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ELT Voices- International Journal for Teachers of English Volume (4), Issue (6), 54-69 (2014)

ISSN Number: 2230-9136

(http://www.eltvoices.in)

Translation of the Persian Lexical Collocational Patterns into English

from a Comparative Phraseological View

Zeinab Danyari1

, Forouzan Dehbashi Sharif2

1, 2Department of English Language, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Corresponding: [email protected]

Abstract: This article aimed to shed light upon the nature of the differences in collocational patterning of Persian and Eng-

lish languages and sought to find which Persian collocational patterns, from phraseological point of view, would be used

when the translators are nonnative Persian speakers and what kind of structural shifts might have the dominancy in English

translation of Persian collocational patterns while translating the Persian collocations into English. For this purpose, eleven

Persian texts were chosen from different genres and periods of time. The texts were analyzed qualitatively and quantita-

tively. 550 collocations were extracted from Persian texts and then, their English correspondences were extracted from the

English translations of the selected Persian texts. Persian collocations and their English correspondence were compared and

analyzed based on their structural patterns and all the possible shifts were gathered up. Based on the findings of this re-

search, Persian language contains at least forty collocational patterns. The researcher also found that noun + adjective pat-

tern had the highest frequency among the Persian collocational patterns, while adjective + noun and noun + noun were

highly frequent in English texts. Moreover, the results of this research showed there was a significant difference between

the Persian lexical collocational patterns and their restrictions with their English correspondence in the translated texts.

Index Terms: Collocational Patterning, Collocational Restrictions, Lexical Collocations, Phraseology

1. Introduction

Considering the importance of collocations in languages and also in translation, collocations in Persian and English lan-

guages and their structures are going to be investigated in this paper. In order to have comprehensive knowledge on the

collocations in languages, their structures should be studied phrasologicaly and syntactically in the given languages. Cowie

(1998) categorized phrasological units not only on the basis of their semantic transparency, but also according to their lexi-

cal and grammatical variability.

Since the phrasological approach is going to be followed in the study of the collocations in this paper, the semantic rela-

tionship of the collocations which is an aspect of phrasological approach is investigated as well. The phrasological ap-

proach focuses its analysis on the description of the meaning relationship that exists between the items of a collocation.

Lyons (1997) believed that collocation is one of the types of semantic relation which is a kind of relationship among the

words and makes it possible to predict the next word when seeing one of a pair.

Furthermore, since each language possesses specific collocational patterns- the way words appear together- the researcher

will study Persian collocational patterns in non-translated texts and compare them with their English correspondence in

translated texts to get a clear picture of the collocational patterns in these languages (Persian and English) and to find their

possible similarities and differences.

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ELT Voices-Volume (4), Issue (6), 54-69 (2014) 55

Therefore, to investigate about whether in translating the Persian collocational patterns to the English language being aware

of the Persian collocational patterns from phraseological point of view make any difference when the translators are

non-native Persian speakers or not, the researcher had to find what are the most frequent lexico-grammatical patterns of

Persian language and then decide on the kind of structural shifts which might have the dominancy in English translation of

Persian collocational patterns.

2. Review of the Related Literature

2.1 Theoretical background

In most languages, there are fixed, identifiable, non-idiomatic phrases and constructions called collocations. The term des-

ignates the co-occurrence or syntagmatic combination of lexical items, independently of word class and syntactic structure.

Collocations represent a key constituent of the lexicon of natural languages. They are very interesting and important phe-

nomena in language, whose importance is increasing these days. Recent studies on translation have demonstrated that col-

locations are very vital lexical constituents of texts and those in translation (Mckeon & Radev, 1997).

Many definitions exist for collocation. According to Hamidi and Montazeri (2014), collocation refers to the way in which

some words are mostly used together. Firth (1935, cited in Lipka, 1992) was the first one who argued that meaning is not

restricted to single lexical units; according to him, collocation is the company a word keeps. However, Palmer (1933, cited

in Lipka, 1992) was perhaps the first linguist to draw attention to the special significance of collocations in verbal commu-

nication; in his opinion, collocations such as "as a matter of fact", "at last", and "give up" have to be learned each as one

word or single unit. According to Lipka (1992), collocation can be called neutral syntagmas. This neutrality is particularly

relevant for applied linguistics. He added that collocations are syntagmatic lexical relations, but not necessarily semantic

relations and they are therefore parallel to the lexical sets on the paradigmatic axis which are not necessarily sense-related.

Cowie (1998) believed that collocations are a subclass of what are known as set phrases. According to him, collocations

constitute the absolute majority of phrasemes and represent the main challenge for any theory of phraseology. Cruse (1986)

stated that the term collocation refers to sequences of lexical items which habitually co-occur, but they are fully transparent

in the sense that each lexical constituent is also a semantic constituent. Moreover, Benson (1986) emphasized that the rela-

tionship between the elements of a collocation is not just as recurrent word combinations, but as arbitrary recurrent word

combinations.

Collocations are word combinations in which one word as a base or node has an independent meaning and the other word is

the collocate obtaining its meaning from collocating with the other word (Cruse, 1986). The characteristics of an English

collocation can be summarized as; firstly, a frequent co-occurrence of items between which no words can be inserted. For

example, in "bread and butter", it would be very unusual to add a word to this collocation, like it is unlikely to say "bread,

cheese, and butter". Secondly, the components of a collocation cannot be replaced by a synonym or word of similar mean-

ing. Consider these sentences: "John is away on a business trip."," John is away on a business journey." It is clearly seen

that "trip" is synonymous with "journey", however, when using "journey" with "business", it is unacceptable because it is

not collocate with "business". Thirdly, collocations are irreversible binomials. The order of the parts of a collocation is

more or less fixed, for example, "bed and breakfast", not "breakfast and bed", or "slowly but sure", " more or less", etc.

however, it is not ungrammatical to put the parts the other way. Finally, collocations have a high degree of predictability, if

you hear a collocation "more or…" you automatically expect that "less" will follow (Cruse, 1986, pp.58).

