Expansion and Reduction in Translation: A Case Study of Hyperbole in the Persian Translation of Euripides's Andromache and Medea

Abstract

Hyperbole is one of the most widely used figure of speech in heroic texts, a long neglected form of non-literal language. The present study set out to determine the extent of expansion and reduction in the translation of hyperbole in Euripides's dramatic texts, Andromache and Medea from English into Persian. In order to investigate the objective of this study, all hyperbolic expressions in English texts, which were considered hyperbolic in Persian as well, were identified. Then, they were classified based on the most recent classification of hyperbole in English by Claridge (2011), into three categories; namely, single-word hyperbole, phrasal hyperbole, and clausal hyperbole. To control the issue, English classification was carried out twice, and also a Persian Language and Literature expert confirmed Persian hyperbolic expressions twice. The first set of analysis examined the frequency of each category in both languages, and to check whether the extent of expansion and reduction in translation of hyperbolic expressions is significant, Chi-square test was performed via SPSS 21. The obtained results did not show any significant differences between English and Persian hyperbolic expressions in terms of expansion and reduction.