Translation of English Passive and Unaccusative Verbs into Farsi: A Comparative Study of Three Translations of ‘Animal Farm’ by Three Iranian Translators

Translation should be done by considering the function of a text in the two languages. Verbs can be regarded as the main argument in translation because of their crucial function in the text. Translation of some verbs, like passives and unaccusatives, is more challenging since they require undergoing more changes to be transferred to the new language. This article tries to investigate the inherent challenge in translation of these verbs from English into Farsi by describing the strategies three Iranian translators used to provide Farsi equivalents for English passives and unaccusatives in Animal Farm written by George Orwell (1945). Moreover, to find complementary data, some extracted translations of these verbs were given to 36 readers in a questionnaire to grade them by considering their fluency, simplicity and acceptability. The questionnaire was designed to examine the effect of the translators’ decisions on the readers. The results of the study revealed that the translators used unaccusatives as the most frequent forms in translation of both verbs. And the results of the questionnaire indicated that the readers were inclined to read actives in translation of passives and unaccusatives in translation of unaccusatives. The researcher came to the conclusion that shifts were more common in translation of passives although change of verbs into other parts of speech (like phrases) was more common in translation of unaccusatives than passives. Also, based on the results obtained from the questionnaire, it was concluded that using actives in translation of passives and unaccusatives in translation of unaccusatives was more in concordance with Farsi grammar.