Fatemeh Parham

Allameh Tabataba'i University, English Translation, Faculty Member

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Fatemeh Parham is an Assistant Professor of Translation Studies at Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran. She is also the managing director of Parham Translation Institute (PTI) and is a certified translator of English language.

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Ali Ragheb

University of Tehran

Mokhtar ISSAIYAN

Masoud Farahmandfar مسعود فرهمندفر

Allameh Tabataba'i University

mehdi rezaei

Payam Nour University

Mostafa Hosseini

Bu-Ali Sina University

Bangkok University

Hamid Ataei Nazari حمید عطائی نظری

Isfahan

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Papers by Fatemeh Parham

The Impact of Translating English Haiku on the Emergence of Haiku in Persian Literature

Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature, Arts, and Humanities, 2024

This study aims to conduct a comparative analysis of translated English haikus and Iranian haikus... more This study aims to conduct a comparative analysis of translated English haikus and Iranian haikus, exploring whether Persian haikus (composed in Persian) exhibit literary characteristics influenced by translated haikus or possess distinct traits. To this end, an integrated model of haiku evaluation was developed. Subsequently, 150 English haikus and their corresponding Persian translations were evaluated according to this model, elucidating the features of the translated haikus. The evaluation entailed not only formal aspects such as syllable count and line structure but also semantic nuances. Furthermore, 100 Iranian haikus were assessed using the same integrated model, enabling a comparison between translated and Iranian haikus to identify their commonalities and differences. The findings reveal two discernible categories of Iranian haikus: one influenced by translated haikus, characterized by classical elements rooted in Japanese culture, and another type of haiku with an inherent Iranian identity, inspired by Iranian culture and distinct in its expression.

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The Effect of National Identity and Cognitive Abilities on Translators

The current paper investigates the potential effect of national identity and cognitive abilities ... more The current paper investigates the potential effect of national identity and cognitive abilities on translators’ mental effort. To this end, an eye-tracking study was conducted to explore how individuals’ mental effort varied based on their national identity and cognitive abilities when instructed to translate according to IRIB standards. To do this, eight participants were recruited to carry out ten tasks, requiring the translation of ideologically-loaded texts. The experiment was performed in the Cognitive Laboratory of the University of Tehran in Iran. The mental effort of the participants was assessed by measuring their fixations counts, a commonly used eye-tracking metric derived from their performance while translating. Upon completion, the participants were given two questionnaires, measuring their national identity and cognitive abilities. The results indicated that the participants’ national identity and cognitive abilities affect their fixation counts which represent their mental effort. In other words, a positive correlation was observed between the scores of national identity and cognitive abilities, where higher scores contributed to increased mental effort. This denotes that the translators’ mental effort decreased when asked to translate against their national identity.

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Translatability of Postmodern Features: A Study of Donald Barthelme's Short Stories in Persian Translation

Postmodern literature possesses distinct characteristics that are evident in both its content and... more Postmodern literature possesses distinct characteristics that are evident in both its content and form. This research first attempts to identify the postmodern features in a corpus of English postmodern literature and examines their possible translatability across linguistic and cultural barriers. To this end, a corpus of ten English postmodern short stories by Donald Barthelme along with their corresponding translations into Persian was developed. Drawing on the integrative model of analysis developed for this study, the postmodern features in English stories were identified and their corresponding translations were analyzed at various levels. The results of the study indicate a high degree of translatability for postmodern features, as they experienced minimal transformation during the translation process. In fact, the translated stories remained remarkably postmodern, with the preservation of these features to a significant extent. However, it is important to exercise caution when interpreting this high degree of translatability. While translators may consciously strive to maintain these features, it is also possible that postmodern elements, which are predominantly manifested beyond sentence-level structures, may go unnoticed or remain untouched by translators. Additionally, the preservation of postmodern features in translation could be a result of translators' reluctance to intrude upon the creative process.

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Features of Identity in Translational and Non-Translational Children's Literature

by Shirin Ahmadi and Fatemeh Parham

The purpose of the current study was to identify features of national identity in translational a... more The purpose of the current study was to identify features of national identity in translational and non-translational children's literature and analyze the contribution of these texts to identity formation of Iranian children. For the purpose of this study, 16 translational and non-translational realistic young adult novels, 8 translational and 8 non-translational, that were published in Iran were scrutinized thoroughly to extract instances of national identity. The instances were extracted based on ethniccivic categorization of national identity features which is a combination of two taxonomies of the civic and ethnic features of national identity provided by Smith (1991). The extracted instances were carefully analyzed and compared to reach a conclusion. The results of the study revealed that Iranian children's exposure to features of non-Iranian national identity is twice the number of their exposure to features of Iranian national identity. Furthermore, only some of the aspects of national identity are introduced to children through novels. In fact, the low frequency of some elements of national identity, including economic, ideological, political and legal features, shows that the more complicated aspects of national identity are marginalized in these texts. The study showed that young adult novels have modest contribution to Iranian children's national consciousness .

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Text Image Interactions in Translated Comics

Iranian Journal of Translation Studies, 2018

In children’s books meaning is communicated through the interaction of both the visual and the ve... more In children’s books meaning is communicated through the interaction of both the visual and the verbal elements. The present study thus attempts to examine whether text-image interactions in children’s books undergo any change in the process of translation. To this end, a corpus of 24 English comics along with their Persian translations was developed. Then relying on McCloud’s (1994) typology of text-image interactions, the selected English text-image pairs were compared with their corresponding pairs in Persian in search of any change. The results of the study revealed that changes in texts or in images gave rise to changes in text-image interactions in almost half of the cases examined (46%). This means that since different elements in children books are connected and it is through their cooperation that meaning is conveyed, any change in one element may effect a greater change at a different level and may affect the communication of the message.

