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This article is an in-depth analysis to investigate the what- and how-patterns of semiotic manipulations in the two Persian translations of Oscar Wilde’s playscript “Salomé”, by Abdollah Kowsari (2006) and Abolhassan Tahami (2019). In this research, the dual research question has focused on examining the nature of semiotic manipulations present in the two aforementioned Persian translations. As such, this study particularly aims to identify the probable patterns of manipulation in translating certain proper names and key lexical signs that are of crucially semiological and onomatological import in a literary text. Establishing a supra-textual connection between the literary text and its original context, such semiological and onomatological items need to be retained in the translated text as well. To address the research question, the research methodology has focused on a pro-translation reading of the original text, i.e. the English-version text of “Salomé” playscript, what has been followed by an after-the-event reading of two Persian translations of the same work under a compare-contrast procedure. The analysis of the critical cases sampled from the two translations under study supports the main finding that both translators have domesticized, neutralized, or in cases excluded the certain proper names and key lexical items, i.e. signs and symbols, from the translated text. This approach has resulted in the de-foreignization of the original text during the translation process. Another significant research finding of the study underlines the point that the manipulations done in the semiological and onomatological structure of such a work of drama have led to a breakage between the text of the Persian translation and the original culturallingual context.

1. Introduction
The present study critically examines two Persian translations of the well-known play “Salomé,” written by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), the renowned Irish author, playwright, and poet. The play “Salomé,” that is related to a biblical event, was first published in English in 1894 by Elkin Mathews & John Lane publishing in London. Due to its carefully-crafted and unique content, “Salomé” has been the subject of analysis and scrutiny by numerous literary and theatrical critics around the world. Having embodied a host of calculated linguacultural and semiological elements leading to a close association being formed between the text and its historico-geographical context, “Salomé” has gained a veritably hierarchic structure as well as a varied syntactic texture. This being said, it seemed fairly sensible to carry out a piece of critical research on two Persian translations of “Salomé”, i.e. Abdollah Kowsari (2006, Hermes Publishing) and Abolhassan Tahami (2019, Negah Publishing), what at the very outset has engaged the researcher of this study to get down to a seriously meticulous reading of both the original and the translations at hand.
A glance at the literary translations and subsequently a critical review of the translatological articles is suggestive of the fact that the appraisal of translation practice and translation evaluation by the literary readers and critics is more or less based on a one-sided reading of the translation text, what is mostly carried out by measuring the rate and quality of the domesticizing approach employed in an attempt to normalize as far as possible the linguacultural means and assets of the literary work in translation (see Even-Zohar (1978/1990/2012); Reiss & Rhodes (2014)). Having this in mind, the present study has tried to have a critical ST-oriented reading of the original text as well as the two Persian translations in order to locate culturallingual motifs, i.e. the semiological and onomatological elements. The present research has two phases. In the initial phase which was marked itself via the simultaneous act of translation to be performed by the researcher, the study went through explore the text of the play in an attempt to examine and extract the whole array of the symbolic words, specific names, and key lexicological signs existing in the original. In the ultimate phase, the study aimed to examine the question if the required associations which existed between the semiological and onomatological elements in the original and its original context via the presence of the semiological and onomatological elements, were also existent between each translation of the play and the assumed context thereof, hence reaching an estimation of the adequacy of the translations under study. In other words, the present study has aimed to analyze and evaluate the approach(s) adopted by both translators in their confrontation with and translation of certain lexical signs and naming-items as the key lexico-semiological elements in the original, what is supposed to retain the close text-context associations in the translated texts as well.
Research Question(s) and Research Hypotheses
The research question being addressed in this article has two sides: Firstly, the study has explored the translation texts to determine if the symbolic words, proper names, and certain key lexical signs all considered as semiotic and nomological elements in the text have been adequately rendered in translation; secondly, the study has tried to answer if the existing relationship in terms of the above-mentioned items serving as linking elements between the original text, i.e. “Salomé”, and its historico-geographical cum socio-cultural context has been preserved in the Persian translations as well. As such, the present research has put forward a two-sided hypotheses, firstly, that the translated texts under study have retained the semiotic and onomastic textual items in terms of translational equivalence; and secondly, that the connection between the translated texts in Persian and the overarching framework of the original context has been maintained in terms of adequately rendering the semiotic and onomastic textual items via employing the adequate equivalents, just as it is the case for the English play "Salomé" and its original context.


