Manipulation in Translation
Farzaneh Farahzad
The paper is an empirical study on the manipulation of text by translators. Ten male and ten female English to Persian translators are the subject. The text chosen for the study is a feministic text, as it is a controversial concept for Iranians. The subjects were also given a questionnaire after translating the text. The questions were on language difficulties, the translators’ interpretations and lexical and syntactic choices. In this article, manipulation means any deliberate or unconscious alteration of the ST concepts in the TT.
The translation of male translators of the words feminist and feminism shows a type of negative attitude, while female translation of them shows positive views. Thus, their choices were ideological and caused manipulative shifts.
The paper concludes that translation shifts are type of manipulation. If a translator tries not to translate a lexical item, he manipulates the test. It is the case even in cases where the translator is not conscious of his choice.