Domestication in Literary Translation: The English Translation of Hedayat’s Blind Owl

Abstract

Relying partially on Hatim and Mason’s (1990, 1991, & 1997) theoretical framework for the analysis and assessment of translated works, dealing with the sets of constraints relating to genre, discourse, and text as semiotic systems within which the expression of ideology occurs; Mason (1994); Calzada Pérez’s (2002) critical framework for translational phenomena; and Schleiermacher’s dual distinction, namely, ‘foreignization’/‘domestication’, this paper investigates the ideological consequences of an English translation of Hedayat’s Bouf-e Kour [The Blind Owl], originally written in Persian, by D. P. Costello (1957). The study has mainly focused on the generic, discoursal and textual features of the target text that may be considered as representations of ‘domestication’, in the sense of the dichotomy originally proposed by Schleiermacher (1813). The extent to which such instances may be regarded as manifestations of ideological orientations by the translator has been the researcher’s concern. The reason why a Persian source text and its translated English version have been chosen for comparison is to test the hypothesis that the present status of English as a ‘dominant’ language, associated primarily with a dominant culture (i.e. Anglo-American culture), serves as a motive for translators into English to appeal to a ‘domesticating’ strategy (see, for example, Venuti, 1995). The study finally comes up with the conclusion that the target text under investigation may as well be categorized among ‘domesticating translations’ into English.