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Translation of Culture Specific Items: A Case Study of Persian Architecture Terminology

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Architectural texts involve a great deal of CSIs that reflect the culture of a country. Translating these CSIs from Persian into English seems one of the key issues in the translation of architectural texts. This source-oriented descriptive study tried to investigate CSIs of the Persian architecture in order to examine the extent to which the translators/writers have succeeded in rendering CSIs, while translating them from Persian architecture into English or writing on the Persian Architecture in English. In addition, it tried to investigate the most frequently used strategies by writers/translators according to Van Doorslaer’s (2007) model. To serve research purposes, two textbooks on Iranian architecture (i.e., Introducing Persian Architecture by Pope and Abbasid Guest House by Ouliaienia) were sampled. The findings indicated that the translator (Ouliaienia) and the writer (Pope) were successful in finding appropriate equivalents for SL architectural terms. The comparison of Pope’s textbook and Ouliaienia’s translation demonstrated that they had made use of four of the strategies (i.e., Direct Transfer, Word for Word Translation, Interpretation, and Domestication). Accordingly, in pope’s book, Interpretation was the most frequently used strategy, while Direct Transfer was the most frequently utilized one in Ouliaienia. On the other hand, Word for Word Translation was the least frequently used strategy in Pope’s work, whereas Domestication was the least frequently utilized one in Ouliaienia’s work. The findings of the present study may have some significant implications for translation theory and practice. Keywords: Translation, CSIs, Persian Architecture, Terminology
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International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature
ISSN 2200-3592 (Print), ISSN 2200-3452 (Online)
Vol. 6 No. 2; March 2017
Australian International Academic Centre, Australia
Translation of Culture Specific Items: A Case Study of
Persian Architecture Terminology
Esmaeil Bagheridoust
Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages, Islamic Azad University South Tehran Branch, Iran
E-mail: e_bagheri@azad.ac.ir
Zahra Mahabadi Mahabad (Corresponding author)
Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages, Islamic Azad University South Tehran Branch, Iran
E-mail: Zahramahabadmahabadi@gmail.com
Received: 08-09-2016 Accepted: 15-11-2016 Advance Access Published: January 2017
Published: 01-03-2017 doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.6n.2p.46 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.6n.2p.46
Abstract
Architectural texts involve a great deal of CSIs that reflect the culture of a country. Translating these CSIs from Persian
into English seems one of the key issues in the translation of architectural texts. This source-oriented descriptive study
tried to investigate CSIs of the Persian architecture in order to examine the extent to which the translators/writers have
succeeded in rendering CSIs, while translating them from Persian architecture into English or writing on the Persian
Architecture in English. In addition, it tried to investigate the most frequently used strategies by writers/translators
according to Van Doorslaer’s (2007) model. To serve research purposes, two textbooks on Iranian architecture (i.e.,
Introducing Persian Architecture by Pope and Abbasid Guest House by Ouliaienia) were sampled. The findings
indicated that the translator (Ouliaienia) and the writer (Pope) were successful in finding appropriate equivalents for SL
architectural terms. The comparison of Pope’s textbook and Ouliaienia’s translation demonstrated that they had made
use of four of the strategies (i.e., Direct Transfer, Word for Word Translation, Interpretation, and Domestication).
Accordingly, in pope’s book, Interpretation was the most frequently used strategy, while Direct Transfer was the most
frequently utilized one in Ouliaienia. On the other hand, Word for Word Translation was the least frequently used
strategy in Pope’s work, whereas Domestication was the least frequently utilized one in Ouliaienia ’s work. The findings
of the present study may have some significant implications for translation theory and practice.
Keywords: Translation, CSIs, Persian Architecture, Terminology
1. Introduction
Culture is one of the most important elements in architecture as it has been described. Different cultures have different
manifestations. In other words, some concepts and items are bound to a specific culture and country and do not exist in
any other (Terestyényi, 2011). Therefore, it is important to understand these items in order to translate or even write
about them. These are called culture specific items (CSI).
Culture Specific Items (CSIs) are those that do not exist in the target text or have a different inter-textual status.
Translators or even writers confront difficulties in translating these items. According to Aixela (1996), a CSI does not
exist by itself, but it is the result of transferring the source text to the target text that poses translation difficulty due to
the non-existence of or to the different value of the given item in the target language culture.