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Visually or Verbally Postmodern: A Study of Translated Picture Books

Iranian Journal of Translation Studies, 2017

One peculiar feature of picture books is the role they ascribe to pictures as part of the narrati... more One peculiar feature of picture books is the role they ascribe to pictures as part of the narrative, leading to diverse patterns of interaction between texts and illustrations. Postmodern authors, illustrators, and translators benefit from this text-image interaction to break the common frames and conventions of picture books. The present study attempts to identify the postmodern features of picture books by developing a comprehensive model of these features. It then focuses on Persian translated picture books with postmodern influences to decide on the nature of these features and to classify them as realized through the visual channel, the verbal channel, the layout or a combination of these channels

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Translation and Hybridity in Scenes and Frames Semantics

Iranian Journal of Applied Language Studies, 2015

The present study is a theoretical attempt to illustrate how Fillmore's Scenes and Frames Semanti... more The present study is a theoretical attempt to illustrate how Fillmore's Scenes and Frames Semantics (SFS) could be employed as a framework to portray the process of understanding and translating hybrid texts. It first reviews the origin of SFS; then it maps SFS onto Nida's linguistic model of translation process and the Interpretive Theory of Translation; it examines in the next section, within the framework of SFS, different forms of understanding and translating hybrid and pure texts with reference to the selection of linguistic frames and more importantly the activation of scenes. The paper explains all four processes of hybridization, dehybridization, rehybridization and hybridity preservation using SFS. The study concludes that, although hybridity is a complex phenomenon, Fillmore's scenes and frames semantics can adequately explain and justify its different aspects and manifestations. Moreover, it revealed that understanding, seen in SFS model, has an element of individuality and this gives rise to a broader perspective on translation where there can potentially be as many valid translations as there are translators. This has significant implications for our conception, analysis and assessment of translation.

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Baker's Narrative Theory Examined in the Postmodern Theory of Lyotard

Iranian Journal of Translation Studies, 2014

Postmodernism is an interdisciplinary concept, tied to theories from a whole range of fields in h... more Postmodernism is an interdisciplinary concept, tied to theories from a whole range of fields in humanism including philosophy, art, sociology, psychoanalysis, politics and literature. However, the link between postmodernism and translation studies and its impact on theories of translation seem to be under-explored. The present study examines Baker’s ‘narrative theory’ within the framework of the postmodern theory of Lyotard, one of the prominent figures of postmodern world. The results of the study showed that Baker’s narrative theory has traces of postmodern thought and can be considered a postmodern theory in translation studies.

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The Relationship between Critical Thinking Skills and Translation Quality

Iranian Journal of Translation Studies, 2013

If is nowadays widely accepted by all educators and translator trainers that critical thinking ab... more If is nowadays widely accepted by all educators and translator trainers that critical thinking ability is a vital ingredient of a successful academic life. Critical thinking is defined as a reasonable, reflective, responsible, and skilful thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do. The present study is thus an attempt to investigatEnhe relationship between critical thinking skills and the quality of translations by translator trainees. To this end, 30 senior BA students at Allameh Tabataba'i University first completed Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (1980). They then translated two excerpts of a text on economics and their translations were rated. The critical thinking results were correlated with the translation scores which revealed a statistically significant advantage for those with superior critical thinking skills. Therefore, to promote a more fruitful translator training course, it is suggested that teachers attempt to establish an atmosphere where critical thinking is exercised and students pick up relevant skills systematically in a fashion that encourages the application of critical thinking outside the classroom, for all real-life activities.

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Concrete Diaspora vs. Abstract Diaspora - Hybrid Texts: Translations and Original Writings

Journal of Language and Translation Studies, 2011

The hybrid quality of a text can be the result of its being produced in an in-between space such ... more The hybrid quality of a text can be the result of its being produced in an in-between space such as a diaspora. The present study examines the hybrid character of a number of texts which are labeled as immigrant literature and compares them with texts produced in Iran (homeland) in order to find out whether hybridity is specific to texts produced in diaspora or can also be found in texts produced in homeland. The comparison is carried out using a model of hybridity which classifies manifestations of hybridness under three main approaches to hybridization. The results of the analysis illustrated that hybridity is not a quality peculiar to diasporic texts and texts developed in homeland can be hybrid too. This necessitated the rethinking of the definition of diaspora. Moreover, this study showed that the context of text production is merely one of the factors accounting for the hybridness of a text; other factors can be the particular intention of the writer or translator or the description of a hybrid community.

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Hybridization, Dehybridization, and Rehybridization

Iranian Journal of Translation Studies, 2010

Translation scholars are in the belief that when a hybrid text gets translated, its elements, whe... more Translation scholars are in the belief that when a hybrid text gets translated, its elements, whether hybrid or non-hybrid, undergo certain changes. The present study, thus, endeavours to probe into the nature of these changes. In other words, it attempts to illustrate what fates elements of a hybrid text are to encounter in the process of translation. Exploring an English hybrid text taken from immigrant literature along with its translation into Persian revealed that in the process of translation, some of the elements of the hybrid text remain intact and are transferred to the target text without any change; i.e. they preserve their original hybrid or non-hybrid quality. However, certain other elements undergo changes which we classified under the three categories of hybridization, dehybridization and rehybridization.

