a comparative study of translatability/untranslatability of polysemous metaphors in the translation of “the red and the black”by stendhal

this study is carried out to shed light on one of the lexical problems affecting the performance of translators while attempting to translate from an original text into a target language (in present study, from french to persian). polysemy is one of the well identified semantic problems. the words possess different meanings and significations according to the situation and the context in which they are used: most words in natural language are polysemous; they can be used in more than one meaning; dictionaries classify polysemous under a unique entry. in the present study, we attempt to analyze translatability/untranslatability of metaphors according to the lexical semantic, denotation and connotation approach, by examining two persian translations of “the red and the black’’ by stendhal. therefore, the essential aim of this study is to show how context helps and may be reinforced in translating polysemous words which will be justified at the end.