Few translation studies have their attention to the realization of persuasive rhetoric in the target text, and even less to the translator’s interventions on the rhetoric of identification. This paper takes the persuasive discourse in Journey to the West, particularly the utterance when Tripitaka and his disciples pass through different countries. Through the lens of the metafunctions, as purported by Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), this study delves into the realization of identification in the translation by Waley and Lovell. Based on the characteristics of the rhetorical context, the study infers the translators’ intervention intentions. The findings can be summarized as follows: the lexicogrammatical configuration in Waley’s translation leads to a weakening of the rhetorical strength of identification, and the shift from speech to narrative as well as mistranslations results in a reduction in the amount of identification rhetoric. Lovell’s extensive omissions also cause a decrease in the amount of identification rhetoric. Her interventions occur more frequently in the rhetorical context of “the pursuit of the void”, with the rhetorical intention of weakening the religious narrative. By contrast, Waley’s interventions occur more often in the rhetorical context of “unified goals”, with the rhetorical intention of weakening the character narrative discourse.