Ideological skewing in the proverbs' translation

Introduction                                                                                              

As there is a significant relationship between man and language, most linguists including Fairclough (1989) and Kress(1985) have maintained that language is the central dominion of ideology. However, due to the fact that the linguistics-oriented approaches to translation studies are limited to their scientific models for research as well as their collected empirical data, such approaches have failed to address the concept of ideology through years of their prevalence to the extent that ‘they remain reluctant to take into account the social values [and ideologies] that enter into translating as well as the study of it’ (Venuti, 1998a: 1). In this regard, based on different scholars including Shuping(2013), Calzada-Pérez (2014), Aslani (2015), etc. the impact of ideology of the powerful agents including translators on the translation has been recently considered significantly among the translation scholars. Therefore, as a new paradigm of translation studies and in line with the most intellectual movement of the late 20^th century i.e. postmodernism, the term "ideological skewing" refers to the way in which the ideological stance of a translation as the product of a translator belonging to a specific socio-cultural context, tends to differ from the ideological standpoint of its original. Therefore, it is predominantly concerned with certain ideological shifts involved in translation. Such a new trend in the field of translation studies has been called for by different scholars including Khanjan(2015) who has argued for some new analytical requirements of translation.                                                                                                        

     Certainly, translation cannot be separated from ideology because ideology is usually coded in the linguistic expression (Purtinen, 1998); thus, as a process that involves a transfer from a source language into a target language, translation can be considered as a real manifestation of ideological operation. In other words, any translation is undeniably ideological, of course in varying degrees because translators as the main agents in the process of meaning transference actually work in a particular socio-cultural framework (Calzada-Pérez,2014). In this regard, literary translation is particularly one of the powerful ideological instruments for cognitive manipulation, within which the translation of proverbs that in light of Catford’s remark (1965), are idiomatic and so idiosyncratic elements, culturally bound to a specific language, finds a particular significance. Generally speaking, proverbs are metaphorical sayings in the form of stereotyped and prefabricated patterns in a language which convey cultural concepts. Such literary elements are much related to the background heritage of a nation and in fact have been formed and used among the people throughout years in different societies. Thus, they are so deeply rooted in people's beliefs and thoughts. The proverbial concepts of proverbs is much related to the ideological features underlying them which have a pivotal role in their significance, since as an instance of literary discourse, they are so rich in ideology. In this regard, Lefevere (1992a) believed that ideology was a factor which formed a literary text and solved the problems concerning the discoursal features of ST and allusions. It could also inspire the implicit meanings of the words.                                                                                   

     Above all main features of proverbs the fact that their essences are much ideologically-driven can make their transfer in a receptor language reflect the translator's main orientations and decisions in the different stages of translation. Therefore, it is noteworthy and quite justifiable to look for certain ideological features which actually underlie each proverb particularly the social type as a form of utterance suggesting variable aspects of life. Besides, ideological interference in translation is operated in a quite subtle way so that usually translators have absorbed ideological norms and have acted upon them rather unconsciously. As Nord (1997) has maintained, in translation almost any decision is whether consciously or unconsciously guided by some ideological criteria. Most translators conform to the shared ideology and conventional norms in the receptor's society because they are eager to be socially accepted. Just few translators may challenge the dominant ideology for variable purposes and while translation strategies are normally influenced by ideological orientations, it is usually interpreted as the translator's personal style or idiosyncratic preference.                                                                                                                                    

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     In this respect, finding the ideological features of different proverbs in the ST and TT through their assessment can be much helpful in understanding not only the proverbial concepts but also which features are the dominant ones in each text because just as it has been discussed and emphasized so far, it seems that proverbs function as the main dominion of the ideological features which in turn suggests their proverbial concept. Among them, the subcategory "social proverbs" as including different aspects of life, life experiences as well as abundant cultural information, can best function as a form of utterance with much ideological manifestations.  Therefore characterizing and categorizing these features from the social proverbs can help to clarify how ideology operates and can achieve its goals in different cultures and societies. To do so, different definitions of ideology by different theorists have been presented in the next part in order to find out the related ideological features underlying them and then to use them in the comparative analysis of ST and TT proverbs. In this way, the results of the data analysis would shed light on the ideological features which are more dominant in the ST and TT.                                                                                                        

                                                                                                                        Literature Review

In the field of translation studies some new trends have been lately called for and as a result, this field of enquiry has undergone certain shifts of focus mainly attributed  to the recent paradigms of translation studies, especially 'ideological skewing'. The deficiency of the old linguistics-based approaches which have predominantly focused on the textual forms and the textual analysis of translated texts in accounting for social values in translation and other aspects of language use, has resulted in developing a new direction of research in translation studies ‘whose primary aim is to expose the ideological forces that underlie communicative exchanges like translating’ (Calzada-Pérez, 2014: 2).

