Mohammad Reza Esfandiari et al./ Elixir Ling. & Trans. 44C (2012) 7130-7133 7130 Introduction The common assumption among numerous scholars in translation studies is that translations as specific text type differ not only from their original source language (SL) texts, but also from comparable original texts in the same language as the target language (TL) texts. For instance, on the one hand, it has often been observed in comparison with their SL originals. On the other hand, this text-type tends to be longer and simpler than their originals or than comparable original texts in the TL, (Hansen and Teich [1]). Corpus linguistics, which has been mirrored in descriptive translation studies during recent years, takes an empirical approach to the description of language and insists upon the primacy of authentic, attested instances of use (Bonelli [2]). Baker [3] predicts the availability of large corpora together with the development of the corpus driven methodology would enable translation scholars to uncover “the nature of translated text as a mediated communicative event” (p. 243). Since then a growing number of scholars in Translation Studies have begun to seriously consider the corpus-based approach as available and fruitful perspective within which translation and translating can be studied in a novel and systematic way (Aston [4], Bowker [5] and [6], Kubler [7], Laviosa [8] and [9], Machniewski [10], Olohan [11]). Recently, a great number of scholars have been interested to formulate more exact and explicit hypotheses regarding the textual features of translation and to provide empirical evidence to confirm or reject them (Toury [12]; Baker [13], Kenny [14]). These principal hypotheses are as follows: Simplification implies that translations use simpler language than original text in order to enhance optimal readability of the target language text (Toury [12]). Explicitation implies that translations tend to spell things out rather than leave them implicit (Baker [13]). Normalization suggests that translations tend to conform the typical patterns of the target language, exaggerating the typical features of the target language (Baker [13]). Leveling-out states that in comparison with the original texts in the same language as the TL, translations are more similar to each other than the individual texts in the set of original texts (Hansen & Teich [1]). There some possible measures at hand to determine simplification including mean sentence length, lexical density and type-token ratio or lexical variety (Williams and Chesterman [15]). Moreover, in order to test the explicitation, some language-specific tests have been proposed. Baker [13] suggests that the frequency counts of that (both as complementizer and relative pronoun) can be used as a test for explicitation. The other one is that translations use more explicit (less densely packed) linguistic renderings of a given semantic content vs. less implicit ones (more densely packed), e.g., more conjunctions vs. prepositions. According to Halliday and Matthiessen [16] conjunctions indicate that logico-semantic relations, such as temporal or causal ones, are made explicit, prepositions indicate less explicit lexcio-grammatical renderings of such relation. The present paper discussed the analytic features of various linguistic levels of the English and Persian texts through the application of a parallel corpus. The study selected two specific properties of translations for presentation, i.e. simplification and explicitation. It intended to examine the extent of simplification and explicitation used in translations of Sa’di’s Gulistan by Gladwin [17], Rehatsek [18], and Ross [19]. Concerning the specific properties of translations, the following hypotheses were formulated to test the simplification and explicitation in the original Persian text and its translations: (H1) The mean sentence length of the original Persian text is lower than translations of the text into English. (H2) The lexical variety and lexical density of original Persian text are higher than translations of the text into English (H3) More that complementizers are found in translations from Persian into English. Elixir Ling. & Trans. 44C (2012) 7130-7133 Explicitation and simplification in translation of poetic and prosaic genre from Persian into English: the case of Sadi's Gulistan Mohammad Reza Esfandiari 1 , Tengku Sepora Tengku Mahadi 1 , Mohammad Jamshid 1 and Forough Rahimi 2 1 School of Languages, Literacies and Translation, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia. 2 Department of Foreign Languages, Shiraz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shiraz, Iran. ABSTRACT This study investigated some cross-linguistic properties of poetic and prosaic genre through the compilation and application of a parallel corpus. To this end, 16 stories from Sa'di's Gulistan (Rose Garden) and three translations of the book by Gladwin, Ross and Rehatsek were compared. Regarding the general contentions in terms of explicit hypotheses about the translations, four hypotheses were formulated to test two translation universals, i.e., simplification and explicitation. The analysis of the data demonstrated significant cross- linguistic differences in the original Persian text and its translations as pertinent to the intended properties. © 2012 Elixir All rights reserved. Linguistics and Translation ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received: 25 January 2012; Received in revised form: 17 February 2012; Accepted: 26 February 2012; Keywords Parallel corpus, Lexical density, Lexical variety, Simplification, Explicitation. Available online at www.elixirjournal.org Tele: E-mail addresses: esfandiari.mreza@gmail.com © 2012 Elixir All rights reserved