translation students’ cultural literacy and translating literary texts

There is no study having compared the role of cultural literacy on translators translation skill. considering this, the present study attempts to examine the relationship between ten students cultural literacy and their translation of literary texts. to do this, a questionnaire was prepared based on harvey s translation model, which was used to rate the students cultural knowledge and their proficiency in translating literary texts. moreover, hemingway’s novel, the old man and the sea, and its translation by najaf daryabandari were used to be examined and compared for the strategies used. the main questions dealt with in the study were the promoting role of cultural literacy and its relationship with translation skill. to do so, three paragraphs were chosen to be translated by all ten students and their translations were compared with their corresponding parts in the source text. the results of the correlation test showed that there is a positive relationship between students translation quality and their cultural literacy score. it was also clear that the students with high cultural literary marks were those who had applied all different strategies in their translation and therefore had a more high-quality translation. translators can apply harvey’s procedures (such as functional equivalent, formal equivalent) for dealing with different translation problems during the process of translation. translation instructors can train their learners to use harvey’s procedures effectively and in appropriate situations. also, translation critics can use his procedures for evaluating translations and comparing them with each other.