The present paper examines anthroponyms in the Holy Qur'an in three different English translations to shed light on how procedures used by translators can help target-language (TL) readers understand the implied meaning of anthroponyms. In order to conduct the research, the anthroponyms in the Holy Qur'an were isolated and English equivalents were identified. Then Vermes’s (2003) model was applied to the collected data to find answers to the following research questions: (1) What strategies are used most frequently by the translators examined to render the Qur’anic anthroponyms into the target-language (TL)?; (2)  How consistent are the translators in using particular strategies when translating the anthroponyms?; (3) Does the type of translator affect their choice of translation strategy?; (4) Does the model suggested by Vermes (2003) cover all of the strategies employed by the three translators?; and (5) Which procedures are source-language-oriented, TL-oriented, or deep-reader oriented? Overall, the findings indicated that the procedures most frequently used by the translators were “substitution” and “transference.” It was found that the native speaker of neither Arabic nor English foreignized 96.80% of the Qur’anic anthroponyms by using “transference,” while the native translators of either the target-language or the source-language domesticated 71.00% of the anthroponyms by using “substitution.” “Substitution” was used when an exact Biblical equivalent for the Qur’anic anthroponym existed. Otherwise, “transference” was used along with notes to transport the meaning and form while remaining faithful to the intended meaning of the sacred text.

Stylistic issues have typically been considered as a challenge for literary translators. As far as literary style is concerned, Sa’di (1208–1291) is the most famous Persian poet. The present study aims at investigating the effect of time on the universals appeared in translating Sa’di’s style in the Gulistan. The corpus of the study consisted of the Gulistan’s two English translations: one by Rehatsek (1888) and its 2010 edition by Rosenbaum, and the other by Newman (2004). Baker’s (1996) framework, consisting of simplification, explicitation, normalization, and leveling out, was used as the basis for analyzing the collected data. As far as stylistic issues were concerned, it was realized that Rehatsek’s translation and its new edition by Rosenbaum, were not distinctly different. It was also found that the passage of time has had effects on selecting some specific features more than the others. Prosification was the most and leveling out was the least frequently observed features, while normalization and poetrification had never been detected. The findings also revealed greater tendency of recent translators to deviating from the ST author’s style and their stronger inclination towards providing easy-to-understand texts for today’s TT audience.

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Habitus is one of the key concepts of the Bourdieusian sociology which Translation Studies has benefited. Based on the Bourdieusian sociological model, this study investigated the translatorial habitus of the Iranian translators of English romance novels as far as the translation strategies of culture-specific items (CSIs) are concerned before and after the Cultural Revolution of 1980 in Iran. The research data include 4282 sentences containing CSIs extracted from Rebecca, Sense and Sensibility, and The Great Gatsby, and their two Persian translations. The extracted data were analyzed, adopting a consolidated typology of translation procedures for CSIs. The strategies employed for translating CSIs are presented with frequencies and percentages using descriptive statistics. Moreover, the results were corroborated with a qualitative analysis of some archived interviews printed in Motarjem [the translator] journal. The investigation revealed three essential findings: a marked source-oriented tendency among Iranian translators of the English romance novels when translating CSIs in the Pre-Cultural Revolution era, maintaining the same tendency in the Post-Cultural Revolution era, and finally a growing tendency in moving from Pre- to Post-Cultural Revolution era. The results of the Chi-square test highlighted a significant difference between various strategies used in two eras.