To achieve the first and second scientific objectives of this research, the social conditions in which translations as cultural products were produced as well as the dynamics between different agents who were competing with each other in the field of literary translation in Iran (translators, publishers, censorship authorities, and readers) were analyzed objectively. The researcher investigated the strategies that the dominant agents were using in this field to preserve its structure as well as the built-in symbolic violence that was institutionalized in the field in the form of dominant sociocultural norms. To this end, he devised a new conceptual framework to redefine the censorship in which this notion was conceived as a Bourdieusian field. The designed framework then was used to describe and explain the behaviors of different agents in the specific field of translation censorship in Iran. As regards the third objective of the study, the availability of multiple synchronic Persian translations of the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini provided an opportunity for the researcher to conduct a case study to investigate and compare different strategies used by Iranian translators.
The main results of the project are expected to be reported in form of three articles that have been submitted to top-tier peer-reviewed journals in the field of Translation Studies. The first article depicts a detailed picture of translation censorship in Iran, its ideological and legal foundations, its mechanism of action, and the different role players involved in it. It provides readers with sufficient information so that they may have a thorough understanding of how translation censorship is practiced in this particular context. The second article deals with general theories of censorship (and/in translation). It proposes to redefine censorship by putting forward a new conceptual framework in which censorship is conceived as a Bourdieusian field. This theoretical model could represent a valuable contribution to the Translation Studies subfield of translation and censorship. The third article provides a detailed description of censorship-related translation strategies used in different Persian translations of the novel ‘The Kite Runner’.
