Looking through the Lens of Bourdieu: A Corpus-based Study of English Romance Fiction Translation Concerning the Translation Strategies of CSIs

Abstract

Translatorial habitus is a key term incorporated Bourdieusian sociological concept of habitus and Translation Studies’ translation norms. In light of Bourdieu’s theoretical model of sociology, this study sought to address the translatorial behaviour of the Iranian translators of English romance novels in terms of the translation strategies of Culture-Specific Items (CSIs) before and after the Cultural Revolution of 1980 in Iran. 4282 sentences containing CSIs were obtained from Rebecca, Sense and Sensibility, the Great Gatsby, and their two Persian translations. Based on how each CSI was translated, they were grouped under one of Liang's proposed categorization. The frequency and percentages of each procedure were calculated using SPSS software. Moreover, the results were cross-checked with a qualitative analysis of some archived interviews printed in Motarjem [the translator] journal, newspapers, and WebPages. The evidence from this study suggests that there was a clear foreignizing trend among Iranian translators of the English romance novels when translating CSIs not only in the Pre-Cultural Revolution era but also in the Post-Cultural Revolution era. Also, a significant difference between various strategies utilized in the two eras was detected.