     In this regard, different definitions of ideology by different theorists have been provided here in order to find out the related ideological features underlying them, whose use then forms the basis of the comparative analysis of ST and TT proverbs. Thus, Durkheim (1961) clarified that religion and ideology had a social origin especially in patterns of social relations and organization, but they also had a degree of autonomy, following certain rules peculiar to culture. Through some useful instances from the translations of speeches and political writings, he illustrated the ideological impact on translation. Newmark (1981) dealt with the subject of ideology from the author and the readers’ point of view considering it as the translator's attitude towards the author and the readers' society. By ideology, Lefevere (1989) understood "a set of discourses which wrestle over interests which are in some way relevant to the maintenance or interrogation of power structures central to a whole form of social and historical life "(p.59). However, Venuti (1995) suggested that ideology was the unification of ST's values with those of TT's readers, and defined it as a process for making TT's readers familiar with ST's characteristics. Hatim and Mason (1997) viewed ideology and discourse as being at the service of a same intention; i.e, they viewed ideology as a set of theories that reflected different interests of a group, or a person that finally showed itself somehow in a language. They also defined discourse as different ways of speaking and writing that led to a particular attitude to the social and cultural activities. Therefore, they perceived ideology as equivalent to the translator's view to the world.

      According to Fairclough(2000), ideology can be regarded as essentially related to power relations and by "ideological common sense" he meant common sense in the service of keeping such unequal relations of power. He considered this as something relative, so that ideology is most effective when its functions are least visible. Through suggesting that translation was the rewriting of ST and that in the process, some changes happened, the source of which was ideology, Gentzler (2001) defined ideology as "a set of discourses which control a translator's tendencies in protecting power structures of different organizations in a society ; so that his interests are consciously or unconsciously affected by this set" (p.23). According to this definition, such a set of discourses could both influence a person's attitude to the world and serve some particular intentions. It could also affect a translator's decisions in different stages both visibly and invisibly.

     Marx(2004) has made different statements on ideology at different times in his career; however, in his most straightforward statement about ideology, he represented it as the production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, all that men say, imagine, conceive, and include such things as politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics, etc. He suggested that ideology functions as the superstructure of a civilization: the conventions and culture that make up the dominant ideas of a society. The "ruling ideas" of a given epoch are those of the ruling class and are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas so that one goal of ideology is to legitimize those forces in a position of hegemony.                                                                                                                 

     In "Translation and ideology; A textual approach," Munday (2007) elaborated on how ideology was addressed in translation studies, and revealed its linkage to manipulation and power relations. Scholars in the different fields of study including language-related, cultural and translation studies today often tend to extend the concept of ideology beyond merely the political domain (Petrescu,2009). In this regard, Calzada-Pérez (2014) has defined it in a rather politically neutralized sense as a set of ideas organizing our lives that help us understand the relation to our environment.

Methodology                                                                                                          

Before elaborating on the research method used in this study, it seems useful to refer to one basic way of proverbs classification. Based on "The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs" (2006), proverbs fall readily into three main categories.                                                                         

     The first type takes the form of an abstract statement expressing general truths such as: "absence makes the heart grow fonder". The second type use specific observations from every day experience to make a point which is general; for instance: "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" .The third type of proverbs comprises sayings from particular areas of traditional wisdom and folklore and within them there are found for example the health proverb "Feed a cold and starve a fever". Also, there are frequent classical maxims rendered into the vernacular. In addition, there are traditional country proverbs which relate to husbandry, the seasons and the weather such as "Red sky at night, shepherd's delight".            As mentioned before, this study aims to assess and thus clarify the difference in the proverbial concepts of different languages, in this case English and Persian, which is mainly due to different ideological features dominant in the respected proverbs in the ST and TT. These ideological features have been first identified from different theorists' definitions of ideology and then social proverbs in the corpus, i.e." The Dictionary of English Proverbs" have been analyzed and categorized through textual analysis based on the specific ideological features existing in the ST and TT. Thus, through textual analysis which seems the most objective approach in collecting the required respective data, compared with others which are more anecdotal and subjective including neo-hermeneutic approaches, response-oriented approaches, the necessary data of the study will be collected. Meanwhile, since part of the research focus is also on the ideological skewing of the translation, the relevant textual aspects will be incorporated in gathering the relevant data.                                                                                 

