Proposing a Flowchart to Detect English Functional Equivalents for Persian Lexis: A Practical Approach

To translator trainers, teaching translation from trainees’ native to their foreign or second language is far more demanding than the other way round especially when it comes to detecting functional equivalence for the lexis of the source language. On the other hand, reaching a formulaic roadmap to English functional equivalence for Persian lexes would contribute to machine translation technology inasmuch as it can form the backbone of Persian-to-English digital applications and software. The present study aims at detecting a schematic approach to assist Persian-to-English translation trainees as well as translation software developers in detecting functional equivalents for Persian lexes. To this end, based upon the information gathered through observing an authentic translation process by a professional translator and following an interview with him in order to elucidate unclear points, a short, clear and to-the-point algorithm flowchart made up of two terminals, four decision diamonds and three process boxes was devised. Moreover, different sources such as dictionaries, thesauri, lexicons, and so forth used by the translator in question during the process of translation were introduced, along with a discussion of where, when and how they ought to be used.