Relevance, Processing Effort, and Contextual Effect in Farsi Translation of Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Abstract

Relevance Theory of Communication has various implications in translation. Since translation can be considered as expression and recognition of intentions, and based on the presumption that a large number of Farsi translations are not successful in this process, this study aimed at detecting the obstacles which hinder this process and effective procedures in avoiding and overcoming such obstacles. To this end, five sample paragraphs were selected from Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and two translations of it into Farsi. Then five instructors of translation studies were asked to evaluate the selected texts and list the factors which increased processing effort based on the guidelines adopted from principles of Relevance Theory and the criteria proposed by vandijk (1979). The results indicated that there were some factors that decreased the relevance level of the text for the Persian audience. Taking the raters’ notes into consideration and analyzing the texts of each translation, the researcher came up with some helpful guidelines to avoid such obstacles in the process of translation e.g. avoiding uncommon phonological patterns or concepts which are unknown to the Persian audience.
Key words: Translation; Relevance; Processing effort; Contextual effect; Communication