It seems each scholar has his/her own ways of classifying collocations. In this article Benson and Ilson’s (1986) classifica-

tion was used. They distinguish between lexical and grammatical collocations and designate seven main kind of lexical

collocations. Benson et al. (1986) believed that typical lexical collocations include nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs.

Danyari & Dehbashi Sharif. (2014). Translation of the Persian Lexical Collocational Patterns into English from a Comparative Phraseological View

Lexical collocations, contrary to grammatical collocations, do not have prepositions, infinitives, or clauses.

Linguists classify collocations into restricted and non-restricted. Non-restricted collocations have the capacity of being

open to keep company with a wide range of words. Examples are core adjectives, nouns, and verbs in particular. Restricted

collocations are semantically arbitrary restrictions which do not follow logically from the propositional meaning of a word

(Baker, 1992). Assented 1981 (cited in Jabir 2011) defined restricted collocations as:

“A type of lexical combinations consisting of two or more lexical items, unidiomatic in meaning, follow-

ing certain structural patterns, restricted in commutability not only by semantics, but also by usage, be-

longing to the sphere of collocations.”

Although research on collocation has recently seen a growth of interest, “there has been little work done on collocation …

[in] languages other than English” and “less work has been undertaken contrasting the collocational behavior … in differ-

ent languages” (Xiao & McEnery, 2006, p.103).

It seems that for the first time, the concept of collocation is introduced to Persian language by Bateni (2007). According to

him, collocation is the compatibility of different grammatical classes with each other on the syntagmatic axis. He pointed

out that only certain number of the member of each class (here, words) can appear on this axis, called positive sets. The

members or the words which cannot appear on this chain called negative sets. Collocations related to syntagmatic axis are

positive and negative sets are related to paradigmatic axis. Selecting a member or word from the positive set at any point on

syntagmatic axis, makes the collocation normal. In contrast, selecting from the negative set makes the collocation abnormal

and unusual.

In Persian language and especially in the area of Persian lexicon, there are two axes: syntagmatic and paradigmatic. Iranian

linguists such as Bateni (2007) believed that the language functions on these two axes. Syntagmatic axis represents the

constructing elements of language and paradigmatic axis represents all possible items that a speaker can select among. So

Bateni identified syntagmatic axis as:

“Language elements need to stand after each other on a line, because the language phonemes should be

pronounced by the organs of speech one after the other which is needed a sequence structure on the dimen-

sion of time”. (Bateni 2007, p.39)

Syntagmatic axis represents two possibilities: the elements of the language can be repeated on this axis and they can appear

on this axis with different combinations (Bateni, 2007, p.39). On the other hand, he had another definition for paradigmatic

axis:

“The speaker of the language has certain choices (words) on the paradigmatic axis which can select among them and put

the selected words on the syntagmatic axis (Bateni, 2007, p.39). To elaborate on this issue consider the following example

by Bateni (2007, p.58):


Paradigm- ĵiq –e- bolandi az tars bar kešid. Positive sets

atic axis delxarâš dard

kutâh sha?af âvard.

qaliz damâq Negative sets

dur sorfe

Figure 1 Collocations on the syntagmatic axis

The degree of collocation can be shown on a scale, on one side there is positive collocation and on the other side the nega-

tive collocation, but in the middle of this scale are the cases which are somehow rare and unusual but there is no certainty

about their positivity or negativity (Bateni, 2007, p.58).

Positive collocation Negative collocation

ĵiq e bolandi kešid ĵiq e sardi sardâd ĵiq e qalizi sâxt.

Figure 2 Positive and Negative Collocations

Safavi (2011), another scholar who works in the field of collocation in Persian, has investigated collocation mostly from the

semantic approach. He believes that the adjectives like "pir", "qadimi", "kohne", "kohansâl" (old) are selected according to

their collocated nouns. Persian collocations are collected and documented by scholars such as Shamlou (1998) and Najafi

(1999), but they are among the proverbs, idioms, and other expressions. It means that, the distinction between them and

other word combinations is not clear. Shamlou (1998) collected a wide range of Persian idioms, proverbs, and collocations

in "Kouche Book" which is highly appreciated and valuable treasure of Persian expressions and phrases.

2.2 Translation of collocations

Several researches have been carried on the subject of collocations in translation. According to Newmark (1988), difficulty

in translation of collocations is due to two major reasons: first, there is only an arbitrary relation between components of a

collocation and its meaning and second, at least one of these components has secondary meaning. In general, where lexical

gaps exist, the resourceful translators can often find ways of conveying associations attaching to collocations in a stylisti-

cally acceptable fashion. The translator must be aware of syntagmatic relations, paradigmatic relations, syntax, context, etc.

any bilingual dictionary appears to imply that most SL words have precise TL equivalents. Newmark (1988) presented two

models of translation: semantic and communicative translation that most of the translators have applied them in the transla-

tion of collocations. Newmark (1988) mentions that translation is sometimes a continual struggle to find appropriate collo-

cations, a process of connecting up appropriate nouns with verbs and verbs with nouns, and in the second instance, collo-

cating appropriate adjectives to the nouns, and adverbs or adverbial groups to the verbs; in the third instance, collocating

appropriate connectives or conjunctions. According to Baker (1992), the followings are the most common pitfalls that a

translator may face when translating collocations; the engrossing effect of source text patterning, misinterpreting the


meaning of a source language collocation, the tension between accuracy and naturalness, culture-specific collocations and

marked collocations in the source text.

