Explicitation in Translation: Culture-Specific Items from Persian into English

Abstract

Abstract. Investigating the concept of explicitation has been the center of attention to many scholars recent years. A lot of studies have been carried out dealing with the exploitation of explicitation on the culture-specific items on the translation of English source text into Persian. However, few studies has been carried out investigating such culture-specific items on Persian source text translated into English. The present article aims at providing sufficient data to cover the identification and classification of different kinds of culture-specific items exploited in the translation of a Persian novel entitled Boof-e Koor by Hedayat, S. (1937) and its translated version into English The Blind Owl by Bashiri, I. (1974). Its peripheral objective is also identifying the most frequent strategy adopted to explicitate the culture-specific items in the translation of the above mentioned novel. To this end, the study adapts a conceptual framework incorporating Klaudy’s (2008) typology of explicitation entailing obligatory ,optional ,pragmatic and translation-inherent explicitation as well as Newmark’s (2010) classifications of culture-specific items comprising of ecology, public life, social life, personal life, customs and pursuits and private passions. The Findings of this study show culture items were more translated by adopting pragmatic explicitation. This study introduces explicitation as applicable strategies for translating culture-specific items to translator.