GHAREHGOZLOU, BAHAREH, Ph.D., August 2018 TRANSLATION STUDIES
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GHAREHGOZLOU, BAHAREH, Ph.D., August 2018 TRANSLATION STUDIES A STUDY OF PERSIAN-ENGLISH LITERARY TRANSLATION FLOWS: TEXTS AND PARATEXTS IN THREE HISTORICAL CONTEXTS (261 PP.) Dissertation Advisor: Françoise Massardier-Kenney This dissertation addresses the need to expand translation scholarship through the inclusion of research into different translation traditions and histories (D’hulst 2001: 5; Bandia 2006; Tymoczko 2006: 15; Baker 2009: 1); the importance of compiling bibliographies of translations in a variety of translation traditions (Pym 1998: 42; D’hulst 2010: 400); and the need for empirical studies on the functional aspects of (translation) paratexts (Genette 1997: 12–15). It provides a digital bibliography that documents what works of Persian literature were translated into English, by whom, where, and when, and explores how these translations were presented to Anglophone readers across three historical periods—1925–1941, 1942–1979, and 1980–2015— marked by important socio-political events in the contemporary history of Iran and the country’s shifting relations with the Anglophone West. Through a methodical search in the library of congress catalogued in OCLC WorldCat, a bibliographical database including 863 editions of Persian-English literary translations along with their relevant metadata—titles in Persian, authors, translators, publishers, and dates and places of publication—was compiled and, through a quantitative analysis of this bibliographical data over time, patterns of translation publication across the given periods were identified. A corpus of 223 paratexts (introductions, prefaces, translator’s notes, forewords, and afterwords) accompanying 157 Persian-English literary translations were closely read and thematically coded using the qualitative data analysis software, NVivo. The diachronic analysis of the themes by the NVivo Matrix Coding Query revealed significant changes in the paratextual content from a period to another whereby the discourse on the ongoing social and political contexts of Iran significantly increased over time while the topic of translation saw a drastic decrease. The bibliographical analysis revealed an increase in the number of Persian-English translations over time, which does not fit with the generalized trend of translations into English remaining almost the same (2–4 percent of the total book production) since 1950s. However, the paratextual analysis suggested an increasing interest in the ethnographic content about Iran, which confirms Lawrence Venuti’s argument about the promotion of readability and invisibility of translations in the Anglophone book market. In other words, according to the findings of this dissertation, an increase in the number of works translated does not necessarily correspond to a greater attention to literary works as literature or translated works as translations. A STUDY OF PERSIAN-ENGLISH LITERARY TRANSLATION FLOWS: TEXTS AND PARATEXTS IN THREE HISTORICAL CONTEXTS A dissertation submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Bahareh Gharehgozlou August 2018 © Copyright All Rights Reserved Dissertation written by Bahareh Gharehgozlou B.A., Azad University, Tehran, Iran, 2007 M.A., Azad University, Tehran, Iran, 2010 Ph.D., Kent State University, 2018 Approved By __________________________, Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Dr. Françoise Massardier-Kenney __________________________, Members, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Dr. Carol Maier __________________________, Dr. Brian James Baer __________________________, Dr. Babacar M'Baye __________________________, Dr. Paul Haridakis Accepted By __________________________, Chair, Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies Dr. Keiran J Dunne __________________________, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences Dr. James L. Blank TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ...…………………………………………………………………………...………..v LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... x LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................................... xii DEDICATION ........................................................................................................................... xiii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ......................................................................................................... xiv CHAPTER 1 .................................................................................................................................. 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Introduction: Why a Study of Persian-English Translation Flows? ............................... 1 1.2 Statement of the Research Problem ...................................................................................... 4 1.3 Significance of the Study .................................................................................................... 11 1.4 Statement of the Research Questions .................................................................................. 13 1.5 A Note on Transliteration ................................................................................................... 14 1.6 Organization of Dissertation ............................................................................................... 14 CHAPTER 2 ................................................................................................................................ 16 REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE ...................................................................... 16 2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 16 2.2 History and Translation ....................................................................................................... 17 2.3 Recent Scholarship in Translation History ......................................................................... 19 2.4 Compiling Lists of Translations .......................................................................................... 21 2.4.1 From World Literature to the Global System of Translations ..................................... 23 2.5 Quantitative Approaches to Historical Research ................................................................ 27 v 2.5.1 Introduction to and Implications for Translation Research ......................................... 27 2.5.2 Limitations ................................................................................................................... 29 2.5.3 Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches ................................................. 30 2.6 Paratexts and their Implications to Translation Research ................................................... 32 2.6.1 Background .................................................................................................................. 32 2.6.2 The Functionality of Translation Paratexts .................................................................. 33 2.7 Persian Language and Literature ........................................................................................ 36 2.7.1 Classical Persian Literature .......................................................................................... 38 2.7.2 Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Persian Literature ............................................ 41 2.8 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 50 CHAPTER 3 ................................................................................................................................ 51 METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................................................... 51 3.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 51 3.2 Bibliographical Data ........................................................................................................... 52 3.2.1 Scope ............................................................................................................................ 53 3.2.2 Method of Compilation and Sources ........................................................................... 55 3.2.3 Descriptive Analysis of the Bibliographical Data ....................................................... 56 3.3 Paratextual Data .................................................................................................................. 58 3.3.1 Paratexts within Translation Studies ............................................................................ 59 3.3.2 Corpus Linguistics within Translation Studies ............................................................ 62 3.3.3 Corpus Design and Scope ............................................................................................ 63 3.3.4 Method of Compilation of the Corpus ......................................................................... 64 3.3.5 Qualitative Analysis of the Corpus .............................................................................. 65 vi 3.3.6 Thematic Coding Query in NVivo ............................................................................... 68 CHAPTER 4 ...............................................................................................................................