An Investigation about the English – Persian Translation of Terminology in Biology University Textbook

Ali Morshedi Tonekaboni¹ Mahnaz Ansari Abyaneh²

1) Young Researchers and Elite Club, Tonekabon Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tonekabon, Iran
2) Department of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages, Allameh Tabataba’ I University, Tehran, Iran

Publication : International Congress of Science and Engineering - TOKYO UNIVERSITY - JAPAN(tuicet.com)
Abstract :
This study tackles the problems of translating Biology terms from English into Persian a. It uses an evaluative approach to investigate and discuss the problems and intricacies of translating Biology terms from English into Persian. The purpose of the study is to display the difficulties of translating Biology terms and how they were tackled by master students who are competent in Biology translation and professional English translators who work in the field of Biology. The study adopts a qualitative-quantitative approach. It focuses on different types of Biology terms, excluding biology-related terms. In order to find out and identify the real difficulties behind translating Biology terms and how they could be approached by experienced translators, the researcher utilized a questionnaire test that included a set of English Biology terms to be translated into English by students who were doing a master in Biology training. The same questionnaire was also given to a group of professional English translators. As Biology terms are the key components of Biology texts, the questionnaire included forty-five diversified English Biology terms taken from different Biology reports, namely Interpol biology reports for 2017 and 2018. The official Persian translations of these documents were used to assess the translations given by the subjects in comparison to and contrast with some Biology dictionaries and reliable Biology websites. The population of the study included 54 master in Tehran (the researcher’s origin country). The results from the data analysis showed that the translation of the Biology terms posed real difficulties and challenges for the students and inexperienced professional translators although the experienced professional translators found them comparatively straightforward. Hence, the result highlights the problems of translating Biology terms from English into Persian and the importance of training to work in the Biology field as a translator. Also, the study concluded that literal translation, the heavy use of transliteration, inconsistency, the students’ lack of sufficient experience and practice in Biology translation, and lack of up-to date English-Persian Biology dictionaries are factors that have given rise to problems in Biology translation.
Keywords : Translation Terminology Biology Textbook