Architecture of Persia is abundant with culture specific items. Due to the cultural differences and the meaning behind
the strings of these culture specific terms, translating them from Persian into English seems challenging task for the
translators (Ghobadi, 2013). When translating or writing text on the culture bound architecture, i.e. Persian architecture
in this research, translators, or writers will confront difficulties, because they should use a proper equivalent for the CSI
in their texts. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was two-fold. The first purpose was to see whether English
writers and Persian-to-English translators of architectural textbooks have been successful in finding equivalents for
culture-specific items (CSIs) in introducing Persian architecture. The second purpose was to determine the most
frequently used strategies that writers and translators make use of in their attempts to find equivalents for CSIs in
Persian architecture. Therefore, this research can be useful for non-Iranian students who are studying Persian
architecture, in order to read and understand Persian architectural books in English. Secondly, this study can be useful
for translators who want to translate architectural texts particularly Persian architecture. Thirdly, it can be useful for
both architects and English teachers in order to teach the culture-specific items of Persian architecture and the meaning
behind the string of these culture specific items for the students.
To achieve the objectives of this study, this researcher tried to answer the following three questions:
Flourishing Creativity & Literacy
IJALEL 6(2):46-55, 2017 47
RQ 1: To what extent have English writers succeeded in using the most natural equivalents of the CSIs in
Persian architecture?
RQ 2: To what extent have Persian-to-English translators succeeded in using the most natural equivalents of
the CSIs in Persian architecture?
RQ 3: Which strategies have been most frequently used by writers/translators in textbooks on Persian
architecture according to Van Doorslaer’s model (2007)?
2. Methodology
This research was a descriptive quantitative research that evaluated renderings of culture specific items in texts on
Persian architecture and a case study was implemented on translating architectural culture specific items from Persian
into English.
To serve the two research purposes, two textbooks on Iranian architecture were sampled. The first textbook was
Introducing Persian Architecture written by Arthur Upham Pope (1965) in English. This textbook was selected as the
sample of the present study to see how an English writer has faced the challenge of CSIs in Persian architecture. The
second textbook was Hotel Abbasi written by Borjian and Borjian (1997) in Persian. The textbook was later translated
into English by Ouliaienia (1997). Ouliaienia’s translation of Hotel Abbasi (i.e., Abbasid Guest House) was sampled as
the second textbook to see how a Persian-to-English translator has faced the challenge of CSIs in Persian architecture.
Among many architectural books related to Persian architecture in Persian and English, there were a few books
translated and consequently available in both languages. In addition, among those translated books, only some of them
were related to the issue of the present research, because many of them did not include CSIs. Therefore, this research
was delimited to the two above-mentioned books on Persian architecture that is written in English and translated into
English. In addition, the present research was delimited to culture-specific items in the two books.
To achieve the objectives of this research, the following steps were taken to analyze the translation of culture specific
items in architectural text chosen:
1. The chosen source texts were read line by line to find the culture specific items. To achieve the aims of this
research, some instruments were required, including Visual Dictionary of Architecture written by Ching (2011),
which later translated into Persian by Mohammad Ahmadinejad and glossary of Persian Architecture by Rafiee
Sereshki, Rafizade, Ranjbar Kermani (2007). These two glossaries were used as the points of reference to examine
the rendering of CSIs in Persian Architecture.
2. As the next step, the rendering of culture specific items was extracted carefully from the textbooks in order to
determine to what extent English writers/Persian-to-English translators have succeeded in using the most natural
equivalents of the CSIs in Persian architecture.
3. Then, we did our best to examine which strategies have been most frequently used by writers/translators in
textbooks on Persian architecture according to Van Doorslaer’s model (2007)?
It is noteworthy that to analyze the findings of this study, the present researcher has chosen the strategies of Van
Doorslaer's (2007) model, because it introduces the following relevant and possible strategies to find a proper
equivalent for CSIs:
1. Acculturation
2. Amplification
3. Calque
4. Compensation
5. Condensation
6. Direct transfer
7. Expansion
8. Implicitation
9. Interpretation
10. Modification
11. Recategorization
12. Adaptation
13. Borrowing
14. Coinage
15. Concision
16. Denominalization
17. Dilution
19. Interchange
IJALEL 6(2):46-55, 2017 48
20. Modulation
21. Paraphrase
22. Reformation
23. Omission
The chosen strategies were based on the data extracted from the source books. According to the rendering of CSIs,
strategies such as domestication, direct transfer, word for word translation or calque and interpretation were used to
achieve the objectives of this research.
