The Ideological Representation of the Holocaust in Persian Translations of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas:

A Discourse-Based Analysis

Abstract

This study investigates the representation of ideological elements of the Holocaust in two Persian translations of John Boyne's novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, by Parvaneh Fattahi and Hormoz Abdollahi. Drawing on Hatim and Mason's (1997) model, the study examines thirty-five purposively selected samples (thirty-two of which were organized into the five thematic categories examined below) across five thematic categories: Bruno's mispronunciation of Nazi-related terms, power and authority, dehumanization, suffering and death, and Jewish identity. Five discourse-analytic tools—lexicalization, reduction, elaboration, modality, and tense shift—were employed to identify ideological translational choices. The analysis of the results shows that both translators preserved the novel's condemnation of Nazi ideology, yet differed markedly in how explicitly these meanings were conveyed. Fattahi preserves the simple, childlike register of Bruno's narration and retains the irony that depends on his limited understanding, whereas Abdollahi more often resolves ambiguities through elaboration and clarification. Nevertheless, these two translators converge almost completely at two ideological moments of the novel, indicating that ideological fidelity and translational variation operate only at different levels of the text. The results show that ideological meaning in literary translation is not merely transferred but reconstructed, which may have implications for the translation of historically sensitive fiction.