Translation and Contrastive Analysis of English and Persian Proper Nouns

Proper nouns also called proper names are names and denote unique entities. A proper noun is the special word that refers to a person, place or object such as John, London, Aspirin or Sony. A proper noun is the opposite of a common noun. A proper noun is capitalize in English and most other languages that use the Latin alphabet; this is an easy way to recognize them. Regarding the translation of proper nouns, it can not be stated that proper nouns are untranslatable. Some proper nouns should be translated, but some others should not or they should be transferred and still several others should be explained in parentheses or footnote. For example, fictitious proper names often have connotations, either literal meaning or implicature, so they should be translated. If the culture and nationality are as important as the connotation and context of names or they are more important, they should not be translated or they should be explained in the parentheses or footnote.Therefore, proper nouns belong to the realm of sociolinguistics and pragmatics, and if the proper nouns of English and Persian compared and contrasted, it can be said that they are studied under the domain of Contrastive Analysis which is a subdisipline of linguistics that brings two or more language system or subsystem together.

Keywords:

Proper Nouns , Translation , Contrastive Analysis , English , Persian