RELIGIOUS SPEECH ACTS AND CHARACTER VOICE IN THREE ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF ABDULLA QODIRIY’S O‘TKAN KUNLAR: A FUNCTIONAL-PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS

Abstract

This article examines how religiously marked utterances shape character voice in three English translations of Abdulla Qodiriy’s O‘tkan Kunlar: Mark E. Reese’s Bygone Days, Carol Ermakova’s Days Gone By, and the collaborative The Days Gone By by I. M. Tukhtasinov, O. M. Muminov, and A. A. Khamidov. The study treats a religious expression not as an isolated lexical item but as a socially situated action that may bless, thank, warn, authorize, judge, identify, or contest. A qualitative comparison is conducted through a voice-sensitive functional matrix comprising propositional content, illocutionary force, confessional index, speaker stance, and dialogic position. Close readings of the Fatiha–gratitude exchange, Otabek’s hayya alal-falah metaphor, the mahr and nikah passages, the title hoji, the communal appeal musulmonchilik, and the phrase halol kasb show that formal retention does not necessarily preserve voice. Reese generally safeguards Islamic terminology and historical texture; Ermakova frequently reconstructs legal or ritual function through explanation; the collaborative version often retains source forms but at several points introduces confessional substitution or unsupported interpretation. The findings demonstrate that translation quality varies by speech-act type rather than by translator alone. Functional adequacy is therefore best understood as the disciplined reconstruction of what an utterance does and what kind of speaker it constructs within the novel.