Islamic Azad University

Central Tehran Branch

Faculty of Foreign Languages – Department of English

“M.A” Thesis

Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment for the Requirements of the Degree of Master of Arts in Translation Studies

Subject

The Degree of Acceptability of the Academy of Persian Language and Literature (APLL) Astronomy Terminology Equivalents among Technical Translators of the Field

Advisor:

Dr. Kourosh Akef

Reader:

Dr. Behdokht Mall-Amiri

January 2014

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Abstract

Finding Persian Equivalents for technical terms is one of the aims of the Academy of Persian Language and Literature (APLL), and more than 40 scientific committees are now working on this scope in terminology departments of the Academy. The astronomy terminology committee is one of these teams that has started its activity since 2001 and has approved more than 600 of astronomy equivalents for academy fields. In this study, 29 questionnaires including 32terms were given to M.S and PhD degree astronomy technical translators. In order to get the more acceptability of the equivalents, the APLL needs to coin and select the acceptable equivalents coincide with the arrival of new concepts before the entrance of foreign terms.

Table of Contents

1

1.1     Introduction. 1

1.2     Research Question. 2

1.3     Definition of Key Terms. 2

1.4     Limitations and Delimitations of the Study. 3

1.5     Significance of the Study. 3

.. 5

2.1     Introduction. 5

2.2     Equivalence. 5

2.2.1         Definitions of Equivalence. 7

2.2.2         The Equivalence Controversy. 8

2.3     Terminological Activities of the APLL. 10

2.3.1         The objectives of the APLL. 13

2.4     Conclusion. 14

15

3.1     Introduction. 15

3.2     Corpora of the Study. 15

3.3     Procedure. 17

3.4     Data Analyses. 17

.. 18

4.1     Introduction. 18

4.2     Data Analyses and Research Findings. 18

.. 27

5.1     Introduction. 27

5.2     Conclusions. 27

5.3     Pedagogical Implications. 28

5.4     Suggestions for further Research. 29

. 31

List of Figures

  25

. 26

Figure ‎4‑3:The total mean of the low acceptable APLLES among the participants. 26

1         CHAPTER I

Background and Purpose

1.1      Introduction

Technical translation is a specialized translation involving the translation of texts related to the subject matter areas and deal with the scientific information (Zanon, 2011). Technical translators should understand the source text and know the specific terms of the source and target languages. According to Cabre (1999) a good technical translator must choose the topics they want to work on and attain minimal competence in some specific field in order to be certain to respect the content and form of the two languages they work in.

The APLL has suggested equivalents for some general and technical foreign terms in nine collections including “First Collection” to “Ninth Collection” since 1997. These equivalents were approved by the council of the APLL and finally confirmed by the President to communicate with governmental organizations and institutions. In accordance with the law on the prohibition of the use of foreign terms and expressions, such organizations are duty-bound to use exclusively these equivalents in their publications and correspondence.

1.2      Research Question

–  To what extent are the APLL approved astronomy equivalents are accepted?

1.3      Definition of Key Terms

In order to avoid any misconception, the key words used in this study are defined here. It is through these definitions that the researcher can approach the problem.

1.3.1. Equivalent: Hartmann and Gregory (1998) state that “the equivalent is a word or phrase in one language which corresponds in meaning to a word or phrase in another language” (p. 5).