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Signs of Hybridness in Texts Produced in Diaspora vs. Homeland

Iranian Journal of Translation Studies, 2010

Hybridity is a feature expected to emerge in specific cultural spaces like diasporas; however, no... more Hybridity is a feature expected to emerge in specific cultural spaces like diasporas; however, not solely the texts produced in a diaspora qualify as hybrid. The texts created in homeland-in this study, Iran-can reflect hybridness as well. But it is not clear whether both groups of texts, i.e. Iranian and diasporic, enjoy the same kind and degree of hybridity. The present paper then, relying on a huge corpus of 670000 words, consisting of eleven novels and collections of short stories, produced either in Iran or Iranian diaspora, in a period of ten years from 1998 to 2008, attempts to reveal the differences in kind and degree of hybridity in texts produced in Iran (homeland) versus those created in Iranian diaspora.

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Trends in and Manifestations of Hybridity

by Fatemeh Parham and Hussein Mollanazar

Iranian Journal of Translation Studies, 2009

Hybridity, as an obvious corollary of the changing face of the world, has been a central area of ... more Hybridity, as an obvious corollary of the changing face of the world, has been a central area of investigation in translation studies for quite some time. Many scholars have concerned themselves with this phenomenon and have approached it from a variety of perspectives. The present research has classified these scattered approaches to hybridity along four main trends. Furthermore, merely a few of these scholars have explicitly and directly addressed the manifestations of hybridness and those few have contented themselves with sings of hybridity solely in the light of a single perspective, overlooking other approaches. Therefore, an exhaustive taxonomy of elements which render a text hybrid is missing from the literature on hybridity and this is what the present paper has attempted to develop.

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Gender Representation in Children's EFL Textbooks

Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2013

The differences in the speech and behavior of adult males and females may be a consequence of the... more The differences in the speech and behavior of adult males and females may be a consequence of their sexist education in childhood; experimental research suggests that the development of children's gender identity is strongly affected by their reading materials and extensive research on these materials have revealed that gender bias and gender stereotypes are prevalent. The present study examines the representation of gender in conversations, illustrations and graphic design of the cover in nine packages designed to teach English to young children for evidence of bias. From each series, the intermediate level is analyzed. The results revealed that females have equitable visibility in conversations with regard to the number of participants, number of turns and the length of turns. Females however appeared to be the initiator of conversations 30 per cent more times than males. The analysis of illustrations in the second part confirmed the results of previous studies that females were under-represented in children's books. There were no significant differences in the representation of gender in the graphic design of the covers.

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Manifest Intertextuality and Readability in SLA Handbooks

Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 2016

It is argued that meaning has no originatory source and is the outcome of relationships between t... more It is argued that meaning has no originatory source and is the outcome of relationships between texts, or intertextuality, the manifest type of which is cued by concrete references to the works of others in direct or indirect forms. The present research, then, is an attempt to illustrate how intertextual networks are set up in SLA handbooks; manifest intertextuality is in the next phase mapped onto a diachronic axis to see if there is any meaningful pattern regulating intertextuality in the corpus of the study. The obtained results revealed a far greater reliance on contemporary works which may be justified in the light of the constant development of our knowledge of the field. Intertextuality is then examined in the framework of relevance theory to show the possible connections between the intertextual quality of a text and its readability. Since many SLA handbooks serve as textbooks for graduate students, the results of this study can help with measuring the degree of readability of handbooks and their optimality for given students.

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Manifestations of Otherness in Audiovisual Products

by Hamideh Nemati Lafmejani and Fatemeh Parham

Translation Studies Quarterly, 2017

The present study intended to develop and test a model to study the manifestations of Otherness i... more The present study intended to develop and test a model to study the manifestations of Otherness in animations. To this end, three existing models—Di Giovanni (2007) and Bosinelli, Di Giovanni and Torresi (2005), Di Giovanni (2003) and Lippi-Green (1997)—were modified and integrated. The developed model was then tested with a corpus of nine American animated movies with multicultural setting/characters. Based on the findings of the corpus analysis and the identification of cases that were not subsumed under any category of the model, the model was further developed into a comprehensive one. The study revealed that American film industry benefits from dichotomizing Self and Other and stereotyping the Other in animations.

Books by Fatemeh Parham

Book of Abstracts of The 1st RITS Biennial International Conference: Cutting-Edge Trends in Translation and Interpreting

The Book of Abstracts of "The 1st RITS Biennial International Conference: Cutting-Edge Trends in ... more

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Embodiment of Deeds and Intercession Compressed

This is a book translated from Persian into English and published by Ansariyan Publications in 20... more

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National Historical Atlas of Iran

A Persian into English group translation of "اطلس تاریخی ایران" commissioned by the National Cart... more

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A Task-Based Coursebook for Translation Theories

by Fatemeh Parham and Hamideh Nemati Lafmejani

ATU Press, 2020

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The Impact of Translating English Haiku on the Emergence of Haiku in Persian Literature

Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature, Arts, and Humanities, 2024

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The Effect of National Identity and Cognitive Abilities on Translators

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Translatability of Postmodern Features: A Study of Donald Barthelme's Short Stories in Persian Translation

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Features of Identity in Translational and Non-Translational Children's Literature

by Shirin Ahmadi and Fatemeh Parham

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Text Image Interactions in Translated Comics

Iranian Journal of Translation Studies, 2018

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Visually or Verbally Postmodern: A Study of Translated Picture Books

Iranian Journal of Translation Studies, 2017

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Translation and Hybridity in Scenes and Frames Semantics

Iranian Journal of Applied Language Studies, 2015

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Baker's Narrative Theory Examined in the Postmodern Theory of Lyotard