As previously mentioned, it was a comparative descriptive research in which the source texts and the target texts were
examined in order to find CSIs in Persian architecture. Then, the CSIs were compared in both ST and TT and the most
frequently applied strategies were determined. Based on the research questions and the mentioned procedures, this
study was source-oriented descriptive research in which the chosen strategies by the translator/writer based on Van
Doorslaer's (2007) model were investigated. This study on two case studies of Persian Architecture was restricted to the
lexical choices regarding culture specific items. In addition, this research examined which strategies have been used
mostly by the writer and translator.
Despite all the limitations ahead of this research to find the data, we selected two materials that have enough number of
CSIs, and all words were extracted from them (i.e., Introducing Persian Architecture by Pope (1965) Abbasid
guesthouse by Borjian and Borjian (1997)). Therefore, all words were originally extracted from these two books, no
changes were made in order to achieve the objectives, and no data was fabricated to answer the research questions.
3. Results
As previously mentioned, the present study tried to investigate how an English writer (Pope) and a Persian-to-English
translator (Ouliaienia) have rendered CSIs in their textbooks on Persian architecture. The analysis of Pope’s
Introducing Persian Architecture and Ouliaienia’s translation of Hotel Abbasi indicated that Pope (1965) and Ouliaienia
(1997) have avoided the use of strategies that are inappropriate for rendering CSIs. The criterion set for inappropriacy
of strategies was that they are strategies that the writer/translator resorts to when he/she fails to find appropriate
equivalent for a CSI (Dimitriu, 2004). Examples of inappropriate strategies for CSIs in Van Doorslaer’s (2007)
theoretical framework are Coinage, Paraphrase, Reformation, and Omission. For example, in the case of Omission, the
translator totally disregards a CSI, because he/she cannot find an equivalent for it (Dimitriu, 2004).
Fortunately, neither Pope (1965) nor Ouliaienia (1997) have made use of these strategies in their works. To be more
specific, Pope (1965) and Ouliaienia (1997) have only made use of four strategies that are the most frequently used
strategies for rendering CSIs (i.e., Direct Transfer, Word for Word Translation, Interpretation, and Domestication).
3.1 Direct Transfer
According to Vinay and Darbelnet (1997), in the strategy of Direct Transfer (also known as Borrowing), a source
language (SL) item is transferred directly to the target language (TL). The following is an example of the strategy of
Direct Transfer extracted from Abbasid Guest House:
Example 1:
 .
(Borjian & Borjian, 1997, p.49)
English Translation: Yet the most distinguished monument of that era is the complex of caravansaries.
(Ouliaienia, 1997, p. 49)
In Pope’s Introducing Persian Architecture, the history of caravanserai is believed to be originated in Persian
architecture and goes back to Akhaemanid era. According to Rafiee Sereshki, et al. (2007), the history of caravansaries
goes back to Akhaemanid era in Persian architecture. In fact, caravanserai is an area in roads where travelers can rest
and recover from the day’s journey. The Persian word caravanserai or carevansary is a compound of Karavan and Sara
(i.e., palace, building with enclosed courts). The word “caravan” means a group of traders, pilgrims or other travelers
who go to long-distance travels. As you see in above example, the word /karevansæra/, as a CSI in Persian architecture,
has been directly transferred from the SL (Persian) into the TL (English) by Ouliaienia (1997). Thus, Ouliaienia (1997)
has utilized Direct Transfer Strategy in her translation for rendering this CSI.
The following is another example of the strategy of Direct Transfer, this time in Pope’s (1965) Introducing Persian
Architecture:
Example 2 : Bad gīr are tall square towers with open vents on each side to catch any cooling breathe of air
and carry it down to the recesses of the house (Pope, 1965 , p. 245)
/Bad gīr/ is a traditional Persian architectural element to create natural ventilation in buildings. It seems that bad-gīr is a
specification of Persian architecture that has been invented in Persia and does not exist in other architecture
constructions in other cultures (Rafiee Sereshki, et al., 2007). Therefore, Pope (1965) has transferred this term directly
while writing on this CSI in his book.
IJALEL 6(2):46-55, 2017 49
3.2 Interpretation
The strategy of Interpretation involves the elaboration of a CSI from the SL in the TL because of the fact that the CSI
belongs to the SL culture with no counterpart in the TL culture (Vinay & Darbelnet, 1997). The following is an example
in which Pope (1965) has made use of the Interpretation Strategy to render a CSI from Persian architecture:
Example 1: Identical wide half octagon porches on the north and south sides have high roofs supported by
exceedingly tall and slender columns originally faced with mirrors (Pope, 1965, p. 231).
