Strategies used in translation of English idioms into Persian in novels

The present study aimed to focus mainly on the investigation of the strategies used for English into Persian translation of idioms and idiomatic expressions in the novels of "To kill a mockingbird" by Harper Lee and "Of mice and men" by John Steinbeck. This research is done based on Baker's model for translating, namely, using her four strategies for translating idioms, i.e., using an idiom of similar meaning and form, using an idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form, translation by paraphrase, and translation by omission. The researcher wanted to find out which strategy was the most frequently used strategy and whether there were any significant differences among the uses of these strategies. Conducting a descriptive statistical analysis, it has been concluded that "paraphrase" and "using an idiom of similar meaning and form" were the most and the least common strategies, with the frequencies of 290 and 9, and percentages of 71.25% and 2.21%, respectively. On the basis of the findings of this research, it is recommended that, in addition of having enough knowledge in terms of the theoretical translation issues and the translation strategies suggested by different scholars, a translator should have a good command of the TL idiomatic expressions, and in the case of translating novels, benefit from the required creativity to handle the challenging task of transferring the idiom into the TL.