Abstract:
Translating literary works is a difficult task, especially when it comes to cultural elements. It gets more difficult when words have ambiguities and multiple layers of meaning. The present study sought to examine the adequacy of witticism in the English renderings of Sa'di's clever remarks in Golistan (The Rose Garden). To this purpose, the researchers selected three English translations of Golistan by different translators; namely, Rehatsek (1964), Gladwin (1806), and Ross (1890). A sample of 20 anecdotes containing wittical elements were randomly taken from Golistan and compared with their English translations. The collected data were then analyzed based on Delabastita's (1993) hierarchy of pun translation strategy model. The obtained results revealed that the three translations were at best similar in terms of the applied strategies, i.e. in all the translations, the most frequently used strategies were: Pun/Non-Pun translation strategy, Non-Pun/Pun strategy, and Pun/Related Rhetorical Translation strategy, respectively. Moreover, it was indicated that all the three translations used the strategies to the same extent, though slight differences were found among them in terms of the overall use of the strategies. Since adequacy in Delabastita’ framework (1993) is hierarchically defined, it can be concluded that higher level strategies lead to more adequate translations. Generally, it was observed that the three translations were the same in terms of semantic and humorous adequacy; i.e. they transferred the source text effect in translating wittical elements of the Golistan. The findings of the study would have implications for translation students as well as translators of literary works.
Machine summary:
The results of the study revealed how feasible the strategies proposed by Delabastita (2004) in his theoretical framework are in terms of the (un)translatability of puns in the case of the Quran.
In the paper, "The study of pun in English translations of Sa’di's the Bustan", Eslami Rasekh and Ordudary (in press) discuss about the procedures employed in rendering puns, and consistency of the translator in the choice of strategies viewed as the most effective.
Furthermore, Mohammadsalari, Behtaj, and Moinzadeh (2014) made an attempt to apply Delabatista’s strategies (1996) for translating puns in the translation of humorous puns from English into Persian in a literary text.
The present study, therefore, aimed at investigating the existing wittical elements in Golistan which was composed by the great Iranian poet; Sa'di Shirazi; in 1258, and examining their English translations to see to what extent these devices have been adequately transferred to the target language in terms of their multiple meanings and the sense of humor they propose.
Delabastita's (1993) translation strategies for wittical elements are as follows: - Pun=Pun: “the source-text pun is translated by a target-language pun”.
Parallel to this finding, the present study's results revealed that all wittical elements in the source text have their equivalents in the target text although the type of adopted strategies to render them based on Delabastita's model are different in terms of frequency.
Conclusion The analysis of the data in the present study denoted that the three translations of Sa’di’s Golistan are almost similar in terms of the total number of wittical elements translation in general and the frequency of each specific strategy applied, in particular.