Analysing the Translation of Persian Poetry into Chinese and English: A Methodological Inquiry of Sa'di's Bustan

The translation of classical Persian poetry presents enduring challenges for translators due to the intricate interaction of poetic form, cultural meaning, and pragmatic intent. Among the rhetorical devices that complicate poetic translation, rhetorical questions play a central role in conveying ethical judgment, indirect persuasion, and engaging in a dialogic relationship with readers. Despite their functional importance, rhetorical questions have rarely been investigated through a systematic functional-pragmatic lens, particularly in multilingual translation contexts. To address this gap, the present study integrates Speech Act Theory with House's functional-pragmatic Translation Quality Assessment model to examine the translation of rhetorical questions in Sa'di's Bustan from Persian into English and Chinese. Adopting a qualitative comparative design, this study analyses thirty-three rhetorical questions selected from the preamble and ten chapters of Bustan. It focuses on a data set of four translations—three in English and the only complete version in Chinese. The analysis focuses on pragmatic equivalence, with particular attention to the illocutionary act and the contextual parameters of field and tenor. The findings reveal substantial variation in translators' success in preserving rhetorical and pragmatic functions. Based on House's TQA model, Wickens achieves the highest level of pragmatic equivalence (۷۸%), followed by Clarke (۵۴%), Davie (۴۲%), and Zhang (۳۶%). These results are further supported by a native-speaker questionnaire, which shows a closely corresponding pattern of rhetorical recognition across translations. The study demonstrates that preserving illocutionary act and interpersonal meaning is crucial for the successful translation of rhetorical questions in poetry. By combining Speech Act Theory with House's TQA model, this research offers a principled framework for evaluating pragmatic equivalence in literary translation and contributes to cross-linguistic studies of poetic pragmatics.

کلیدواژه ها:

Bustan ، House's TQA model ، poetry translation ، rhetorical questions