Translation of Marked Structures in English Novels

Abstract

Translation is a complex activity which requires competence in different aspects. Since translation involves linguistic competence, it is essential for translators to be aware of language differences. The purpose of this study is to identify and categorize the different strategies used by Persian translators in marked structures in the following works: The Old Man and the Sea, Animal Farm, Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In doing so, the above English novels are selected as the literary source texts to be compared closely with their corresponding translated texts in Persian. Based on the results, most of fronted structures are translated into marked structures and most of cleft-structures are rendered into unmarked structures. The reasons underlying the differences of methods between two types of marked structures can be explained in terms of marked structures in Persian language. Since this research is about literary and written texts, it is proper to do it on the audiovisual texts like films and describe the translation of markedness in subtitling.