2.3 Collocations in phraseology

Based on the lexicological approach to phraseology and collocation with the ‘lexicogrammar’ approach which is adopted

by the proponents of Systemic Functional grammar (Halliday, 1961; Halliday &Matthiessen, 2004, cited in Granger &

Meunier, 2008),Research on specific-domain phraseology has demonstrated that acquiring the appropriate phraseological

knowledge (i.e. mastering the prototypical lexico-grammatical patterns in which multiword units occur) is particularly dif-

ficult for non-native speakers, who must gain control of the conventions of native-like discourse(Granger & Meunier,

2008).

Broadly speaking, phraseology involves the study of formulaic sequences of words, including idiomatic phrases and pro-

verbial expressions, which stand in contrast to other more prosaic constructions in the language in that they have a highly

conventionalized form and frame of reference. The notion of collocation is essentially word-oriented and cohesive: it refers

to the extent to which the presence and meaning of a word ‘coheres’ or depends on the presence of another word (or words)

in the same stretch of text.

Phraseology is the investigation of the lexical phenomenon of word combinations. The definition of collocation provided

within the phraseological approach is based on the delimitation of collocations from other types of word combinations,

mainly idioms and free combinations. Collocations are distinguished from free combinations on the basis of whether the

substitution of items in a word combination is either arbitrary or semantically motivated. With the free combination, Cowie

(1998) referred to word combination in which the substitutability of the items can be specified on semantic grounds. For

example in "drink tea" the object noun "tea" can be substituted by any noun which is [+liquid]. In contrast, collocations are

word combinations in which the limitations on the substitutability of items are arbitrary and cannot be explained in seman-

tic terms. Also, collocations are different from idioms because they are semantically transparent word combinations in

which at least one of the elements has a literal meaning while idioms are characterized by a non-literal and

non-compositional meaning (Cowie, 1998).

Another aspect of phraseological approach is the assumption of a semantic relationship existing between the elements of a

collocation. The phraseological approach focuses its analysis on the description of the meaning relationship that exists be-

tween the items of a collocation. Furthermore, if the way in which some words are grouped were meaning- dependent, we

could come up with such an expression as "drive a bicycle". However, English speakers normally "ride a bicycle". It is also

interesting to notice that words considered synonyms or near-synonyms are very likely to have distinct sets of collocates.

For example consider the synonymous words "skip" and "jump". It is possible to "skip a lecture", but the notion of "jump-

ing a lecture" is hardly conceivable and would render hilarious at best. Then examples show how arbitrary and mean-

ing-detached the collocational patterns of a language appear to be.

Collocation is one of the types of semantic relations which is a kind of relationship among the words and makes it possible

to predict the next word when seeing one of a pair (Lyons, 1997). Each language possesses specific collocational patterns-

the way words appear together. Being aware of this fact is an important factor in understanding them in texts as well as

translating them.

2.4 Related studies

Shahriari (1997) is among the Iranians who have studied collocational restrictions. She has examined different types of


corresponding collocations in languages (Shariari, 1997, cited in Ebrahimi & LesanToosi, 2013). The result of her research

showed that these studies are fruitful in the field of translation in terms of producing standard and nonstandard combina-

tions.

Ghayumi carried a similar research titled “role of collocations in translation” and concluded that well-formed combinations

in chains of words may become ill-formed when translated into target language and this abnormality in lexical combination

is due to semantic-structural differences between source and target languages (Ghayumi, 2004, cited in Ebrahimi & Lesan-

Toosi, 2013).

Mollanazar (1990) examined the role of collocations in translation. His study reveals that well-structured combinations and

normal sequences of words in source language may become ill-structured in the target language. The abnormality in the

target text is due to the difference of the source and target language in terms of their linguistic features of collocations and

also the different meaning of the corresponding combinations in the two languages (cited in Sharifi&Ebrahimi 2012).

However, in a study by Sharifi and Namvar (2012) entitled “New classification of collocations regarding the role of con-

textual characteristics in formulating the collocations” eight criteria for specifying collocations in Persian language were

presented. These researchers described and explained Persian collocations and their structures within Persian language.

2.5 Research question

The present research was an attempt to find answer to the following research question:

RQ: Which Persian collocational patterns from phraseological point of view would be used when the translators are

nonnative Persian speakers and what kind of structural shifts might have the dominancy in English translation of Persian

collocational patterns?

3. Methodology

3.1 Participants

Considering the objective of the research, the researcher asked two honored university assistants as the raters to qualify and

confirm her framework for the validity of her research. The raters were both Ph.D. holders teaching at linguistic faculty of

Islamic Azad University Central Tehran Branch. They were provided with the designed framework; they studied it carefully

and gave their own ideas on the patterns and the examples separately as well.

3.2 Instruments

Since the researcher could not find any reliable framework for collocational patterns in Persian language, she had to study

several Persian books to extract the Persian collocational patterns to design the theoretical framework of this study. So she

had to use two types of materials.

