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Abstract
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This paper is reporting on a study about the relationship between gender and translation of taboo words. The underlying assumption was that like in many other aspects of language use gender played a significant role in dealing with taboo words in the process of translation. As a preliminary step to examine the researchable potentiality of this assumption, we sampled and reviewed some famous western novels translated by Iranian male and female translators. Our analysis showed that female translators did in fact employ different strategies than their male counterparts in dealing with taboo words. To substantiate this initial assumption further a more elaborated design was adopted. Sixty (30 male and 30 female) students doing MA in Translation Studies in two Iranian provinces (East Azarbaijan and Esfahan) volunteered, who were then asked to translate a single-page English text consisting of 12 different taboo expressions. They also filled out a questionnaire comprising 10 questions with multiple choice answers, specifically aimed at eliciting their preferred translation strategies in dealing with taboo words and whether gender had any role in their preferences. The analysis of data by SPSS revealed significant differences between the strategies employed by male and female translators in their dealing with taboo words from a foreign culture.
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