     Finally, these data in the ST and TT have been comparatively analyzed based on the ideological features classification, in order to find out which feature is dominant in both ST and TT proverbs so as to assess the ideological skewing of the translations. In this way, based on this data analysis, it would become clear whether in different societies and cultures, in this case English and Persian , different ideological features are reflected in proverbs as one instance of peoples 'speech due to differences between their beliefs, worldviews, life experiences, etc .                                                                                                                

Results and Discussion

Below, the data of the study gathered from the corpus which at the same time comprise mostly the commonly used proverbs in both English and Persian languages, are presented in the alphabetical order, along with the ideological feature dominant in them. Thus, based on different definitions of ideology by different theorists which were presented in the literature review part, such ideological features have been identified that form the basis for our data collection and analysis in the next stage. Such classification is presented below. Finally, based on the data analysis, the ideological significance of each proverb will be discussed in this part in order to somehow clarify the relationship between their use and the ideological implications of the context of their use.                                                                                       

نوشدارو بعد ازمرگ سهراب (values)                  (1-After death the doctor(ruling ideas

به سوی کعبه راه بسیار است.     (religion)  (power relations)   2-All roads lead to Rome.  

سالی که نکوست از بهارش پیداست.                       3-April and May the keys of the year.

(conventions)                            (conventions)                                                                                                                                           

سنگ پای قزوین(4-As bold as brass. (attitude)                                             (attitude                                                       

همچون آب خوردن ساده است.( (worldview             5-As easy as A B C.(worldview)

6-Bed of roses.(interests)                                                                                      آش  دهن سوز(                                                                                              (interests  

کاسه  داغ ترازآش بودن(interests)    (religion)  7-To be more catholic than the Pope    

8-The best mirror is an old friend.(attitude)                                                          المومن مرآه المومن.(                                                                                        (religion

                                                      9-To bite the hand that feeds one. (values)

نمک خوردن و نمکدان شکستن. (values)                                                                                                                            

10-Blue are the hills that are far away.(worldview)

آواز دهل از دور شنیدن خوش است.                                                               (worldview)

                                                   11-A burnt child dreads the fire.(worldview)                                                          

مار گزیده از ریسمان سیاه و سفید می ترسد. (worldview)

حساب حساب است کاکا برادر. (attitude)              12-Business is business.( attitude)

زیره به کرمان بردن(worldview)            13-Carry coals to Newcastle.(worldview)

شتر در خواب بیند پنبه دانه (worldview)     14-The cat dreams of mice.(worldview).

چراغی که به خانه رواست به مسجد حرام است.     15-Charity begins at home.(attitude)

(religion)

آش شله قلمکار(interests)                             16-A complete stambers(worldview)

17-A creaking gate hangs long.(ruling ideas)

بادمجان بم آفت ندارد. (ruling ideas)

18-Cleanliness is next to godliness. (religion)                                                         نظافت از ایمان است."حضرت محمد(ص)"(religion )                                                                                                                                                                                      

19-Do at Rome as the Romans do.( power relations)

خواهی نشوی رسوا همرنگ جماعت شو.( power relations)

   شیر تو شیر( (worldview                                       20-Dog-eat-dog (worldview)

21-Don't ride the high horse.(power relations)

از خر شیطان بیا پایین. (religion)

کاسه کوزه را سر کسی نشکن (conventions)    22-Don't rock the boat.(conventions)

23-A door must be either shut or open.( ruling ideas)                                            نمی شود هم خدا را بخواهی هم خرما را.( (ruling ideas                                                                            

24-Eleven grooms for a one-eyed horse.(values)

آفتابه لگن هفت دست˓ شام و ناهار هیچی.(                                                     (values

25-An Englishman 's home is his castle.(power relations)

هرکس به شهر خویش شهریار است. (power relations)                                               

26-Even Homer sometimes nods.(power relations)

انسان جایزالخطاست.( religion)

27-Every day brings its bread with.(conventions)                                                 روزازنو روزی ازنو.(                                                                               (conventions                                                                                                

28- Every tree is known by its fruit. (ruling ideas)                                                     

از کوزه همان برون تراود که در اوست. (ruling ideas)

