© 2011 ACADEMY PUBLISHER A Comparative Study of the Persian Subtitles of American Historical Drama and Romantic Comedy Movies with the Originals

Abstract—This study aimed to investigate the use of Vinay and Darbelnet’s direct and oblique translations strategies in the Persian subtitles of American historical drama and romantic comedy movies. The present study aimed also to investigate which of the two main categories of translation strategies (direct and oblique translation) in the main focus of subtitlers in historical drama and romantic comedy movies. In order to systematically conduct the study, six American historical drama and romantic comedy movies with their corresponding Persian subtitles were analyzed. The findings obtained from the analysis show that direct translation strategy is used more in historical drama movies and manifest that historical drama subtitlers tend to have translations which are literal, directional and faithful to the source language and culture. The findings also indicate that oblique translation strategy is applied more in the Persian subtitles of romantic comedy movies. It is obvious that the Persian subtitles of romantic comedy movies attempt to accommodate themselves more to the target language. Index Terms—direct translation strategy, oblique translation strategy, Persian subtitles, historical drama, Romantic comedy I