3.2.1 Dictionaries

- Persian Folk Dictionary (Najafi, 1999)

- Oxford Collocations Dictionary (2002)

3.2.2 Books


- Ketâb-eKuče (Shamlou, 1998)

- Persian Grammar (Gharib, Homaee,Yasemi, Bahar, & Forouzanfar, 2010)

- Persian Grammar (Mahoutyan, 2005)

- Persian Grammar (Bateni, 2007)

- Persian Grammar (Ahmadigivi & Anvari, 2006)

3.3 Procedure

This study is based on a corpus-based descriptive comparative research. In order to answer the research question, the re-

searcher followed a step by step procedure as follow:

1. Since the researcher could not find any reliable Persian based collocational patterns for Persian language in the related

literature, she had to propose a theoretical framework for Persian collocational patterns and check its content validity

by the help of two scientifically acknowledged faculty members of linguistic department of Islamic Azad University

Central Tehran Branch. This framework consisted of forty-four categories besides several examples that were provided

to support the patterns’ accuracy.

2. They were provided with the designed framework; they studied it carefully and gave their own ideas on the patterns

and the examples separately as well based on their measurement, the reliability of the theoretical framework follow-

ing Cronbach's Alpha was equal to 0.893 and the interrater correlation based on spearman formula came to

0.702.which let the researchermodify and edit the theoretical framework of this research with forty Persian colloca-

tional patterns (Danyari, 2014, see appendix 1).

3. Although the designed Persian collocational framework consisted of forty categories, in the selected texts only twen-

ty-eight of them were found by the researcher. Collocational patterns in Persian language which were frequent in the

corpus of this study are mentioned in Appendix A.

4. After studying and analyzing selected Persian texts and finding their collocational patterns, the researcher went

through their English translations. She found a category similar to Benson's model. The English framework obtained

from the translations of Persian selected texts which is somehow correlated with Benson's model is introduced in Ap-

pendix B. It should be mentioned that in Benson's model the category of verb + noun is divided to: 1. Verb + noun

(creation/activation) and 2. Verb + noun (eradication/nullification), but in Persian these two categories fall into verb +

noun.

5. Then, in two other tables, the researcher contrastively studied them. Three codes-0, 1, and 2. omitted or were translated

into non-collocational structures (code 0); followed the same collocational patterns (code 1); and, not follow the same

pattern, (code 2) The frequency of the patterns for each text was calculated and their percentages were mentioned as

well both in Persian texts and English translation.

4. Results and Discussion

4.1 Descriptive statistics

Table 1 below shows the descriptive statistics of the collocations.


Table 1Total Number of Collocations in each Non-translated Persian Texts along with their Translation in Comparison

with Persian Lexical Patterns

Texts collocations not follow the same pattern follow the same pattern not translated

freq. per. freq. per. freq. per. freq. per.

Text 1 31 5.65 9 4.64 3 6.00 19 6.23

Text 2 33 6.01 8 4.12 0 0.00 25 8.20

Text 3 73 13.30 10 5.15 3 6.00 60 19.67

Text 4 75 13.66 10 5.15 2 4.00 63 20.66

Text 5 74 13.48 43 22.16 9 18.00 22 7.21

Text 6 14 2.55 3 1.55 5 10.00 6 1.97

Text 7 9 1.64 6 3.09 3 6.00 0 0.00

Text 8 54 9.84 25 12.89 4 8.00 25 8.20

Total Number of Collocations 549 100.00 194 100.00 50 100.00 305 100.00

By analyzing the selected Persian texts separately, the number of collocations in each of these non-translated text were cal-

culated which is shown in table 1. Total number of collocations in each non-translated Persian texts with their frequencies and

percentages along with three states that are important in this study i.e. not translated, follow the same pattern, and not follow

the same pattern, were presented in this table .According to table 1, total numbers of Persian collocations studied are 549, the

highest frequency is for text 11(Bof-e-Kur) with 83 collocations and the lowest frequency is for text 7 (Rudxâneye Nevâ) with

9 collocations.

Table 2 Translated Collocational Patterns in Comparison with Persian Language Collocational Patterns

Persian Pattern not translated follow the same pattern not follow the same pattern

frequency percentage frequency percentage frequency percentage

Noun + Noun 69 22.55 27 52.94 31 15.58

Preposition + Noun 15 4.90 0 0.00 0 0.00

Preposition + Noun +Verb 34 11.11 0 0.00 7 3.52

Noun + Infinitive 6 1.96 0 0.00 0 0.00

Noun + Adjective 37 12.09 0 0.00 123 61.81

Noun + Verb 25 8.17 5 9.80 16 8.04


Preposition + Preposition 8 2.61 0 0.00 0 0.00

Noun + Conjunction + Noun 32 10.46 0 0.00 2 1.01

Adjective + Verb 12 3.92 0 0.00 1 0.50

Adverb + Preposition + Adverb 2 0.65 0 0.00 0 0.00

Preposition + Verb 7 2.29 0 0.00 3 1.51

Adjective + Conjunction + Adjective 7 2.29 0 0.00 1 0.50

Preposition + Adverb 4 1.31 0 0.00 0 0.00

Repetition of a Noun 2 0.65 0 0.00 0 0.00

Adverb + Conjunction + Adverb 0 0.00 0 0.00 1 0.50

Noun + Preposition + Noun 5 1.63 0 0.00 1 0.50

Adverb + Verb 8 2.61 1 1.96 3 1.51

Number + Number 2 0.65 0 0.00 0 0.00

Adjective + Preposition + Noun 7 2.29 0 0.00 0 0.00

Adjective + Noun 6 1.96 5 9.80 2 1.01

Noun + Adjective + Verb 2 0.65 0 0.00 2 1.01

Adverb + Adjective 5 1.63 13 25.49 4 2.01

Adverb + Noun + Verb 4 1.31 0 0.00 1 0.50

Adverb + Adverb 1 0.33 0 0.00 0 0.00

Verb + Conjunction + Verb 3 0.98 0 0.00 0 0.00

Adjective + Infinitive 2 0.65 0 0.00 0 0.00

Preposition + Adjective + Verb 1 0.33 0 0.00 0 0.00

Noun +Subordinate 0 0.00 0 0.00 1 0.50

Total 306 51 199

In the process of quantitative analysis, all of the collocational patterns that were seen in the selected Persian texts

