An Analysis of Cultural Specific Items in English Translation of Hedayat's "Blind Owl" Based on Domestication vs. Foreignization Dichotomy

Abstract

The main purpose of the current case study was basically to analyze Cultural Specific Items (CSIs) in an English translation of Hedayat's "Blind Owl" based on domestication vs. foreignization dichotomy which was proposed by Venuti (1995). To this end, the whole text of the two books, Persian text and its English translation, were gone under a strict and throughout examination. For the theoretical framework, the model proposed by Zare-Behtash & Firoozkoohi (2009) was exploited in order to categorize and distinguish CSIs in the corpus. As the data of the study represent, most CSIs were domesticated during the translation process and the source text was translated into a fluent and natural text for English readers. Also, the data prove the fact that from among the strategies applied in translating CSIs, simplification and naturalization were the two strategies which were mostly used by the translator and had the highest number of distribution in the translated text.