Application of Polysystem Theory to English to Persian Translations of Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

The aim of the present study was to investigate the acceptability of two Persian translations of Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by finding the position of each Persian translation in the literary polysystem of Iran. It also aimed to identify the most/least used translation strategies applied by each Persian translator, Morteza Madaninejad (۲۰۰۰) and Hamideh Ashkannezhand (۲۰۰۴), for translating culture-specific items (CSIs) from English into Persian. To do so, CSIs were extracted from the novel and classified based on Espindola and Vasconcellos's (۲۰۰۶) classification of cultural items. Then, Pederson's (۲۰۰۵) taxonomy of translation strategies was used to analyze the two Persian translations. The results indicated that Madaninejad preferred to use source oriented strategies. Thus, the translation he produced occupied the primary position in the literary polysystem. By contrast, Ashkannezhand had an interest in the use of target -oriented strategies. The findings have implications for translators of literary texts.

کلیدواژه ها:

Culture-Specific Items (CSIs) ، Polysystem Theory