(non-translated texts) are presented in the following table. These Persian collocations were compared with their English

equivalences in the translated texts which are presented in table 2. As shown in the above table, collocational patterns of

Persian language that were seen in the selected non-translated texts had different frequencies in each text. By comparing


these collocations with their English equivalences in the translated texts, it was found that some of them were not translated

into English, it means that the translators used omission strategy in transferring them from Persian into English; some of

these patterns were followed and kept in the translated texts, it means that the translators used the same pattern while trans-

lating them from Persian into English; and finally, some of these patterns were not kept in the process of translation and

they have been changed to another collocational pattern, it means that while translating, the translators used another collo-

cational patterns to transfer the meaning better which is inevitable in translating from one language to another one. Ac-

cording to table 2, the first state, not translated, had the highest frequency with 306, then the third state, not follow the same

pattern with 199, and the lowest frequency was the second state, follow the same pattern, with 51. So, it shows that the

translators preferred to omit these collocational structures in their translations.

Table 3Translated Collocational Patterns in Comparison with English Language Collocational Patterns

English Pattern

not translated follow the same pattern not follow the same pattern

frequency percentage frequency percentage frequency percentage

Noun + Noun 4 11.11 37 59.68 9 4.66

Adjective + Noun 21 58.33 8 12.90 115 59.59

Adverb + Adjective 3 8.33 8 12.90 5 2.59

Verb + Noun 0 0.00 0 0.00 55 28.50

Noun + Verb 3 8.33 9 14.52 1 0.52

Verb + Adverb 5 13.89 0 0.00 8 4.15

Total 36 62 193

Since this study was a comparative study which compared Persian collocations with English lexical collocations translated

texts, translated texts were examined quantitatively and the lexical collocations that were seen in these texts were presented

in table 3, these English lexical collocations were compared with their equivalences in Persian texts (non-translated texts).

As shown in the above table, English lexical collocations that were seen in the selected translated texts had different fre-

quencies in each text that were calculated quantitatively and presented in this table. In comparing the translated texts with

non-translated ones, it was found that there are three states: some of these English lexical collocations were not present in

the Persian texts (non-translated texts), it means that the translators used structures that were not in the original texts; some

of them were in the non-translated texts but their structures and collocational patterns were different, it means that the

translators changed the collocational patterns; and finally, some others followed the same pattern of the non-translated texts.

According to table 3, the patterns that did not follow the same pattern of Persian language had the highest frequency with

193, the patterns that followed the same pattern of Persian language had the frequency of 62, and the patterns that were not

in Persian texts had the lowest frequency with 36. So, it showed that English texts (translated texts) had different colloca-

tional patterns from Persian texts (non-translated texts).


4.2 Inferential statistics

In order to support the conclusion achieved by the descriptive analysis, an inferential statistical analysis was carried out

using chi-square test as nonparametric statistics. The following tables represent the process of the inferential analysis in

detail.

Table 4 Descriptive Statistics of Translated Collocational Patterns Based on the Persian Language Collocational Patterns

As it can be seen in table 4, the mean of the Persian lexical patterns which are deleted in translation is more than those

which are translated whether following the same Persian pattern or not. However the most dispersion is among those lexi-

cal patterns which are not translated based on the same Persian pattern with the SD of 23.59.

Table 5 Descriptive Statistics of Lexical Patterns in Non-translated and Translated Texts

Lexical patterns and restrictions N Mean Std. Deviation Minimum Maximum

not translated(English) 6 6.0000 7.53658 .00 21.00

followed the same pattern (English) 6 10.3333 13.69185 .00 37.00

not followed the same pattern (English) 6 32.1667 45.19476 1.00 115.00

not translated pattern(Persian) 28 10.9286 15.41987 .00 69.00

follow the same pattern (Persian) 28 1.8214 5.63096 .00 27.00

not follow the same pattern (Persian) 28 7.1071 23.59589 .00 123.00

Descriptive Statistics

28 1.8214 5.63096 .00 27.00

28 7.1071 23.59589 .00 123.00

28 10.9286 15.41987 .00 69.00

follow the same

persian pattern

not follow the same

persian pattern

deleted persian

patternsin translation

N Mean Std. Deviation Minimum Maximum


If the obtained chi-squared statistic exceeds a tabled value for the appropriate number of degrees of freedom mentioned in

Table 5, it can be concluded that the observed values are significantly different from the expected values at the probability

level indicated by α.

Table 6 Chi-square Test Statistics

So according to the data in table 6, the difference between the Persian lexical collocational patterns and their restrictions in

non-translated texts with their English correspondence in the translated texts are significantly different at the probability

levels of 95% and 99% whenever they are translated but not for deleted lexical patterns. So the researcher can conclude that

if the English translators of Persian language wish to be successful in translating Persian collocational patterns, they should

be familiar with the structural patterns in Persian language.

There are some researches on the notion of collocations in Persian language, for example, Shahriyari (1998, cited in Panahi

2010) has investigated collocational restrictions in translation. She analyses and compares different types of collocations in

the source language and their translations in the target language. She finds that following the structure of the source lan-

guage results in untypical collocations in the target language. In another study, Mollanazar (1990) has investigated the

function of collocations in translation. He states that typical and well-structured collocations in the source language may

become untypical and ill-structured while translating into the target language. And recently, Sharifi and Namvar (2012)

proposed a classification of collocation in Persian language which is a new view on collocations in Persian language. They

believed that there are eight criteria for the words to be collocated in Persian language such as frequency, pivot word, and

feature percolation.

