Pragmatic Translation in Film Translation: to know a Samurai or Not

Translation has been an important part of cultural interaction for many centuries. Film dubbing is one of the main modes of Audiovisual Translation (AVT), especially in non-English speaking countries in which films need to be dubbed. During the process of film translation, translators try to render a natural translation (pragmatic translation) because the audiences are amalgamation of literate and illiterate people. On the other hand, when the translators decide to render a cultural text (informative text) that its audiences are specific readers, they show fidelity to the culture of the ST because of the audiences’ level of knowledge (Referential translation). The present study intend to contrast the recited monologues of the “Ghost Dog: The way of the Samurai” film (dubbed in Iran) and the book entitled “Hagakure: the book of the samurai”, full of cultural elements of Samurai’s life, with their corresponding translation in Persian by Seyyed Reza Hosseini to figure out what strategies have been used by the screen and book translator for translating culture-bound elements based on Pedersen’s strategies and also prove that translation method differs in this two type of media (visual and written) because of the audience. We came to this conclusion that substitution and direct translation are the most common methods used by film and book translators to render a pragmatic and referential translation respectively.