Differences Between TV Commercials and Press Advertisements: A Discoursal Study of Persuasion-Seeking Strategies in the Mass Media

This study reports the findings of a multimodal analysis seeking to find the differences between TV commercials and newspapers advertisements in the application of strategies which make those ads more and more persuasive. Regarding such strategies effort is made to find out which ones are more convincing and appealing to their receivers. The tools used in this study involved 40 tape-recorded TV commercials and 40 ads taken from two Iranian newspapers, Tehran Times and Iran Daily which are published in English as well as the American magazine of Newsweek. The persuasion techniques of each medium were first specified separately and then compared with the techniques used by the others. The main finding of the study was that strategies applied by producers of TV commercials are much more persuasive and impressive than those used by suppliers of advertisements in the press.Key words: Multimodal analysis; TV commercials; Press advertisements; Persuasio

The Effects of Learners’ Contribution to Tasks on Achievement of Pedagogic Objectives of Fluency, Complexity, and Accuracy

This study investigates the impact of manipulating the cognitive complexity of tasks on language learners’ perception of task difficulty in terms of overall task difficulty, perceived ability to perform the task, stress, motivation, and interest. The present study also examines the effect of such affective variables on complexity, accuracy, and fluency of learners’ task performance. Some 65 Iranian students studying English as a foreign language at the intermediate level participated in this research. The obtained results revealed that task complexity does affect task performance. Furthermore, task designer’s interpretation of task complexity and learners’ perception of task difficulty converge. Additionally, task takers’ ratings of tasks are related to the complexity and fluency but not accuracy of the performance.Key words: Task complexity; Task difficulty; Structural complexity; Lexical complexity; Accuracy; FluencyRésumé: Cette étude examine l'impact de la manipulation de la complexité des tâches cognitives sur la perception des apprenants de langues de difficulté de la tâche en termes de difficulté de la tâche globale, perçue capacité 1 à accomplir la tâche, le stress, la motivation et l'intérêt. La présente étude examine également l'effet de ces variables affectives sur la complexité, la précision et la fluidité de l'exécution de la tâche des apprenants. Quelque 65 étudiants iraniens étudient l'anglais comme langue étrangère au niveau intermédiaire ont participé à cette recherche. Les résultats obtenus ont révélé que la complexité des tâches ne touchent l'exécution des tâches. Par ailleurs, l'interprétation créatrice des tâches de complexité de la tâche et la perception des apprenants de la difficulté de la tâche convergent. En outre, les notes des preneurs de tâche »des tâches liées à la précision de la complexité et la fluidité, mais pas de la performance.Mots clés: Complexité de la tâche; Difficulté d'une tâche; Complexité structurelle, Complexité lexicale; Précision; Maîtris