Investigation of the Strategies Applied to Translate Idiomatic Expressions for Non-Native Viewers of Iranian Subtitled Movies (The Case Study: Drama Genre)

Abstract

Nowadays, idiomatic expressions considered an inseparable part of our everyday language and they are one of the most problematic issues in the process of translation between languages. There exist some elements which are directly related to culture, customs, beliefs, and values of the target language audiences which idioms are included. The present study aimed to investigate the strategies employed in the translation of idioms from Persian into English in the process of subtitling in three Iranian subtitled drama movies. To do this, idioms extracted from Persian versions of the selected drama movies, then, compared with their subtitled ones in English. The obtained data showed the Chi-square results were not significant at χ2 (6, N=4) =3.625, p=0, by considering p ˂0.05, and the strategies employed were not distributed equally. It means that “Using an idiom of similar meaning and form” was the most frequently used strategy in the translation of the idiomatic expressions with the highest frequency of 36% and the least frequently used strategy for dealing with idioms was “Omission” which is 10%. Therefore, Iranian audiovisual translators attempted to translate the idioms as naturally as possible and preserve their naturalness for Non-Farsi language viewers.