Marked and Unmarked Thematization Patterns: A Comparative Analysis of Opinion Articles Written by American Columnists and Their Persian Translations

Authors

  • طوبی مردانی Young Researchers and Elite Club, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran
  • محمد صادقی Ph.D Candidate, Department of English, Translation Studies, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22046/LA.2019.17

Keywords:

Thematization Patterns, Marked Themes, Unmarked Themes, Theme and Rheme, Systemic Functional Grammar.

Abstract

Thematization is the process of arranging theme/rheme patterns in a text. It is considered the mental act or process of selecting particular topics as themes in discourse or words as themes in sentences. This study aimed to find out how the translators organize their themes into marked and unmarked ones and how these organizations are related to the original texts. This paper examined thematization strategies in English opinion articles and compared them with their Persian translation. To this end, one of the leading newspapers in the United States, The New York Times, was chosen. The texts were given to a professional translator to be translated and then rated by an expert rater. Based on the qualitative and quantitative analysis of textual features and marked and unmarked themes of 6 opinion articles, their Persian translations were selected. The findings revealed that thematization patterns can help the translators in better transforming the message to the target language. The results for the marked and unmarked thematization patterns were relatively the same in the original texts and their translations.

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Published

2019-08-31

How to Cite

مردانی ط., & صادقی م. (2019). Marked and Unmarked Thematization Patterns: A Comparative Analysis of Opinion Articles Written by American Columnists and Their Persian Translations. LANGUAGE ART, 4(3), 89–102. https://doi.org/10.22046/LA.2019.17