A Study of Idiom Translation Based on Baker’s Strategies: A Comparative Analysis of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight and Its Two Persian Translations

The main purpose of this study is to analyze how the English idioms (including idiomatic phrasal verbs) found in novel Twilight were translated from English into Persian by two Persian translators, Mesal Azar and Amini, based on the strategies suggested by Baker (1992).These strategies are: (1) using an idiom of similar meaning and form, (2) using an idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form, (3) translation by paraphrase, and (4) translation by omission. The data of the study were gathered on the basis of the classification proposed by Fernando (1996). In order to collect the data, literal idioms were removed from the data and only pure idioms and semi-idioms remained. The results of the analysis showed that the most frequently used strategy for translating both idioms and verb phrase idioms was paraphrasing. The second most frequently used strategy was using an idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form. The least used strategy was translation by omission. A comparison of the two translations indicated that although no significant difference was observed between the performance of two translators, Mesal Azar showed a more effective performance than Amini in replacing idiomatic expressions in English with idiomatic expressions in Persian.