An investigation on lexical gaps in translated literary texts from Persian to English

the present study is aimed at exploring semantic gaps in Persian books “three drop of blood” by “Sadegh Hedayat” and “little black fish” by “samad behrangi” and their English versions. The study was conducted qualitatively, with a text analysis design. the research materials included some examples which they gather by text comparison. there was more example to compare but only most common were selected. analysis of the selected examples showed that semantic gaps has been accrue not just because of cultural differences but also diversity in religious, economic situation, history of people, their belief, every day’s needs, architecture, foods, their geographic situations. These diversities Cause semantic gaps which they are problematic in translating texts and this research has been showed that even if the translator can find an equivalence for semantic gaps but still they can’t have same mental space as the source text has.

Keywords:

lexical gap , accidental gap , semantic gap , lacunas