Hyperbole in translation: A case study of the English translations of the tragedy of Rustam and Sohrab

The diversity among the languages and the variation in cultures throughout the world make the process of translating so difficult a task that there are a few successful translators in each country.Among the problematic factors concerning translation such as form, meaning, style, implicatures, proverbs, idioms, etc., this article will focus on the figurative language of hyperbole. Therefore, the present paper was conducted to explore ۱) if hyperbolic expressions are similar in English and Persian i.e., if an equivalent can easily be found for them ۲) if there is any semantic-oriented loss concerning hyperbole in translation. For this purpose, some excerpts of the English translation of Rustam and Sohrab were chosen to be compared with the original text abundant in hyperbolic expressions. The result obtained through comparative study are as follows: a) hyperbole may not be problematic in translation of Rustam and Sohrab into English, b) hyperbolic expressions may mostly translatable from Persian into English.

Keywords:

hyperbole , The Shahnameh , Transference , translation