Drama Translation and Politeness

Abstract

In this paper politeness and translation are brought together. Translation is a cross linguistic socio-cultural phenomenon, while politeness, being a pragmatic phenomenon, is not only sociolinguistic but exceedingly culture-bound. Both phenomena are described as reflecting and realizing the cultural, social and linguistic aspects of language. The focus here is on the description and explanation of differences and similarities in English-Persian politeness strategies as they have emerged through the translation process. The purpose is to find out whether politeness is realized in translation. Brown and Levinson’s (1987) seminal theory of politeness and the successive contributions form the framework of this study.