“Hashti”, in the traditional architecture of Iran, is the space behind the sar-dar (i.e., doorway). Hashties are designed in
many different shapes, including octagonal, hexagonal, square and rectangular (Rafiee Sereshki, et al., 2007). In
luxurious homes in the Ancient Iran, Hashti had more ornamentation and a seating area. As you see in the above
example, Pope (1965) has used the strategy of Interpretation for rendering “Hashti” into the English language, because
this item exists in Persian architecture terminology, but it seems that this CSI does not exist in any other culture
including the English language culture. In other words, the word /Hashti/ has been illustrated as it looks like in its
shape as “identical wide half octagon porches”.
Example 2:
 


Borjian & Borjian, 1997, p. 5)
English Translation: today, in the magnificent northern rooms, samples of thick and almost untouched walls,
vaults known as arches, the niches and the shelves of three hundred years can be still seen here. (Ouliaienia,
1997, p. 5)
The CSI of /taq zarbi/ has been elaborated through the strategy of Interpretation in both Pope’s (1965) book and
Ouliaienia’s (1997) translation but via different words. By explaining how this culture-specific architectural
construction would be built, Pope (1965) has in fact used the strategy of interpretation in his English book. Ouliaienia
(1997) hasutilized the same strategy, albeit through different wordings, in his English translation of Hotel Abbasi.
3.3 Domestication
According to Venuti (1995, p. 20), the strategy of Domestication designates the type of translation in which a
transparent fluent style is adapted to minimize the strangeness of the foreign text for the TL readers. For a better
understanding of this strategy, look at the following example:
Example 1: A dome on squinches placed over a square formed by four large piers connected with arches.
(Pope, 1965, p. 21)
The word “squinch” comes from the Persian word ‘sekonj’. According to Rafiee Sereshki, et al. (2007), a squinch in
architecture is a construction filling in the upper angles of a square room to form a base to receive an octagonal or
spherical dome. The dome chamber in the palace of Ardeshir, the Sassanid king, in Firuzabad is the earliest example of
the squinch (Rafiee Sereshki, et al., 2007). After the rise of Islam, squinch was used in the West Asia in both the
Eastern Romanesque and Islamic Architecture (Rafiee Sereshki, et al., 2007). It has now remained as a feature of
Islamic architecture, especially in Iran, and has been often covered by corbelled stalactite like structures known as
Muqarnas. Through Iran, squinch was spread to the Romanesque architecture of the Western Europe, one example
being the Normans 12th century church of San Cataldo, Palermo in Sicily (Rafiee Sereshki, et al., 2007). ‘Squinch’ is
the word used in Pope’s (1965) Introducing Persian Architecture to explain the specifications of what is known in
Persian as “gushvareh”. Therefore, the author has used the strategy of Domestication to express this CSI.
A comparison was done on how the word “taq” had been used in Pope’s (1965) book and Ouliaienia’s (1997)
translation. For explaining the word /taq/or vault, the strategy of Domestication has been used in both Pope’s (1965)
book and Ouliaienia’s (1997) translation.
Example 2:
 
.
(Borjian & Borjian, 1997, p. 5)
English Translation: today, in the magnificent northern rooms, samples of thick and almost untouched walls,
vaults known as arches, the niches and the shelves of three hundred years can be still seen here. (Ouliaienia,
1997, p. 5)
IJALEL 6(2):46-55, 2017 50
As you saw in Example 2, Pope (1965) has used the strategy of Domestication to explain what is known in Persian
architecture as /taq/and has used the word “vault” for this purpose. In a similar vein, Ouliaienia (1997) has used the
same strategy to translate the respective CSI from Persian into English in his translation of Hotel Abbasi.
3.4 Literal Translation or Word for Word Translation
According to Vinay and Darbelnet (1997, p. 56), Literal Translation (also known as Word for Word Translation) is the
prescription for good translation: literalness should be only sacrificed because of structural and metalinguistic
requirements and only after checking that the meaning is fully preserved. For a better understanding of this strategy,
several examples from the textbooks investigated in the presented study have been given below.
Example 1: dams for flooding flat areas, storage tanks, and deep wells strung along the desert routes made
these difficult routes passable. (Pope, 1965, p. 246)
The history of water supplies goes back to 3500 years ago in the Ancient Persia and the first known of them is located
in Chughazanbil in Susa. A water supply is a traditional reservoir of drinking water in Persian antiquity. The material
used for constructing /ab anbars/ is /sarooj/ that is made of sand, clay, egg white, lime, goat hair, and ash. The
construction is a tough and resistant to earthquake and it is also resistant to water penetration. As you see in the above
example, Pope (1965) has utilized the strategy of Word for Word Translation for rendering this CSI into the English
language.