This study was an attempt to investigate the collocations on the basis of syntactic pattern of Persian language system within

the perspective of translation studies. The findings of this study showed that for all the lexical patterns based on the English

texts, the value shown respectively are (0.667, 0.667, and 0.000) which are less than the critical value for degree of freedom

4, 3 and 5 at all the probability levels in reference to the table (5). So we can reject the null hypothesis and claim that there

is a significance difference in using English based lexical patterns for Persian non translated texts. And also for the trans-

lated lexical patterns based on non-translated Persian lexical classification the observed chi-square (9.71) is less than the

critical value for the degree of freedom15 so the researcher can reject the null hypothesis and claim that there is a signifi-

cance difference in lexical patterns of Persian non-translated lexical patterns and their English correspondence which made

the translators not translate the patterns at all. But considering the Persian non-translated lexical patterns and restrictions at

the syntactic level for translated texts we will find when the Persian patterns are based there is no significant difference in

translating the lexical patterns whether they follow or not follow the non-translated lexical patterns, since in the finding of

this research, the observed chi-square for those translation which followed the Persian patterns(67.71) and not followed the

Persian pattern (35.64) are greater than the critical value for the degree of freedom 4 and 8 based on the table(6).

Test Statistics

67.714 35.643 9.714

4 8 15

.000 .000 .837

Chi-Square a,b,c

df

Asymp. Sig.

follow the

same persian

pattern

not follow the

same persian

pattern

deleted

persian

patternsin

translation

0 cells (.0%) have expected frequencies less than 5.

The minimum expected cell frequency is 5.6.

a.

9 cells (100.0%) have expected frequencies less than 5.

The minimum expected cell frequency is 3.1.

b.

16 cells (100.0%) have expected frequencies less than

5. The minimum expected cell frequency is 1.8.

c.


The findings of this research show that in translating the collocational lexical patterns from Persian to the English language

the translators should pay attention to the source language collocational patterns if they wish their translation be in corre-

spondence with the source text but if they translate the collocational patterns just based on the English syntactic patterns

then their translation may not be as accurate as it should be.

5. Conclusion

From the content analysis of the selected texts and studying the collocations syntactically the researcher found that in Per-

sian texts the collocational pattern of Noun + Adjective is used more often, it means that the frequency of this pattern was

62 percent in non-translated (Persian) texts, and the collocational pattern of Noun + Subordinate is used less often, it means

that the frequency was 0/5 percent in non-translated Persian texts. From the content analysis of the translations of selected

texts and studying the collocations syntactically the researcher found that the lexical pattern of Adjective + Noun is used

more often in translated (English) texts, it means that the frequency of this pattern was 59 percent in translated texts. And

the collocational pattern of Verb +Adverb is used less often in translated (English) texts; it means that the frequency of this

pattern was10 percent in translated texts.

From testing the null hypothesis of the research, the researcher found that in some parts the difference between Persian

collocations and English lexical collocations is statistically significant, but in some other parts these differences are not

significant. By comparing Persian and English collocational structures and patterns and by regarding the three states of

whether they are translated, followed the same pattern of two languages, or changed in patterns, the researcher found that

there is a significant difference in using English based lexical patterns for Persian non-translated texts for all the lexical

patterns based on the English texts. And for the translated lexical patterns based on non-translated Persian lexical classifi-

cation the null hypothesis is rejected and it can be claimed that there is a significant difference in lexical patterns of Persian

non-translated lexical patterns and their English correspondence which made the translator not translate the patterns at all.

Within our taxonomy we have proved that collocations in Persian language may be categorized into forty patterns which

are devised by the researcher for the first time in this research. The importance of this study is more significant in transla-

tion from English into Persian. Knowing the structure of Persian collocations makes the translators to respect the Persian

language rules and avoids them to bring the English collocational structures into Persian language in the process of transla-

tion. But by having comprehensive information on Persian collocations, their structures, and restrictions they can use Per-

sian collocational patterns in their translation, so that the translated texts into Persian sound more natural and finally there

would be less damage to Persian language structure. In this investigation, the researcher found that in non-translated texts,

original Persian texts, there are categories or patterns which do not exist in translated texts, English texts, and this variety is

restricted to the limited number of English collocational patterns that are complied with Benson’s lexical collocational

model. There is some evidence that this is a consequence of the translation process and certainly it is because of the unique

features of the languages.

References

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John Benjamin Publishing Company: Amsterdam.

[5] Cowie, A.P. (1998). Phraseology: Theory, analysis and application. Clarendon Press: Oxford.


[6] Cruse, D.A. (1986). Lexical semantics. Cambridge University Press: New York.

[7] Danyari, Z. (2014). A comparative study of the Persian and English translation of lexical collocational patterns and

their restrictions (Unpublished master’s thesis). Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch, Iran.

[8] Ebrahimi, Sh., & Lesan Tosi, F. (2013). A comparative analysis of lexical collocations in Molavi’s Mathnavi and its

translation. International Journal of English and Education, 2(2), 62-73.

[9] Gharib, A., Homaee, J., Yasemi, R., Bahar, M., & Forouzanfar, B. (2010). Persian grammar. Nahid Publications: Te

hran.

[10] Granger, S., & Meunier, F. (2008). Phraseology: An interdisciplinary perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamin Publish

ing Company.

[11] Hamidi, H., & Montazeri, M. (2014). Dictionary of second language acquisition. Retrieved December 15, 2014, from

http://www.iranelt.com/index.php/introduction-to-sla.

