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HASSANE LOUNIS–RELEVANCE THEORY: HOW USEFUL IS IT TO TRANSLATING DISCOURSE CONNECTIVES?
words, the first utterance (i.e. Wa yuhafidu l’tatweer al’ladi yajiduhu l’kaari’ fi’l’adad l’haalii min
‘aam 1997 ‘ala haada l’manhadj. [This year, despite the developments outlined above, the
report still follows the same method]). In the translated version, however as analysed within
RT framework (cf. Dalli 1992) can never express an addition 7 .
The translator here has failed to capture the semantic properties of ma’a (in
addition, with), however or both. The result is a translated text, which carries a different
message from the one intended by the original author.
If one takes into consideration the definitions of Arabic particles one would
produce a more appropriate and accurate translation which would read like the following:
This year, despite the developments outlined above, the report still follows the
same method. We have in addition/also given more emphasis than in the past to providing
an analysis and evaluation of the year’s main developments.
CONCLUSION
DCs are vital language particles in most and probably all languages. Their
importance for communication is undeniable and their effect on a translation process, as
the study demonstrates, is considerable. Failing to capture the role they play in a discourse,
the relations they introduce, the contextual effects in which they are used and most
importantly their semantic particularities will certainly, as shown in the analysis, lead to a
failure of the translation. Studies carried out within relevance theory however demonstrate
that this approach which is based on the search for the communicator’s intended meaning
allow us to imagine possibilities DCs provide in capturing those intended meanings. Such a
strategy as has been shown is capable of providing the translator with a tool, which put
him/her in a position to handle DCs successfully.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
AL-BATAL, Mahmoud. The Cohesive Role of Connectives in Modern Standard Arabic. PhD thesis.
Emory University, 1986.
AL-BATAL, Mahmoud. “Connectives in Arabic Diglossia: The case of Lebanese Arabic”. In
EID, M.; CANTARINO, V.; WALTERS, K. (eds.) Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics. No
VI. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1994, pp 91-119.
BLAKEMORE, Diane. Semantic Constraints on Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987.
7 To illustrate on the semantics of the word however, consider the following example:
“A Pakistan foreign ministry official accused India of trying to destabilize the region. Local experts, however, saw
the test more as a missive” (extract from The Guardian Newspaper. 18 January 2001).
According to Blakemore’s study, the function of however here is to steer the reader’s understanding towards an
idea which he/she might have gathered from the first utterance. It introduces the second utterance which “differ” from
the initial one.
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