2. Theoretical Foundations
By looking at the extra-textual connection existing between the text of a fictional or dramatic work and the original context related to it, and in light of the tripartite unities, i.e. unity of action, unity of place, and unity of time, that lead to the formation of an ‘artistic whole’ within a literary work, one can particularly speak of the existence of “sign-words” in a particular textual narrative. Such “sign-words” are the marked words or key naming or lingua-cultural items that possess a referential and contextual value and appear as symbolic signs serving to identify and locate the original context that is connected with a literary text. In highlighting the multilayered and profound functions of proper names, Bagby and Sigalov (1987), focusing on the viewpoint of Nikonov (1974), provide a triadic functional framework around a proper name as a signifying unit or entity.
Following Nikonov, we discriminate three types of significance inhering in the proper name: first, its etymological meaning, that is, the real meaning of its root; second, the name’s signifying meaning, more exactly, the real function of the proper name qua label; third, its social meaning, or the symbolics of a name which has acquired some determinable historical meaning within the given culture (p. 474)
From an onomastic point of view, Winner and Winner (1976, p. 150) have placed due emphasis on the well-thought-out employment of the names in the texture of fictional works and written that names sometimes “demonstrate a technique peculiar to myth, that is […] where the names are semantically active.” From a discursive point of view, the property of “activeness” or enunciator-ship can be given to a name or term where it stands before the audience as a “sign” or “object”. As such, the subject occupies the position of an identifying agent in his/her interaction with that linguistic object, i.e. name or term. In this regard, the notion of “praxis énonciative” (roughly translated into ‘discursive act’) is pointed out by Shairi (2009) to explain the semiotic nature of an “object” as a discursive actor, as proposed by Greimas (1987). According to Greimas (1987), an ‘object’ is to be referred to as a “discursive agent,” one that “by showcasing the power of its presence, stands in the way of the viewer (subject)” (Greimas, 1987, p. 27). This being said, one is to view a literary text, be it fiction or drama, as including a string of semiotic and nomological motifs in the form of words or names, what establishes a cultural-semiological connection with the text’s backdrop, i.e. the original context. The point is that a literary translation must as well retain the connection with the overarching framework of the original context as such; thus, any attempt to extrapolate, transform, and domesticize such semiotic and nomological items leads to a disruption in the texture of translational work; what has itself arisen from and linked to a foreign text and therefore must enjoy the same cultural-semiological connection with the original context that is related to it.

3. Literature Review
The background of translation-oriented research in Persian, whether in the form of academic thesis or in the form of critical research published in scholarly journals is scantly evidenced, albeit as far as the present research has found access to. However, such research projects, if any, have examined the issue of translation criticism merely through a lens other than that of translatology or semiology, barely employing a duly systematic and fairly methodical approach to tackle with the research topic. Such research lines being theoretically and methodically incongruous with the theoretical scenario of this study have been abstained from being included in the present extended abstract. 

4. Methodology
In regard to the purpose of the present study and in pursuit of arriving at an adequate answer to the research questions posed above, methodology employed in the present research has been one based upon comparing and contrasting the texts of both Persian translations under study with that of the original work. Prior to beginning the text-exploration phase, it is to be stated that to maintain fairness and to avoid partiality in the process of translational criticism, the author of this article has rendered his own translation of “Salomé” in an attempt to gain first-hand knowledge of the semiological elements as they have been worked in the original text, hence not letting go of justness in critical judgement. In regard to the critical research questions addressed above, the sampling method has not been random and the data have been obtained in a purposive way by going through the source text and weighing the Persian translations against the original text. Spotting the translational flaws as such may duly explain the nature of major failings recognized in the translated texts. Collecting the research data via critical sampling has been carried out in a few phases: Firstly, the pro-translational reading of the English text and locating the textual items possessing an onomatological or semiological weight; secondly, the autonomous reading of each translation and at the same time referring to the original playscript to arrive at the points of critical incongruence; thirdly, the translato-semiological reviewing of the samples drawn with an eye to the research questions posed; fourthly, adopting a selection of the most telling examples out of the sampling collection so that a qualitative research of this kind can readily absorb; fifthly, evaluating  and analyzing the selected samples while giving special attention to the whatness and howness of the manipulations in translating the onomatological and semiological elements at work; what has eventually led to a state of inevitable distortion and detachment between the translated text and the original text on the one hand and its culturallingual context on the other. It is to be added that only those sampling-items that have most suggestively provided an explanatory answer to the research questions as such have been included in the ultimate article. Besides, although the translato-semiological analysis for each sampling-item could have accompanied by a proposed translation, this idea has been abandoned to avoid any speculative surmise on the part of the readers indicative of the authorial partiality.
5. Results
In this research, the focus has been on how certain semiotic and onomastic themes, namely symbolic vocabulary, proper names, and key lexical signs, are maintained in two Persian translations of the play "Salomé." Following that line, the study has examined how the connection between the translated texts under study and the overarching framework of the original context has been preserved from a translational semiological perspective. The findings of the present research, as evidenced by the examined samples, indicate that the original context in both translations has undergone a series of inappropriate semiotic alterations and manipulations. Both translations, by approaching the alienation of the literary context, exhibit a range of inappropriate manipulations in favor of domesticization of the original and translationally disqualify the work’s semiotic import to the detriment of the continuity between the translated text and its broader contextual framework. An evaluative study of the two Persian translations - by Abdollah Kowsari (2006) and Abolhassan Tahami (2019) - of Oscar Wilde's "Salomé" shows a disconnection between the semiotics of the translated text and the original context in terms of their linguistic, cultural, and historical ties. The approach to domestication and normativity is evident in both translations: Firstly, in the process of domesticizing the proper names as such and alienating their socio-cultural cultural significance, the onomatological items which serve as storytelling keywords which relate to the work’s chronological narrative; and secondly, in the manipulation of the work’s semiotics and de-semiotization of original cultural capital, the textual signs that evoke a revival of the original historico-geographical context in the translation as well.    
 

Keywords: Playscript, Drama, Literary text, translation, Sign, Name, Semiology, Manipulation

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