[12] Jabir, S. (2011). The problem of equivalence in English –Arabic translation: Towards a practical framework of crea

tive equivalence in Arabic. Retrieved March 15, 2014, from www.arcs.ac.at/dissb.

[13] Kalbassi, I. (2001). The derivational structure of word in modern Persian. Institute for Humanities and Cultural Stu

dies: Tehran.

[14] Lipka, L. (1992). An outline of English lexicology: Lexical structure, word semantics, and word formation. Niemeyer:

Tubingen.

[15] Lyons, J. (1997). Semantics. Cambridge Press: Cambridge.

[16] Mahoutyan, Sh. (2005). Persian grammar. Markaz Publications: Tehran.

[17] Mckeon, k., & Radev, D. (1997). Collocations. Retrieved July 10, 2014, from www.di.ubi.pt/-pln/handbook.pdf.

[18] Mollanazar, H. (1990). The role of collocation in translation (Unpublished master’s thesis). Tarbiat Modarres Univer

sity, Iran.

[19] Najafi, A. (1999). Persian folk dictionary. Niloufar Publication: Tehran.

[20] Newmark, P. (1988). A textbook of translation. New York: Prentice Hall.

[21] Oxford collocation dictionary (2002). Oxford University Press: New York.

[22] Safavi, K. (2011). Semantics. Soure Mehr Publiications: Tehran.

[23] Shamlou, A. (1998). Ketab e kuche. Mazeyar Publications: Tehran.

[24] Sharifi, Sh., & Namvar, M. (2012). A new classification of lexical collocations regarding the contextual features in

forming the collocations. Journal of Linguistics, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, 4(2), 39-62.

[25] Sharifi, Sh., & Ebrahimi, Sh. (2012). A study on the historical etymology and causes of collocations in Persian lan

guage. International Journal of Linguistics, 4(4), 67-82.

[26] Xiao, R., & McEnery, T. (2006). Collocation, semantic prosody, and near synonymy: Across-linguistics, perspective.

Journal of Applied Linguistics, 27, 103-29.

Authors Bio

Zeinab Danyari is a master candidate in English Translation at University of Islamic Azad Tehran Central Branch, Iran.

She has been teaching English language for about 10 years. Her areas of interest are syllabus design, and translation of

technical texts.

Forouzan Dehbashi Sharif is a university assistant at Islamic Azad University. She is a PhD holder in virtual distance ed-

ucational planning. Her areas of interest are teaching university courses, translation, workshops, teaching, testing, research,

morphology, and translation of idiomatic expressions and lexicons. She is the author of six books and more than twelve

articles and translations

http://www.iranelt.com/index.php/introduction-to-sla

http://www.arcs.ac.at/dissb

http://www.di.ubi.pt/-pln/handbook.pdf


Appendices

Appendix (A) Persian Theoretical Framework for Persian Collocations

Examples Persian Collocational Patterns NO.

,(0930,(؛فکل کراوات )شاملو, 0931,(؛ گنبد گیتی )احمدی گیوی و انوری,0931خرطوم فیل )صفوی,

Xortum –e-fil (Safavi, 1390,); gonbad-e-giti (Ahmadigivi&Anvari, 1385,

; fokolkerâvât (Shamlu, 1381,)

Noun + noun 1

,(؛ خوان کرم )احمدی گیوی و 0930,(؛ صبح صادق, آدم دیرجوش )شاملو,0931,(؛ دل زنده )کلباسی, 0931لوند )صفوی,موی ب

(0931انوری,

Muy-e-bolond (Safavi, 1390); del zende (Kalbasi, 1387); sobh-e-sadeq, âdam-e-dirĵuš (Shamlu,

1381); xân-e-karam (Ahmadigivi&Anvari, 1385)

Noun + adjective 2

(0931(؛ جیغ زد )باطنی,0931(؛ اسب شیهه کشید )صفوی,0931(؛دست مریزاد )کلباسی,0931سرما خوردن)ماهوتیان,

Sarmâxordan (Mahoutyan, 1390); dastmarizâd (Kalbasi, 1387); asbšeyhekešid (Safavi, 1390); ĵiqzad

(Bateni, 1386)

Noun + verb 3

(0931(؛ پای در رکاب,کوچه پس کوچه, شاخ تو شاخ )کلباسی,0931)احمدی گیوی و انوری,لچک به سر

Lačak be sar (Ahmadigivi&Anvari, 1385); pâydarrekab, kuče pas kuče, šâxtušâx (Kalbasi, 1387)

Noun + preposition

+ noun

4

(0931قوم و قبیله, پر و بال)کلباسی,

Qom-va-qabile, par-va-bâl (Kalbasi, 1387)

Noun + conjunction + noun 5

.(0931ادامه پیدا کردن, پنجه تیز کردن )کلباسی,

Edâmepeydâkardan, panĵetizkardan (Kalbasi, 1387)

Noun + adjective + verb

(infinitive)

6

(0931(؛ حیوونکی فرشته, پیرزن)ماهوتیان,0933سرو قامت)پنج استاد,

Sarvqâmat (PanjOstad (Five professors), 1389); heyvunakiferešte, pirzan (Mahoutyan, 1390)

Adjective +noun 7

(0931چپ اندر قیچی )کلباسی,

Čapadnarqeyči (Kalbasi, 1387)

Adjective + preposition

+noun

8

(0931باد)کلباسی,(؛ مرده باد, مبارک باد, زنده 0933شادباش )پنج استاد,

Šâdbâš (PanjOstad (Five professors), 1389); mordebâd, mobârakbâd, zendebâd (Kalbasi, 1387)