29-Fear the Greeks bearing gifts.(attitude)                                                                                 سلام روستایی بی طمع نیست.( ruling ideas)                               

30-To give someone full powers.(conventions)                                                    

ریش و قیچی را به دست کسی دادن.(                                                             (conventions

31-A great ship must have deep water.(values)                                                      هرکه بامش بیش برفش بیشتر.(                                                                             (values

32-Half a loaf is better than none.(interests)                                                     کاچی به ازهیچی است.(                                                                                  (interests

33-Haste makes waste.(attitude)

عجله کارشیطان است. (religion)

34-To have a finger in every pie.(interests)                                                          

نخود هر آش بودن.( interests)

خررا ازگاو تمیز نمی دهد.     (ruling ideas)     35-He doesn't know a B from a bull's foot.

 (ruling ideas)                                                                                                  

به یک جو نمی ارزد.( conventions)           36-It is not worth a penny.(conventions)

37-Ill got, ill spent.(attitude )                                                                              پول حرام یا خرج شراب شورمیشه یا شاهد کور.(                                                   (religion 

38-To put one 's cards on the table ( conventions)                                             

دست کسی را خواندن(conventions)

                                39-Many go out for wool and come home shorn.(values)

آمد ثواب کند کباب شد. (values)

40-The matter is on the knees of the Gods.( power relations)

صلاح مملکت خویش خسروان دانند. power relations))

41-No penny, no paternoster.( conventions)                                                           از شما عباسی ازما رقاصی.                                                                     (conventions)

42-One swallow does not make summer.( ruling ideas)                                             

با یه گل بهار نمیشه.((ruling ideas

43-Pale as ashes(worldview)                                                                                 

مثل گچ رنگ پریده  ( worldview)

دسته گل به آب دادن (conventions)           44-To put one's foot in it. (conventions)

45-Rome wasn't built in a day.(worldview)

گر صبر کنی ز غوره حلوا سازند. (worldview)

                                                              46-Sauce for the goose.(conventions)                                                            

یک سوزن به خودت بزن یک جوالدوز به دیگران. (conventions)

47-To set the Thames on fire.( power relations)

شق القمر کردن (power relations)

48-Strike while the iron is hot.(values)                                                                  

تا تنور داغ است نان را بچسبان.( values)

49-Teach one's grandmother to suck eggs.( power relations)                                به لقمان حکمت آموختن(                                                                       (power relations

50-Time is money.( ruling ideas)                                                                           

وقت طلاست.( ruling ideas)

51-When angry ,count a hundred.( ruling ideas)

هر وقت عصبانی هستی صلوات بفرست.((religion

52-When pigs fly (worldview)

وقت گل نی (worldview)                                                                                                                                                                

     The findings of the study which include the alphabetical arrangement of the most popular social proverbs in " The Dictionary of English Proverbs "by Ghanbari(2007) as the study corpus, have been presented with the ideological features they suggest, in both ST and TT. These ideological features which have been characterized from the definitions of ideology by some different theorists such as Hatim and Mason(1997), Fairclough(2000), Marx(2004), Munday(2007), etc. include religion, attitude, values, ruling ideas, conventions, power relations , worldview and interests. In line with the new paradigm of translation studies, i.e.  ideological skewing which refers to the way in which the ideological stance of a translation as the product of a translator belonging to a specific socio-cultural context, tends to differ from the ideological standpoint of its original, such study has been done in order to analyze which ideological features are more dominant in English and Persian proverbs as an instance of literary discourse reflecting the ideology of the speaker or the translator which in turn suggests the ideology of the society or community they belong to.                                             In order to better analyze the collected data of the study, the respective data which in fact includes the concerned ideological features along with the cases of their use in both ST and TT have been presented in the following table:                                                                          

     This study has aimed to follow a way of reading proverbs which considers their different ideological features so as to analyze the ideological skewing in their translations. Thus, in the data analysis stage, based on what has been discussed before, these features have been characterized and then categorized in the ST and TT, so that it can be manifested which features are more dominant in the ST and TT.                                                                           

     Based on the data collection and analysis, it can be deduced that in the ST the ideological feature "worldview" which has been used 10 times, has had the most usage among other features, then the feature of "conventions "with 9 cases of use. "Power relations" and "ruling ideas" both have 8 cases of use,etc.                                                                                             