Iranian Journal of Translation Studies, 2014

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The Relationship between Critical Thinking Skills and Translation Quality

Iranian Journal of Translation Studies, 2013

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Concrete Diaspora vs. Abstract Diaspora - Hybrid Texts: Translations and Original Writings

Journal of Language and Translation Studies, 2011

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Hybridization, Dehybridization, and Rehybridization

Iranian Journal of Translation Studies, 2010

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Signs of Hybridness in Texts Produced in Diaspora vs. Homeland

Iranian Journal of Translation Studies, 2010

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Trends in and Manifestations of Hybridity

by Fatemeh Parham and Hussein Mollanazar

Iranian Journal of Translation Studies, 2009

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Gender Representation in Children's EFL Textbooks

Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2013

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Manifest Intertextuality and Readability in SLA Handbooks

Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 2016

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Manifestations of Otherness in Audiovisual Products

by Hamideh Nemati Lafmejani and Fatemeh Parham

Translation Studies Quarterly, 2017

Book of Abstracts of The 1st RITS Biennial International Conference: Cutting-Edge Trends in Translation and Interpreting

The Book of Abstracts of "The 1st RITS Biennial International Conference: Cutting-Edge Trends in ... more

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Embodiment of Deeds and Intercession Compressed

This is a book translated from Persian into English and published by Ansariyan Publications in 20... more

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National Historical Atlas of Iran

A Persian into English group translation of "اطلس تاریخی ایران" commissioned by the National Cart... more

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A Task-Based Coursebook for Translation Theories

by Fatemeh Parham and Hamideh Nemati Lafmejani

ATU Press, 2020

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Author Networks in Research on Translation History in Iran: A Data Mining Approach

International Conference "Translation in Transition 2024" at Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University, Georgia, 2024

The Impact of Automatic Speech Recognition on Cognitive Load: The Case of Iranian Interpreters

International Conference "Translation in Transition 2024" at Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University, Georgia, 2024

An Eye-tracking Study of Translators’ Pupil Diameters When Translating Ideological Texts

International Conference "Translation in Transition 2024" at Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University, Georgia, 2024

A Study of Collaborative Learning in the Audiovisual Translation Course

The 20th TELSI International Conference and the 7th ELT Conference in One Frame: ELT Teacher Education in the Spotlight, 2024

While collaborative learning has been extensively explored in language learning classes, its appl... more While collaborative learning has been extensively explored in language learning classes, its application in translation classrooms has received comparatively less attention. The present study aimed to investigate students' attitudes toward collaborative learning in an audiovisual translation course. Throughout the semester, assignments were designed for collaborative completion, utilizing online platforms such as TED. On the TED website, translators contribute voluntarily to provide subtitles in various languages. The interlingual translation of the TED talks is possible by using CaptionHub as a subtitling platform. The TED Open Translation Project is done in three stages: translation, review, and approval; the last stage is done by the language coordinators of TED. The students were organized into teams and tasked with selecting a Ted talk from the website. Together, they worked on translating the video’s subtitles and publishing the final product. Upon course completion, a questionnaire, developed by McLeish (2009) and comprising 12 items, was administered to assess students' perspectives on collaborative learning. Twenty undergraduate students, consisting of 12 females and eight males, all having completed the prerequisite credits, participated in the survey. Data analysis using SPSS version 22.0 revealed that while most students willingly engaged in collaborative activities and acknowledged the facilitation of the learning experience, they expressed a preference for organizing their work individually. Additionally, they showed a lack of enjoyment when working with peers, potentially influenced by a school system that does not emphasize teamwork and collaboration. Furthermore, students might require reassurance that their performance assessment is not influenced by the capabilities of their collaborative partners. Given students’ inclination toward individual work and concerns about collaborative assessment, educators should emphasize the value of collaborative skills and help bridge the gap between students’ preferences and the merits of working collectively.

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Employability of fMRI Technique for the Study of Simultaneous Interpreting Process

The 1st RITS Biennial International Conference: Cutting-Edge Trends in Translation and Interpreting Studies, 2022

Neuroimaging of simultaneous interpreting provides insights into the mechanisms of language contr... more Neuroimaging of simultaneous interpreting provides insights into the mechanisms of language control as it allows the examination of brain regions whose activities are modulated by interpreting and rest time. fMRI is one of the neuroimaging techniques to explore the cognitive aspects of interpreting, which despite a high spatial resolution, has its own limitations. This study aimed to investigate the employability of the fMRI technique for the study of the process of simultaneous interpreting. To this end, six BA translation students participated in an fMRI experiment with a designed task. fMRI scanning was performed on a 3 Tesla SIEMENS MAGNETOM Prisma scanner in National Brain Mapping Laboratory. The participants performed simultaneous interpreting from English into Persian for 403 seconds into the fMRI machine. The results revealed that a number of limitations impede the study of simultaneous interpreting process with fMRI. One limitation was the loud noise of the fMRI device which would distract the participants during the task. Although special headphones were used when playing the task into the fMRI device, in practice they could not muffle the noise and control distraction. A second limitation was related to the movements of head and jaw of the participants. To be able to analyze the data obtained through fMRI, there should be no or a minimum of jaw and head shakes, while this was impossible for the participants to do interpreting without any movement of head and jaw. The study concluded that although fMRI technique gives insight into the process of simultaneous interpreting, its results should be interpreted with caution since the distractions caused by the noise of the device and the head and jaw movements of the interpreters can seriously affect the findings.