Example 2:
.

(Borjian & Borjian, 1997, p. 35)
English Translation: Along with economic prosperity in the Safavi age, the construction of utilitarian
monument such as bazaars, bridges, dams, pigeon towers, water supplies, inns, mosques, and schools was the
vague of the time. (Ouliaienia, 1997, p. 35)
In a similar vein, Ouliaienia (1997) has used Word for Word Translation for rendering /ab anbar/ into /water supplies/.
As previously mentioned, the second purpose of the present study was to determine how frequently Pope (1965) and
Ouliaienia (1997) have made use of the used strategies in their own works on Persian architecture. As mentioned
earlier, Pope and Ouliaienia have only made use of four of the strategies listed in Van Doorslaer’s (2007) theoretical
framework of translation strategies (i.e., Direct Transfer, Word for Word Translation, Interpretation, and
Domestication). Table 1 shows the frequency of these strategies as used by Pope (1965) in his Introducing Persian
Architecture for rendering CSIs in Persian architecture. Table 2 indicates the frequency of the same strategies as used
by Ouliaienia (1997) in the translation of Hotel Abbasi (i.e., Abbasid Guest House) to translate architectural CSIs from
Persian into English.
Table 1. Strategies Applied for Rendering CSIs in Introducing Persian Architecture by Pope (1965)
Translation Strategy
Pope (1965)
Frequency
Percentage
Direct Transfer
11
13.75%
Word For Word Translation
10
12.5%
Interpretation
37
46.25%
Domestication
22
27.5%
Total
80
100%
According to the information provided in Table 1 and Figure 2, the strategy of Interpretation has been used most
frequently in Pope’s (1965) textbook for rendering CSIs of Persian architecture. Pope (1965) has used this strategy 37
times (i.e., 46.25 percent). The second-ranked strategy in Pope’s (1965) textbook is the strategy of Domestication that
has been used 22 times (i.e., 27.5 percent) by the writer. In addition, the strategy of Direct Transfer has ranked third in
the table with a frequency of 11 times (i.e., 13.75 percent). Finally, the strategy of Word for Word Translation is the
least used strategy in Pope’s (1965) Introducing Persian Architecture which has been used 10 times (i.e., 12.5 percent).
IJALEL 6(2):46-55, 2017 51
Figure 1. Strategies Applied for Rendering CSIs in Introducing Persian Architecture by Pope
Table 2. Translation Strategies Applied in Ouliaienia's Abbasid Guest House
Ouliaienia (1997)
Frequency
Percentage
12
35.28%
5
14.28%
11
31.42%
7
20%
35
100%
According to the information provided in Table 2 and Figure 2, the strategy of Direct Transfer has been used most
frequently in Ouliaienia’s (1997) translation of Hotel Abbasi (i.e., Abbasid Guest House) with the frequency of being
used 12 times (i.e., 35.28 percent). The second-ranked strategy in Ouliaienia’s (1997) translation of Hotel Abbasi is
the strategy of Interpretation that has been used 11 times (i.e., 31.42 percent). In addition, the strategy of Domestication
has ranked third with a frequency of 7 times being used (i.e., 20 percent). Finally, in Ouliaienia’s (1997) work, the
strategy of Word for Word Translation is the least used strategy that has been used 5 times (i.e., 14.28 percent).
Figure 2. Strategies Applied for CSIs in Ouliaienia's Abbasid Guest House
4. Discussion
Culture specific items (CSIs) have always been an important issue in theory and practice in the field. Researchers
contend that CSIs is where writers/translators have to make important decisions on the selection of strategies.
Consequently, researchers have strongly argued, and found, that CSIs pose a challenging task to the writer/translator
(e.g., Aixela, 1996; Baker, 1992; Kwiecinski, 1998).
The first and second research questions of the study aimed to determine to what extent writers and translators have
succeeded in using the most natural equivalents for the CSIs in the Persian architecture. The criterion for determining
whether Pope and Ouliaienia have been successful in findings appropriate equivalents for CSIs in their works was based
on the strategies used. Some of the categories listed in Van Doorslaer’s (2007) theoretical framework are ones that
seem inappropriate for CSIs.
First, these inappropriate strategies are strategies the writer or the translator resorts to when he/she fails to trace
appropriate equivalents for CSIs. There is a possibility that this situation would also happen in the case of architectural
terms as these terms are highly bound to the society’s cultural patters and, thus, it may be difficult to find appropriate
equivalents for them in the TL.