Adjective + verb 9

(0931خراب اندر خراب,تازه به تازه)کلباسی,

Xarâbandarxarâb, tâze be tâze (Kalbasi, 1387)

Adjective + preposition

+adjective

10

(0931و ماده,گرم وسرد)کلباسی, نر

Nar-va-mâde, garm-va-sard (Kalbasi, 1387)

Adjective+ conjunction+

adjective

11

(؛بی سرو سامان, بی 0931(؛ به سرعت)احمدی گیوی و انوری,0931با اشتها,روی چشم, بیخ گوش)ماهوتیان,

(0931سروپا)کلباسی,

Bâešteha, ruyečešm, bix-e-guš (Mahoutyan, 1390); be sor?at (Ahmadigivi&Anvari, 1385); bi

sar-o-sâmân, bi sar-o-pâ (Kalbasi, 1387)

Preposition + noun (noun +

conjunction + noun)

12

(0931به تنگ آمدن )کلباسی,

Be tang âmadan (Kalbasi, 1387)

Preposition+

Adjective + verb (infinitive)

13

(0931خیلی جالب, بی اندازه گرون )ماهوتیان,

Xeyliĵâleb, bi andâzegerun (Mahoutyan, 1390)

Adverb + adjective

14

(0931خیلی تند )ماهوتیان,

Xeylitond (Mahoutyan, 1390)

Adverb + adverb 15

.(0931به زودی )احمدی گیوی و انوری,

Be zudi (Ahmadigivi&Anvari, 1385)

Preposition + adverb 16

(0931پشت گردن انداختن )کلباسی, Adverb + noun + verb (infini-17


Poštegardanandâxtan (Kalbasi, 1387) tive)

.(0931.( شیرین کاشتن )کلباسی, 0933(؛ زار زار گریه کردن)پنج استاد,0931خوب پیچوند )ماهوتیان,

Xubpičund (Mahoutyan, 1390); zârzârgeryekardan (PanjOstad (Five professors), 1389); širinkaštan

(Kalbasi, 1387)

Adverb + verb (infinitive) 18

(؛0931(؛ وقت رفتن )ماهوتیان ,0930آب پاشیدن, چشم و ابرو آمدن, نان و آب داشتن )شاملو,

Âbpâšidan (Shamlu, 1381); vaqteraftan (Mahoutyan, 1390,); češm-o-abruâmadan, nân-o-âbdâštan

(Shamlu, 1381)

Noun (noun + conjunction

+noun)+infinitive

19

(0931(؛ باز کردن, آرام گرفتن, گیج خوردن)کلباسی,0911دراز کشیدن, بدبرداشتن,چپ افتادن)نجفی,

Derâzkešidan, bad bardâštan, čapoftadan (Najafi, 1387); bâzkardan, ârâmgereftan, gijxordan (Kal-

basi, 1387)

Adjective + infinitive 20

(؛جنب و 0931(؛ زد و خورد, رفت و روب, ریخت و پاش )احمدی گیوی و انوری,0933رفت و آمد,داد وستد )پنج استاد,

,ص...(0931جوش,زد و بند, بساز بفروش ) کلباسی,

Raft-va-âmad, dâd-va-setad (PanjOstad (Five professors), 1389,); zad-va-xord, roft-va-rub,

rixt-va-paš (Ahmadigivi&Anvari, 1385); ĵonb-va-ĵuš, zad-va-band, besâz-va- befruš (Kalbasi, 1387)

Verb + conjunction+

Verb

21

(؛ پشت...آب 0931و انوری,(؛ با...مصاحبه کردن) احمدی گیوی 0931از دست دادن,به جان آمدن,به به پا کردن )کلباسی,

(0930پاشیدن)شاملو,

Azdastdâdan, be ĵânâmadan, be pâkardan (Kalbasi, 1387); bâ… mosâhebekardan (Ah-

madigivi&Anvari, 1385); pošte… âbpašidan (Shamlu, 1381)

Preposition + noun+

Verb(infinitive)

22

(0933به جز, از برای)پنج استاد,

Be ĵoz, azbarâye (PanjOstad (Five professors), 1389)

Preposition+

Preposition

23

(0931گاه به گاه, وقت به وقت )کلباسی,

Gâh be gâh, vaqt be vaqt (Kalbasi, 1387)

Adverb +preposition

+adverb

24

(0931زیر و رو, کم و بیش, گاه و بی گاه, وقت و بی وقت )کلباسی,

Zir-va-ru, kam-va-biš, gah-va-bigah, vaqt-va-bivaqt (Kalbasi, 1387)

Adverb + conjunction + ad-

verb

25

(0931یک یک, تک تک)احمدی گیوی و انوری,

Yekyek, taktak (Ahmadigivi&Anvari, 1385)

Number + number 26

(0933برانداختن,فرو آوردن )پنج استاد,

Bar andâxtan, foruâvardan (PanjOstad (Five professors), 1389,)

Preposition +verb (infinitive) 27

(0931تکه تکه, پر پر,قطره قطره,کیسه کیسه)کلباسی,

Teketeke, par par, qatreqatre, kisekise (Kalbasi, 1387)

Repetition of a noun 28

Appendix (B) English Framework Obtained from the Translations of Persian Texts

Examples English Collocational Pat-

terns

No.

Compose a music, set a record, set an alarm Verb + noun 1

Strong tea, reckless abandon, pitched battle Adjective + noun 2

Alarms sound, bees buzz, blizzards rage Noun + verb 3

A colony of bees, a pride of lions, a bit of advice Noun + noun 4

Deeply absorbed, strictly accurate, sound asleep Adverb + adjective 5

Affect deeply, amuse thoroughly, anchor firmly Verb + adverb 6

Documents

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