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Translation Quality Indicators on Instagram: A Study of Travel Bloggers

Conference: The 1st RITS Biennial International Conference: Cutting-Edge Trends in Translation and Interpreting Studies, 2022

With the advances in digital technology and the rise of online social media platforms, human comm... more With the advances in digital technology and the rise of online social media platforms, human communication is entering a new phase of mediality, which is instant, swift, and predominantly visual. Given that translation is a form of cross-cultural communication, it has been significantly affected by the blooming of online communication technologies. This study thus aims to investigate the specifications of intermodal translation in travel bloggers’ Instagram posts, and redefine the concept of translation quality in OSM translation. To this end, 240 Instagram posts from 21 foreign travel bloggers were selected and analyzed in two different phases. In the first phase, the shared posts were tabulated and studied in terms of content and structure to come up with the specifications of the intermodal translation in OSM. In the second phase, regarding the results of the previous phase, a redefinition of translation quality in OSM translation was presented. This study takes the notion of inspirational translation introduced by Gottlieb (2005) as its framework to study an unconventional form of translation in OSM. The results show that there is a direct relationship between the content and structural specifications of the captions and the level of user participation in cyberspace. The research findings also suggest that the concept of translation quality on Instagram is approximately related to good post-performance. That is to say, the translation quality is assessed by various social media post-performance metrics such as the number of followers, likes, comments, views, new followers, impression and reach, as well as getting on the Instagram explore page.

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A Conceptual Analysis of Translation Quality in Instagram

The 1st RITS Biennial International Conference: Cutting-Edge Trends in Translation and Interpreting Studies, 2022

The present study aimed to explore how translation quality in Instagram was different from its tr... more The present study aimed to explore how translation quality in Instagram was different from its traditional conceptualization in print media. To this end, indicators of quality in conventionalized translation (print media) were extracted from literature. Then, indicators of quality/quality assessment in inspirational translation (Instagram) were found based on Desjardin’s notion of participant engagement (2017), i.e., the number of likes, views, followers, shares, saves, reaches, and impressions. These two sets of indicators were then compared with each other. The comparison revealed that the definition of translation quality in Instagram is different from its traditional conceptualization in print media in five aspects. First, in print media translation quality is determined by considering both the merits and demerits, whereas in Instagram this merit/demerit binary is no longer taken into account. Second, in print media, the evaluators could be either professional or non-professional, whereas in Instagram, the evaluators are non-professional. Third, evaluators of printed translations publish commentaries or critiques or they buy, read, or suggest a book to show their (dis)approval, whereas the evaluation tool used in Instagram is likes, views, follows, shares, saves, etc. Fourth, in professional evaluation in print media, only in certain cases the comparison of ST and TT is performed while in Instagram ST-TT comparison always happens. Finally, the type of assessment in print media can be both qualitative and quantitative, while in Instagram it is only of a quantitative nature. These new indicators of quality in Instagram seem to give rise to a redefinition of translation quality in online social media.

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Translational Concepts Under Postmodernism: The Case of Venuti's Views

National Conference: Interdisciplinary Research in Translation Studies, 2020

Postmodernism is a wide-ranging cultural movement that has crept into various fields of arts and ... more Postmodernism is a wide-ranging cultural movement that has crept into various fields of arts and humanities and is believed to have influenced translation studies as well. If we then look at translation theory from the vantage point of postmodernism and identify the traces of postmodern thinking in translation studies, a whole new world of investigation opens up. Thus, the objective the present study aims to meet is to examine two translational concepts in the light of postmodernism and explore the possibility of a redefinition of the investigated concepts. To this end, first the main postmodern concerns of two thinkers whose views represent postmodernism, namely Lyotard and Cixous, are explored. In the second step, two translation related issues tackled by Lawrence Venuti in his published works, namely abusive fidelity and translation ethics, are analyzed using postmodern concepts in pursuit of commonality. The results of the analysis reveal that these translational concepts, as defined by Venuti, are postmodern, thus creating the possibility of their being redefined. Such redefinitions can have significant implications for translation practice, pedagogy and research.

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National Identity in Written and Translated Children Literature

National Conference: Children's Literature and the "Other", 2018

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Metafictive Elements in Translated Postmodern Picture Books

Eurasian Translation Congress 1: Translation and Education - Yerevan State University, Yerevan, Armenia, 2019

Postmodern children’s literature is the result of developments in artistic traditions and literar... more Postmodern children’s literature is the result of developments in artistic traditions and literary philosophy. These books contain metafictive elements that subvert the longstanding conventions of children’s literature and do not permit children to indulge in the illusory world of fiction. The main objective of the present undertaking is to examine how the metafictive elements are treated in Persian translations of English postmodern picture books. To fulfil the objective, a corpus of six postmodern works (three English picture books and three Persian translations) was developed. Collection and analysis of the data were performed in multiple phases, drawing on Nikolajeva and Scott’s (2001) taxonomy of picture books, the grammar of visual design proposed by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) and an integrated model of postmodern features of picture books developed for this study. The analysis of the data led to the identification of the postmodern features of picture books at the levels of text, picture and layout, including intertextuality, intervisuality, intraiconic texts, variation in font and layout, performance and participation, boundary breaking, pastiche of illustrative styles, and polyphonic narrators. The results of the analysis revealed that success at identifying and then translating postmodern features of picture books was to a large extent a matter of awareness of postmodernism. The postmodern features fell into the categories of micro and macro structures with a much higher frequency for the instances of the micro features. When features descend to micro level, the translator’s degree of latitude in manipulating them grows considerably, and the preservation of these features at all three levels in translation require conscious decisions on the part of the translation-publication teams.

