Translating Interjections and Suprasegmental Features of English Movies to Persian Subtitles

Abstract. Translating orality aspects from one language into another is a notoriously challenging task which occupies the first place along the cline of translation complexities. This is one of the reasons why rendering interjections and suprasegmental features as orality aspects have rarely been studied from English into Persian, particularly in the area of subtitled movies.  This study, hence, was performed to be one step towards more analyses and researches in this domain.  In the present study, the researcher attempted to investigate how interjections and suprasegmental features are dealt with by Persian translators i.e. whether they omit them or insert them in the target text and finally to identify the best way to render them in Persian subtitles.  Three translation theories were adopted to analyze the data of the study: looping model (Nord, 1991), hermeneutic motion (Steiner, 1975) and Ullmann’s (1926) transparency.  The data were gathered from a popular movie, Harry Potter.  After a thorough analysis, it was concluded that the gear shaped model as a combination of the above-mentioned theories is if not the best but at least the most applicable way for translating interjections and suprasegmental features.  The model provides a substitution in the target language which approximates the source language concept as close and contingent as possible.   

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