Translation of Psychology Book Titles: A Skopos theory perspective

The focus of current research is the translation of psychology book titles. There are numerous studies in the field of titles translation, but they are restricted in Persian context. The aim of this study is thus to investigate the translation strategies used by Persian translators when transferring English psychology book titles into Persian. To achieve this objective, ۲۴۵ titles of translated psychology books published from ۲۰۰۷ to ۲۰۱۳ in the field of personal success were first gathered from Isfahan Municipality Library, some local bookstores and online sources. Then, the types of original titles and their translations were examined based on Genette (۱۹۸۹) categorization. The findings thereof revealed that most of the titles had the form, title plus subtitle in both languages in terms of structure. The forms of the titles were also analyzed, and it was discovered that nominal titles were the most frequent ones in the source text and translators preferred not to change the original structure. Next, the corpus was analyzed based on Vinay and Darbelnet’ (۱۹۹۵) model and the findings showed that the modulation was the most frequently-used translation strategy. It was also revealed that the translators were inclined to change the semantics and point of view of the source language. The second most frequently-used strategy was literal translation, showing the popularity of direct translation strategies. Finally, the functions of titles were analyzed based on Nord’s (۱۹۹۵) model. Since functions are highly subjective and cannot be tabulated, they were discussed one by one in the discussion section of the study. The findings of this study can boost the theories of title translation and provide the functional issues of translation studies with new insights.

کلیدواژه ها:

Psychology book titles ، Skopos theory ، Translation strategies ، nominal titles ، Modulation