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Revisiting Humor Translation in Cyberspace: The Case of Humorous Captioned Videos Shared in Instagram

International Conference: National Identity in Translation - Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine, 2018

Unconventional translations encountered in today’s media landscape call for new conceptualization... more Unconventional translations encountered in today’s media landscape call for new conceptualization and this may lead to a rethinking of known concepts in translation studies. The present study therefore attempted to examine how humor translation in cyberspace was different from its traditional conceptualization in print media. To meet the goal of this study, a corpus of 50 Instagram captioned videos was developed using humor-relevant hashtags. Then drawing on Hay’s (1995) taxonomy of humor as well as Gottlieb’s (2005) definition of inspirational translation, the humorous elements in videos and their captions were extracted, categorized and studied. The analysis yielded classifications of humor realization and humor translation in videos and texts in cyberspace. In the next phase, these findings were compared with the realization of humor and its translation strategies in print media. The paper concluded that humor realization and translation in print media and online social media differ significantly. It can then be said that humor translation gets revisited in cyberspace and this implies that other translational concepts may also get revisited if explored in digital media.

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National Identity in Persian Translated Immigrant Literature

International Conference: National Identity in Translation - Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine, 2018

Texts produced in mixed sites of belonging such as diaspora are replete with nationalistic sentim... more Texts produced in mixed sites of belonging such as diaspora are replete with nationalistic sentiments. Identity crisis, paradoxical identity, and hybridity are some of the overriding concerns in such texts. This study thus aimed to explore national identity in translated immigrant literature as a branch of modern Persian literature. To this end, in a corpus of immigrant literature written by Iranian immigrants in English and translated later into Persian, references to identity were marked and examined for any change in their translations. The results of the study revealed that in immigrant literature references to identity mainly surfaced as identity crisis and took the forms of ambivalence, defamiliarization, representation of Self, representation of Other, problems of exile and immigration, and homeland concerns. The analysis of translations showed that these references went through minimum transformation in the translations which seemed to be a result of their interconnection with the novels' macrostructure. That is, changes in references to identity could give rise to different characterization and plot distortion and thus most probably avoided by translators.

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Intellectual Property Rights and Translated Audiovisual Translation in the Age of Postmodernism

International Conference: Turns, Trends, Turmoils in Translation Studies: New Vistas for the 21st Century, 2017

Advances in technology have complicated intellectual property rights (IPRs) for audiovisual produ... more Advances in technology have complicated intellectual property rights (IPRs) for audiovisual products and have contributed to the emergence of illegal copies identical in value with originals. The present study attempts to examine IPRs of AV products in the light of postmodernism. By AV products, movies, cartoons, animations and documentaries are meant. To this end, first, the concept of ‘copy’ which refers to either a ‘duplicate’ or a ‘translation’ (as it is used in translation studies) is discussed, resulting in the following classification: a. copy of an original movie in its original language (copy = duplicate); b. translation of an original movie (copy = translation); c. copy of the translated version of an original movie (copy = duplicate and translation). In all three cases if the copy is created illegally, IPRs are infringed by copiers/end users, translators, or both. For further analysis of IPRs within the framework of postmodernism, we rely on the postmodern views of Baudrillard and Derrida, particularly the concepts of simulacrum and hyperreality. The results of the analysis show that in postmodern culture, there are signifiers without signifieds; originals disappear beneath the surface of simulacra which gradually assume an autonomous status. The collapse between image and reality renders the consumers of translated AV products (copiers and end users) as well as the legislators passive subjects who take simulation as the only necessary reality and let the symbolic assume the primary role in shaping their world; as a result they show no concern for protection of intellectual properties.

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Developing Assessment Competence in Translation Trainees: Proposing an Objective Model

International Conference on Interdisciplinary Approaches to Translation Education, 2017

The present study is an attempt to propose an objective model of translation assessment which con... more The present study is an attempt to propose an objective model of translation assessment which contributes to the development of "assessment competence". Such a model has a number of requirements. First, the model of teaching translation should match or be the same as the model of assessing translation. Second, the same model of translation assessment should lend itself to teacher-assessment, peer-assessment and self-assessment. The proposed model is Gile's (2009) Sequential Model of Translation. This is a linear model, with pedagogical orientation; it has seven components and teaches translation systematically in two phases of comprehension and reformulation. The model also performs error analysis. This paper argues that since this teaching model is systematic and locates sources of errors, it can be employed as a model of assessment too. Moreover, it has the potential to extend the agent of assessment beyond the trainer to peers and translator trainees themselves. When the same model is used for systematic teaching and assessing of translation, and when teacher's model of assessment is used for peer and self-assessment as well, then translation assessment becomes consistent, coherent and increasingly objective. Objectivity and systematicity enable trainees to develop decision-making and problem-solving skills which then translate into internalized knowledge and finally results in the development of assessment competence. Moreover, a systematic model of teacher-, peer- and self-assessment ensures fairness. When translation trainees are taught, assessed and make self-assessment based on the same model, they are less probable to feel frustrated and inadequate and more motivated and confident.

