Rendering Persian Metaphors in Iranian Political News Discourse: A Relevance Theory Approach

This study aimed to examine the English rendering of Iranian political news, focusing on the translation of metaphorical expressions. The dataset under study comprised ۴۳ Persian political news stories and their English translations. To extract metaphorical expressions, the researchers exploited the conceptual metaphor theory proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (۱۹۸۰) as the model of the study. Then, relevance theory proposed by Gutt (۲۰۰۰) was utilized to see which type of translation, namely, direct or indirect, was used more frequently by the English translators to transfer the Persian authors’ intentions. The degree to which the translators managed to achieve optimal relevance, considering the cultural, social, and political differences of the original and target audiences, was also checked. The obtained results revealed that the translators used direct translation most frequently to translate Iranian political news successfully. As for the observance of optimal relevance in the selected translation chunks, it was revealed that a more comprehensive study of political news discourse could possibly provide adequate evidence.