the efficiency of literal vs. free translation from readers’ viewpoint: a case study of two translations of “a thousand splendid suns”

the dispute over form and meaning has a long history among translators and translation researchers, some believing the form to be of higher priority and hence choosing the literal method and others cherishing meaning and accordingly opting for free translation. the present study seeks to survey the preference of the readers for these styles so as to analyze the efficiency of each method. two translations of “a thousand splendid suns”, one translated literally and the other rather freely were chosen and several sample sentences were extracted. the questionnaires, given to 30 ba students of english translation, asked them to judge which translation they considered as more efficient and were asked to give their reasons for their choice. the results showed that despite strong bias against literal translation, the readers judged literal translation as more successful in both preserving the sl style and in transferring the message into the tl. the message is important, but the style is found to be directly related to the message.