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A Postmodern Study of Translator’s (In)visibility

The 8 Asian Translation Tradition Conference: Conflicting Ideologies and Cultural Mediation - Hearing, Interpreting and Translating Global Voices, 2017

Asymmetry of power relations causes mediation between languages and cultures to take the form of ... more Asymmetry of power relations causes mediation between languages and cultures to take the form of acculturation, Venuti believes. To adopt an ethical stance which tends to favor democratic mediation, Venuti rejects the regime of fluency and transparency. He advocates foreignizing and minoritizing translation and recommends abusive fidelity to resist univocality and homogeneity. He also suggests a symptomatic approach to reading translations through which discontinuities can be highlighted. All these, Venuti claims, can render translators more visible. The present study takes a postmodern approach to translator’s mediation and visibility as discussed by Venuti and attempts to find out to what extent his views bear traces of postmodern thought. To this end, the works of a number of leading thinkers who are associated with postmodernism and their views make up the postmodern world, notably Lyotard, Boudrillard, Derrida, Cixous, Deleuze and Guattari, were examined and their postmodern claims were listed and called postmodern scenarios. Then Venuti’s views were compared with postmodern scenarios in quest of commonalities. The results of the analysis revealed that Venuti’s views on mediation are postmodern. His rejection of transparency and fluency is a postmodern view for it rejects binarism, originality, universal truth and unitary meaning. Since foreignization takes care of specificity, emphasizes heterogeneity and nurtures foreign and domestic simultaneously, it is also postmodern. His notion of abusive fidelity can be considered postmodern too for it breaks down hierarchical and binary structures and refutes homogeneity. Finally, his symptomatic reading qualifies as a postmodern approach because it shares Lyotard’s view on discontinuity.

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One Norm and Different Realizations: Acceptability Norm in Translation of Postmodern Short Stories

International Conference on Translation in Intercultural Context, 2017

Translation norms are common to all societies whereas their realizations varies across cultures.... more Translation norms are common to all societies whereas their realizations varies across cultures. A common translation norm that affects translators’ output is the norm of acceptability (Toury, 1995) with a culturally-determined realization. Acceptability reveals the publicly welcomed styles of translation in literary systems. Toury contends that translations that conform to acceptability norm acquire the status of authored literary texts and therefore they look more natural. In Persian translated literature, acceptability equals translations of postmodern short stories to uncover how acceptability in this genre is actualized. The results of the study indicate that acceptability in postmodern short stories is realized differently, in the form of ‘unnatural’. This is due to the fact that postmodern short stories have peculiar, unfamiliar and unique features and the readers of such stories expect a translation which is equally unusual and unfamiliar. Thus, in postmodern stories, the realization of acceptability norm changes from naturalness to unnaturalness. This study then shows that the realization of the acceptability norm is not the same across all literary genres.

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Translation from the East to the West Appropriation or Resistance

International Conference on Translation in Intercultural Space, 2017

In an intercultural space where power relations are at work, societies take up different position... more In an intercultural space where power relations are at work, societies take up different positions, with one having supremacy over the other. Consequently, texts emerging from languages and cultures at the bottom of the power pyramid undergo some change when translated into a language and culture at the top. The present paper aims at investigating the destiny of texts translated in an East-to-West direction. The theoretical analysis resulted in the identification of two approaches, appropriation and resistance, which are taken from Fairclough’s theory (2005) and Spivak’s viewpoint (2012), respectively. These approaches must be seen on a continuum; on one extreme appropriation and colonization of translated texts by the hegemonic discourse of the society at the top of the power pyramid, and on the other, resistance, this time to the hegemonic discourse and from texts which have attained agency. It seems that in an intercultural space informed by power relations, it is translators’ choices which eventually determine the destiny of translated texts in their journey from the bottom of the power pyramid to its top.

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A Postmodern Study of Venuti's Translation Hermeneutics

National Conference on Translation and Interdisciplinary Studies, 2016

Hermeneutics is a modern language philosophy introduced by German philosophers and thinkers like ... more Hermeneutics is a modern language philosophy introduced by German philosophers and thinkers like Schleirmacher, Heidegger, and Gadamer and also developed and discussed by scholars such as Ricoeur, Betti and Hirsch. However, Venuti has proposed his own model of translation hermeneutics which is dissimilar to the German tradition and the theories informed by that tradition. He recommends the application of this model for translation analysis due to its explanatory power; this model takes into account the possibility of political action and critical reflection on the part of the translator. In this paper Venuti’s hermeneutics model is first discussed against the historical background of hermeneutics and then examined in the light of postmodernism, particularly with reference to Lyotard and Derrida’s postmodern views. The study revealed that Venuti’s translation hermeneutics is a postmodern model, for it sees translated text as discontinuous and heterogeneous, rejects the invariable originary intention and refutes the existence of a universal truth.

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Intellectual Property Rights and Audiovisual Products in the Age of Postmodernism

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Preserve the Memory of Flight: Painted Bird in Persian

In "Kosinski's Novel 'The Painted Bird' in Thirteen Languages", 2022

This is chapter 12 of the volume titled "Kosinski's Novel 'The Painted Bird' in Thirteen Language... more

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Revisiting Humor Translation in Cyberspace: The Case of Humorous Captioned Videos Shared on Instagram

by Adeleh Mirzaee and Fatemeh Parham

In Translation Today: National Identity in Focus, Peter Lang: Berlin, 2020

Unconventional translations encountered in today’s media landscape call for new conceptualization... more Unconventional translations encountered in today’s media landscape call for new conceptualization and this may lead to a rethinking of known concepts in translation studies. The present study therefore attempted to examine how humor translation in cyberspace was different from its traditional conceptualization in print media. To meet the goal of this study, a corpus of 50 Instagram captioned videos was developed using humor-relevant hashtags. Then drawing on Hay’s (1995) taxonomy of humor as well as Gottlieb’s (2005) definition of inspirational translation, the humorous elements in videos and their captions were extracted, categorized and studied. The analysis yielded classifications of humor realization and humor translation in videos and texts in cyberspace. In the next phase, these findings were compared with the realization of humor and its translation strategies in print media. The study concluded that humor realization and translation in print media and online social media differ significantly. It can then be said that humor translation gets revisited in cyberspace and this implies that other translational concepts may also get revisited if explored in digital media.

