Gender-Specific Charactonyms in Persian Translation of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim's Progress

The present research aimed to investigate gender-specific charactonyms and their meanings in Persian Translations of John Bunyan’s (۱۶۷۸) The Pilgrim's Progress. It also aimed to reveal translation strategies applied by both translators in their translations, Siyahat-i Masihi (‘سیاحت مسیحی’) by J. L. Potter in ۱۹۲۶ and Seir-o Solouk-i Za’ir (‘سیر و سلوک زائر’) by Golnaz Hamedi in ۲۰۰۲. To do so, SL gender-specific charactonyms and TL equivalents were compared together at Evelyn Hatch’s (۱۹۹۲) macro-level analysis. According to Hatch (۱۹۹۲), characters, as one of the elements of a story, play a significant role and affect the macrostructure of the story. Then, Alexander Kalashnikov’s (۲۰۱۱) two types of charactonyms were used to analyze the translations. The results show that Potter preferred to preserve the titles of gender (masculine and feminine) in his translation. In contrast, Hamedi more tended to distance the gender of the charactonyms having deeper meanings. This led to affect the novel due to the omission of the characteristics and additional information behind the charactonyms.

Keywords:

Charactonym , Charactonyms Personalia , Gender , connotation , Persian Equivalent