IJALEL 6(2):46-55, 2017 52
Of the strategies listed in Van Doorslaer’s framework, Borrowing, Coinage, Paraphrase, Reformation, Omission, etc.
are usually considered as strategies resorted to when there is no other choice. For instance, in the case of Interpretation,
one has to resort to circumlocution to translate a source language (SL) item for which he/she has been able to find an
appropriate equivalent in the target language (TL). Another example is the strategy of Omission. In this case, the
person totally disregards one language item altogether in his/her work. (Dimitriu, 2004)
Second, Van Doorslaer (2007) himself contends that these inappropriate strategies are malfunctional in the sense that
they would distort the intended message. Though Van Doorslaer does not point fingers to any of the strategies listed in
his (2007) framework, some hints can be traced in the literature. For example, Krings (1986) found that advanced
German learners of French had difficulty transmitting the meaning nuances, because they failed to choose the
appropriate strategies for translating CSIs from French into German. Similarly, Klaudy and Károly (2005) contend that
student translators would need to be instructed on strategies for CSIs as familiarity with strategies would increase the
quality of their works.
Fortunately, Pope and Ouliaienia did not make use of any of these malfunctional strategies in their works. As you saw
in Table 1 and Table 2, the strategies of Borrowing, Coinage, Paraphrase, Reformation, and Omission were used with
zero frequency in the architectural textbooks targeted in the present study. This shows that Pope and Ouliaienia were
successful in their own attempts to find appropriate equivalents for CSIs embedded in the targeted architectural
textbooks.
The third research question of the study aimed to determine how frequently each of the used strategies was employed in
the targeted architectural textbooks. As shown by Table 1, Pope mostly made use of the strategy of Interpretation. He
used this strategy 46.25% of the times in his own Introducing Persian Architecture. This shows that Pope found the
strategy of Interpretation more appropriate than other strategies nearly half of the times he encountered a CSI when
writing Introducing Persian Architecture. Though it ranked second, the strategy of Interpretation was also used with
high frequency, i.e., 31.42% of the times, in Abbasid Guest House from the Persian language into the English language.
These results hint to the importance of this strategy, showing that writers/translators find it frequently necessary to
slightly divert from/ make small changes to the original SL conceptualizations to be able to transfer the intended
message to the TL readership.
The second strategy with the highest frequency in Pope’s work was Domestication, being used 27.5% of the times in the
case of CSIs in Introducing Persian Architecture. The strategy ranked third in Ouliaienia’s translation of Abbasid Guest
House as it was employed 20% of the times in the translation of the CSIs in this book. Though there was a 7.5%
difference between Pope and Ouliaienia in the use of this strategy, they made use of a significant amount of this strategy
in their works. As you remember from before, Domestication is a strategy in which a transparent fluent style is adapted
to minimize the strangeness of the SL conceptualization for the TL readership (Venuti, 1995, p. 20). In the case of
architectural textbooks, the strangeness arises from the fact that a society’s architecture is highly bound to its cultural
patterns; therefore, its understanding may be difficult for people from other cultures. Therefore, one has to relieve the
strangeness by using a more transparent style that is more readable for the TL readership. (See Armstrong, 2005;
Venuti, 1995)
The significant difference between Pope and Ouliaienia was with respect to the strategy of Direct Transfer. The
strategy was used 13.75% of the times in Pope’s work whereas it was employed 35.28% of the times in Ouliaienia’s
work. As you remember, through Direct Transfer, the SL pattern is transferred directly to the TL. These results are
supported by the findings of the previous study. Previous studies have found that Direct Transfer would be more useful,
if the referent of the CSI belongs to the SL culture (e.g., Armstrong, 2005; Aziz, 1982; Krings, 1986; Maasoum &
Davtalab, 2011). In other words, because Ouliaienia embarked on translating from the Persian language (TL) into the
English language (SL), he found it easy to trace direct equivalents in the TL, because the architectural textbook he
translated was about Persian architecture that owned the cultural referents of the architectural terms in the SL textbook.
The situation was completely reverse for Pope. In his work, Pope had to write in a language (i.e., the English language)
which did not own the cultural referents of the CSIs of interest. According to Armstrong (2005), this makes finding
equivalents for CSIs through Direct Transfer difficult, or inappropriate as was shown by the results of the present study.