National Identity in Persian Translated Immigrant Literature

National Identity in Literary Translation, ISBN 978-3-631-80068-3, 2019

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Hybridity in Texts Produced in Diaspora vs. Homeland

Allameh Tabataba'i University, 2009

Hybridity is a significant area of investigation in translation studies discipline and the presen... more Hybridity is a significant area of investigation in translation studies discipline and the present research is in quest of the manifestations of this phenomenon in texts produced in diasporas vs. those created in homeland. The quality of hybridness, in the light of the four distinct approaches to hybridity – hybridity as a feature of contemporary intercultural communication (descriptive, positive approach), hybridity as a feature of contemporary intercultural identities (sociocultural approach), hybridity as undesired interference (evaluative, negative approach) and dehybridization – is traced in the works of translators and writers both in Iran and in Iranian diasporas. The signs are then marked, analyzed (qualitatively and quantitatively) and classified, revealing the fact that physical presence of the text producer in diaspora is no guarantee for the hybridness of the text being produced; rather, being diasporic is important, which is realized after the text producer yields to acculturation, no matter in concrete or abstract diaspora. Yet, being diasporic is only one of the factors accounting for the hybridness of a text. The specific function of the text, and some of the qualities of SL, when translations are concerned, can also be held responsible for the hybrid character of a text. The obtained results paved the way for challenging the hypotheses and approaches of translation scholars in regard to this phenomenon.

Postmodernism and Translation Studies: From Theory to Practice

Allameh Tabataba'i University, 2015

Postmodernism is a wide-ranging cultural movement that crept into various fields of art and human... more Postmodernism is a wide-ranging cultural movement that crept into various fields of art and humanities and is believed to have influenced Translations Studies (TS) as well. Its relevance to TS, however, needed to be established with rigorous research – the objective the present study aimed to meet. The research was carried out in two phases: a conceptual study and a corpus-based study. There were two stages in the initial phase. At the first stage, the main tenets of postmodern thought were identified based on the works of scholars who represent postmodernism, namely Lyotard, Baudrillard, Deleuze and Guattari, Derrida, Cixous, Jameson and Irigaray, yielding postmodern scenarios. At the second stage almost all works of three translation scholars – Venuti, Simon and Baker – were examined and classified, each in a different fashion appropriate to its type. Their views were then analyzed with postmodern scenarios and revealed Venuti to be postmodern to a sizable extent, far more than the two other scholars. Baker’s views in her linguistic- and historical-oriented works were not found to be postmodern, but her approach to narratives showed traces of postmodernism. Simon’s definition of certain concepts like fidelity, meaning, agency, and womanhandling of texts were postmodernist too. The second phase of the research examined how features of English postmodernist fiction were treated in Persian translation, focusing on Barthelme’s short stories. These features were found to manifest themselves at extra-sentential level and were more or less transferred intact in the translation process. This implies that the Persian translation of postmodern fiction mediates postmodernism into the local literary polysystem and can be one of the possible reasons for the production of works of the same genre in contemporary Persian literature in Iran.

Translation Historiography in Iran

Research project sponsored by Allameh Tabataba'i University

This research project endeavored to examine works related to the history of translation in Iran w... more This research project endeavored to examine works related to the history of translation in Iran with two approaches: historiography and scientometrics. To this end, with certain Persian and English keywords, Iranian and non-Iranian databases were systematically queried to retrieve works published within the last fifty years (1971 to 2021, corresponding to 1350-1399 in the solar calendar), resulting in a dataset comprising 1212 works. Bibliographic details of these works were meticulously recorded and subsequently classified into 9 distinct categories for comprehensive analysis employing the aforementioned approaches.

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Mapping Excellence Centers and Scientific Associations Across the United States, England, and France

Research project sponsored by the Center for International Scientific Studies and Collaboration a... more

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National Contest for Translation of Russian Literature into Persian

Research project sponsored by Russkiy Mir Foundation, Russia

A Study of Postmodern Children’s Literature in Translation

Research project sponsored by Allameh Tabataba'i University, 2017

Postmodern children’s literature is the result of developments in artistic traditions and literar... more Postmodern children’s literature is the result of developments in artistic traditions and literary philosophy. These books contain metafictive elements that subvert the conventions of children’s literature and do not permit children to indulge in the illusory world of fiction. The main objective of the present undertaking was to examine how postmodernism was reflected in English postmodern picture books and how these postmodern features were translated into Persian. To fulfil the objective, a corpus of thirty postmodern books (fifteen English picture books and fifteen Persian translations) was developed. Collection and analysis of the data were performed in multiple phases, drawing on several models of picture book analysis and an integrated model of postmodern features of picture books developed for this study. The analysis of the data led to the identification of the postmodern features of picture books at the levels of text, picture and layout. Moreover, according to the findings, success at identifying and then translating postmodern features of picture books was to a large extent a matter of awareness of postmodernism and this awareness seemed to have a binary nature. The postmodern features fell into the categories of micro and macro structures with a much higher frequency for the instances of the micro features. When features descend to micro level, the translator’s degree of latitude in manipulating them grows considerably, and the preservation of these features at all three levels in translation require conscious decisions on the part of the translation-publication teams.

Fatemeh Parham

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