     However, in the TT, there is a different case .There, the ideological features "worldview" and "religion" both have been used 9 times and then "ruling ideas" has been used more than others,etc.                                                                                                                                    

Conclusion

This research has aimed to study the most popular English and Persian social proverbs in " The Dictionary of English Proverbs "by Ghanbari(2007) in order to find out and detect the most dominant ideological features in both ST and TT proverbs. Such perspective has been in line with the new paradigm of translation studies, ideological skewing, that refers to the way in which the ideological stance of a translation as the product of a translator belonging to a specific socio-cultural context, tends to differ from the ideological standpoint of its original. Thus, different definitions of ideology by different theorists have been focused on in order for these ideological features to be characterized and categorized. In this way, the required data of the study have been organized through the textual and comparative analysis of the ST and TT. Here, the conclusion which such investigation leaps to, is discussed.

   Different translation theorists such as Munday(2007), Lefevere(1989) ,Newmark(1981), Venuti(1995), etc. have emphasized the linkage between ideology as well as its component features and any instance of language use, such as proverbs. This is because generally speaking, language can be regarded as the focal manifestation of ideology so that variable cases of language use such as metaphors, idioms, poems, etc. are in turn affected by ideology or more specifically, ideological features. The present study, following a similar path, has aimed to shed more light on this relationship or in other words, on the use of the respective ideological features in the proverbs and their translations as one instance of literary translation in order to analyze the ideological skewing involved. Of all the forms that translation takes including financial, technical, commercial, advertising, etc. it is only the literary translation that allows a translator to consistently share in the creation process. Considered as both a reproductive and a creative labor with the goal of equivalent aesthetic effect, by virtue of being temporally and spatially distanced from its source text, literary translation is a type of translation which cannot but translate new kinds of knowledge into that source text. Thus, as Boase-Beier et al (2014) have maintained, it is mainly governed by different epistemological and cognitive dispensations. This is partly due to the fact that translation naturally allocates a source text to a cultural milieu and thus redefines the cultural givens whether they concern politics, ethnicity or intertextual framework. In this sense, literary translation is essentially a vehicle for the forces of proliferation.    .                                                                                                                       

     Considered as an example of literary discourse, proverbs are metaphorical sayings in the form of stereotyped and prefabricated patterns in a language which convey cultural concepts. Such literary elements are much related to the background heritage of a nation and in fact have been formed and used among the people throughout years in different societies. They are so deeply rooted in people's beliefs and thoughts that cannot be denotatively understood through their lexical or grammatical meaning. Such proverbial concepts can be suitably understood through finding the ideological features underlying them, which have a pivotal role in their significance. The present study followed this particular route i.e. finding the specific ideological features which was done through shedding more light on the different definitions of ideology by some different theorists who have mainly been translation theorists. Characterizing such features, they have been categorized into eight basic cases based on which the most famous social proverbs in "The Dictionary of English Proverbs "by Ghanbari(2007) have been analyzed. Finally, the results of the comparative analysis of the ST and TT proverbs that have been briefly presented in the previous part table revealed the dominant ideological features in both ST and TT. To put it more specifically, it was concluded that in the English ST the ideological feature "worldview" that has been used 10 times, has had the most usage among other features, then the feature of "conventions "with 9 cases of use. "Power relations" and "ruling ideas" both have had 8 cases of use, etc.                 However, in the Persian TT, there is a different case .There, the ideological features "worldview" and "religion" both have been used 9 times and then "ruling ideas" has been used more than others, etc. In this way, based on the findings of the study, it can be deduced that in different societies and cultures, in this case English and Persian , different ideological features are reflected in proverbs as one instance of peoples' speech due to differences between their beliefs, worldviews, life experiences, etc. In other words, while the dominant ideological features have been "worldview" and then "conventions" in the ST, they have been "worldview", "religion" and "ruling ideas" in the TT. Such differences , i.e. ideological skewing between initially the proverbial concepts and then the ideological features dominant in the texts, in fact stems from and reveals the great differences between the beliefs, worldviews, life experiences, etc. of the speakers of the two languages, i.e. English and Persian and at the same time supports the view that any act of translation involves not only the transference and replacement of the original text words and concepts with those of the translation but also some ideological shifts that naturally take place in the process of translation. Such new direction has been followed in this research which through finding and then analyzing the dominant ideological features of different proverbs in the ST and TT  has sake to shed more light not only on the proverbial concepts underlying them but also on the quality of the ideological skewing involved in the process of proverbs' translation.