Finally, the strategy of Word for Word Translation was the least used strategy in both works under investigation. The
strategy was used 12.5% of the times in Pope’s Introducing Persian Architecture and 14.28% of the times in
Ouliaienia’s Abbasid Guest House. Two interpretations can be presented for these results. First, the strategy of Word
for Word Translation is of limited use in architectural texts. In other words, the use of Word for Word Translation
would distort the message intended by a CSI embedded in an architectural text and, thus, the writer/translator would
find it inappropriate to apply this strategy to CSIs. Second, Word for Word Translation is always used for stretches of
words (i.e., more than one word) and its purpose is to maintain the structural originality of the SL text (Molina &
Hurtado Albir, 2002). The fact that Word for Word Translation is applied to stretches of words would highly limit its
application, because most of the CSIs in the architectural textbooks investigated in the present study were represented
by single words.
5. Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, architecture is a culture-loaded manifestation of particular people’s traditions and behaviors at a
particular time when the architectural designs were created (O'Shea, 1995; Rapoport, 2005). Further, architecture is not
restricted to the setting in which it is created; that is, it both influences, and is influenced by, cultural patterns that are
IJALEL 6(2):46-55, 2017 53
practiced in other societies (Bodard & Evrard, 2011). The problem is that the architecture terminology in which the
cultural patterns of a society are hidden is particular to that society (Terestyényi, 2011), meaning that rendering
architecture terminology from one culture into another is a challenging task for translators and writers.
Seen in this way, translation of architecture terminology is of paramount importance when translating architectural texts
from the source language into the target language. In fact, whenever translators are faced with culture specific items
(CSIs), they have to make very important decisions that would influence the quality of their translation work. Of these
decisions, the most important one is concerned with what strategy the translators should make use of to translate culture
specific items (CSIs) in architectural texts. The purpose of the present study was to compare the quality and frequency
of strategies used by a translator to translate an architectural text versus those used by a writer to write an architectural
text on the Iranian architecture. Therefore, two architectural texts were selected for this purpose; i.e., Introducing
Persian Architecture written by Pope in English and Hotel Abbasi written by Borjian and Borjian in Persian and
translated into English as Abbasid Guest House by Ouliaienia.
The findings of the study indicated that the translator (Ouliaienia) and the writer (Pope) were successful in finding
appropriate equivalents for SL architectural terms (Persian) in the TL (English). This finding was confirmed by the fact
that Pope and Ouliaienia avoided using inappropriate strategies for CSIs related to Persian architecture. These
strategies may distort the message intended; therefore, the message could not be completely transferred to the
readership (Dimitriu, 2004; Krings, 1986). This risk is particularly high in the case of CSIs, because CSIs usually
include cultural nuances that are of paramount significance to the message intended (Krings, 1986; Van Doorslaer,
2007).
A second purpose was to determine the most frequent strategies that the translator (Ouliaienia) and the writer (Pope),
whose works were scrutinized in the present study, employed in their textbooks. Van Doorslaer’s (2007) framework for
classifying strategies was used as the basis for the analysis. However, the analysis was focused on only four of the
strategies classified in Van Doorslaer’s (2007) framework, as many of the other strategies in the framework are not
usually selected in the case of CSIs, which was confirmed by a preliminary analysis of the targeted architectural
textbooks. In fact, Van Doorslaer (2007) himself contends that the selection of strategies has an interplay with the
genre of the field (e.g., architecture, arts, science, etc.) in which textbooks are written.
Therefore, the comparison of Pope’s textbook and Ouliaienia’s translation on the Persian architecture demonstrated that
they had made use of four of the strategies classified in Van Doorslaer’s (2007) framework. These four strategies were
Direct Transfer, Word for Word Translation, Interpretation, and Domestication.
In the architectural textbooks investigated in this study, Pope and Ouliaienia made much use of the strategy of
Interpretation, a strategy in which explicitly elaborates the shady differences between the SL and TL conceptualizations.
This was followed by the strategy of Domestication in which a transparent fluent style is adapted to minimize the
strangeness of the SL conceptualizations for the TL readership (Venuti, 1995, p. 20). The frequent use of these two
strategies in the works investigated shows that the main aim of Pope and Ouliaienia has been to communicate the
intended message (i.e., more focus on meaning) and they have less tried to remain faithful to the SL structures.
The difference between the two textbooks analyzed was observed with respect to the use of the strategy of Direct
Transfer. While Direct Transfer was the most frequently used strategy in Ouliaienia’s work, the strategy ranked third in
Pope’s work. This finding was interpreted through the proposition that Direct Transfer will be more useful when the
cultural referent of the CSI belongs to the SL culture (e.g., Armstrong, 2005; Aziz, 1982; Krings, 1986). Therefore,
Ouliaienia made more use of the strategy of Direct Transfer in his translation from the Persian language into the English
language, because the Persian language owned the cultural referents of the architectural terms in the SL textbook. On
the other hand, Pope had to write in the English language that did not own the cultural referents of the CSIs of interest.
