A Discourse Analysis of the Novel "Things Fall apart" and Two of Its Persian Translations at Micro and Macro Levels

Abstract

This qualitative, quantitative, corpus-based, descriptive research, applied an eclectic approach to discourse analysis at the micro and macro levels, proposed by Halliday and Hasan (1976), Hatch (1992), and Farahzad (2008), to analyze the cohesive devices (endophoric references, conjunctions, and reiterations), constituent elements (characters, and the way they have been addressed), translators’ judgments and footnotes, respectively, in the English novel “Things Fall apart” and its two Persian translations by Bahrami (2001), and Safavian (2009). The results showed that, Bahrami’s translation was more cohesive compared to that of Safavian, at the micro level. At the macro level, the results showed that although both Bahrami and Savafian’s translations were the same in terms of characters, Bahrami’s translation transmitted the postcolonial theme, the theme flowing in the novel, more than Safavian’s.