Challenges in English to Persian Translation of Contracts and Agreements: The Case of Iranian English Translation Students

Abstract

The present study was intended to investigate the challenges that Iranian English Translation students face in translating contracts and agreements and find out the reasons. A descriptive research was conducted on 20 Iranian MA translation students. The participants received a translation task and were asked to translate from English to Persian meanwhile an interview was conducted to gather supplementary information. In order to analyze the tasks, the researcher used the first method of Waddington’s model of translation quality assessment. The results revealed that the students faced different challenges when translating contracts and agreements such as lack of basic knowledge of legal systems and terminology and layout of legal texts. Students and professors elaborated on the reasons behind these challenges and through their answers it was clear that unfamiliarity with legal systems and lack of basic knowledge in the legal translation field were the major reasons for poor translation of legal texts.