Translation and Asymmetrical Exchange of Cultural Capital

Capital according to Pierre Bourdieu (1986) is of four types: economic, cultural, social and symbolic. This book examines translation as an asymmetrical exchange between dominating and dominated languages, on the one hand, and relations between dominated languages on the other hand. Languages under investigation are: Persian, English, German, French and Arabic. Pascal Casanova (2002) considered translation from a dominating language to a dominated language as an accumulation of capital, and translation from a dominated language to a dominating one as a consecration. Trend of accumulation of capital has been scrutinized for the last two centuries, as well as, trend of translation from Persian to dominating languages as a consecration. Moreover such a relation is investigated between Persian and Arabic.