Identity in Translation

Abstract

The current study was designed to investigate how identity-reflecting items have been translated from Persian into English. To identify identity-reflecting items, Spivak’s model of language and Thriveni’s taxonomy of cultural items had been used. Moreover, Chesterman’s taxonomy of translation strategies was applied to enable the researcher to compare source text with the translated text. Three categories of identity-reflecting items were identified; namely, rhetorical items, cultural items, and silenced items. All of these items were first traced in the Persian texts and then compared with their respective translations. Upon analysis of the data, it became apparent that for each category certain translation strategies were used and strategies appeared to overlap to some extent.