Directionality in Translation

Abstract

Directionality in translation is one of the most basic issues in theory and practice. For a long time, ‎debates were merely over the superiority of native over non-native translation. Since the very ‎beginning, many translation scholars have implicitly denounced non-native translation. From the late ‎‎90s onward, a brand new attitude has emerged with respect to directionality in translation, ‎represented in the works of Pokorn (2005), and Anderman and Rogers (2005). The goal of this research ‎is to explain and analyze a range of ideas on directionality in translation both in Iran and the West. The ‎study explains the existing ideas and concludes that directionality is viewed in two major ways. Some ‎believe that translation into the first language is the best type of translation, and as a result they ‎disapprove of non-native translation. This negative attitude is both explicitly and implicitly present in ‎the discourse of translation scholars. The second type of ideas, however, doubts the objective nature ‎of the pessimism over non-native translation and believes that the only way to unravel the problem of ‎directionality is through objective research. They have also accepted translation into second language ‎as a prevalent reality of our modern world.‎