Exploring the Relationship between Students’ Perfectionism and Their Use of Translation Strategies

Abstract

Focusing on translators' personal characteristics and their individual differences has gained more momentum in the quest for exploring factors influencing the translation process. The present study aimed to examine the relationship between translator trainees' perfectionism and their preference for the use of different translation strategies. In this quantitative study, 100 translation students were recruited and asked to fill Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale survey and complete translation tasks. The translations were from English to Farsi and viceversa. The collected data from the questionnaire and translation tasks were analyzed using SPSS (22) and Smart PLS (3.0) software packages. The findings showed that perfectionism influenced the translation trainees' preference in using some translation strategies like literal translation, domestication, and foreignization. The finding further substantiated the importance of the personal characteristics of translators in the translation process.