Word for Word Translation was the least used strategy in Pope’s and Ouliaienia’s works. Therefore, it could be
discussed that Word for Word Translation is of limited use in writing and translating architectural texts as it may distort
the message intended by CSIs. In addition, the strategy is most used for stretches of words to maintain the originality of
the targeted structures (Molina & Hurtado Albir, 2002). Thus, such limited use constrained the application of Word for
Word Translation, because most of the CSIs in the architectural textbooks investigated in the study were embedded in
single words.
The findings of the present study have significant implications for translation theory and practice. As far as their
implications for translation theorizing are concerned, the findings of the study suggest that the selection of strategies
used for lexical items in the area of architecture may be influenced by decisions different from those decisions driving
the selection of strategies for other types of language genres. Thus, any translation theory should take into account the
variations in the selection of strategies that arise from the genre types. These variations become a factor particularly
when the translation of CSIs is the issue (See Munday, 2001).
Further, translation theoreticians should provide explanations as to why translators of texts of different genres would
prefer the use of particular translation strategies over others. Though such explanations needs the further step of
investigating the cognitive processes that writers/translators use when choosing particular strategies, the step would
ultimately bear fruitful outcomes for a comprehensive theory (see Göpferich, Jakobsen, & Mees, 2009 for a collection
of papers on cognitive translation processes). In fact, the step has been already taken by several scholars (e.g., Asadi &
Séguinot, 2005; Jakobsen, 2003).
IJALEL 6(2):46-55, 2017 54
As far as their implications for practice are concerned, the range of implications of the findings is even wider. In fact,
the implications of the findings for practice can be in the areas of corpus linguistics, translation training, and
development of translation skills. For corpus linguistics, one suggestion in the field is that bilingual dictionaries of
terms can be prepared based on the analysis of the appropriate and most frequent equivalents used by writers and
translators in their works (Baker, 1995, 1996). Therefore, the same can be done with respect to architectural
terminology. Though such dictionaries cannot be prepared based on single studies, or a limited number of studies, the
present study paves the way for future ones, resulting in more findings based on which the dictionaries can be prepared.
As far as the implications of the findings for translation training are concerned, one implication could be that instructors
should teach their student on the appropriate strategies for CSIs. More particularly, the instructors should make their
students aware that the use of inappropriate strategies may distort the intended message (Fawcett, 1981; Hatim, 2014).
These hints would ultimately result in the development of good translation skills in students.
Research in social sciences and humanities, including Translation Studies, is a continuous process (Dunne, Pryor, &
Yates, 2005; Lodico, Spaulding, & Voegtle, 2006) as it is rather impossible to reach conclusive answers to research
questions based on findings of just one study. The research attempt undertaken in the present study can be followed in
several directions in future studies. First, it is suggested that the present study be replicated on more architectural texts
written and translated by other writers/translators to see whether the findings obtained can be generalized to a wider
range of such texts (Alves, 2003). Therefore, till such studies are undertaken by other researchers in future, the
generalizability of the findings is restricted to the architectural texts targeted in this study.
Second, as mentioned before, study of strategies used to write/translate CSIs would give us an incomplete picture if we
do not take into account why the writers/translator chooses some particular strategies over others. That is, researchers
should look into the cognitive processes that drive the use of strategies for CSIs. Think-aloud protocols are particularly
helpful for this purpose (Bernardini, 2002; Bowles, 2010; Gerloff, 1986). In a think-aloud protocol, the writer/translator
would talk about his/her choice of strategies simultaneously as he/she is writing/translating, letting the researcher look
into the cognitive processes driving the selection of strategies. (Bernardini, 2002)
Third, it is recommended that studies of similar type be carried based on other frameworks and models. Even though
Van Doorslaer’s (2007) framework that was employed in the present study ha s been one of the most used frameworks
in the recent years, the framework has not yet been validated. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out studies of similar
type based on other frameworks and models to see whether the findings obtained in the present study would be repeated
if the new frameworks and models were adopted.
Finally, researchers are recommended to undertake comparative studies on CSIs within different genre types. Although
architectural texts are good examples of culturally-loaded language materials they are not the only language texts with
this feature. Among others, literary texts, commercial labels, product mottos, etc. are other tools by which cultural
representations are transmitted to the readership. It would give us fruitful result if we could determine whether
translators make use of strategies different those usually used in the translation of architectural texts.
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