تويت
INTRODUCTION
Translation is the process of rendering a message from language one, which is usually called the source language or ST as a short hand, to language two i.e.the target language or simply the TT. It is defined by Crystal(1992:394-5) as : ' the process or result of turning the expressions of one language (the source language ) into the expressions of another ( the target language ) so that the meanings correspond . Several levels of translation exist ; in a word for word translation , each word (or morphem) in the source language is translated by a word (or morpheme) in the target. The result often makes little sense , especially when the idioms are involved . In a literal sense, the linguistic structure of the source text is followed, but is normalized according to the rules of the target language . In a free translation, the linguistic structure of the source language is ignored, and an equivalent is found based on the meaning it conveys. The three levels can be illustrated by French translators" of ' it's raining cats and dogs ' ; il est pleuvant chats et chiens ( word for word) ; il pleut des chats et des chiens (literal); il pleut a verse (free).
I- Translation and the field of pragmatics:
There is no doubt that translation is an important means of communication. Its principal function is to establish linguistic links between speakers of different languages , by means of transferring a message from an unknown language to the known one.
While we consider that the central problem of translation is how to choose the translation method that is most adequate to the text , there are other problems that need more consideration and analysis . Such problems come out when , for instance , we translate a conversational text. In any conversation , the speaker (S) produces an utterance (U) which he addresses to the hearer (H) in a given context (C) , with the intention of conveying into H a given meaning (Mn) . The hearer , on his part, decodes the speaker’s utterance in context . Thus , it is assumed that participants in a communication activity observe a set of rules and principles including the ‘ cooperative principle’ ( cf. Grice 1975) . One of the most intricate problems that we face when trannslating a conversation is how to render the message adquately from S.T into T.T in accordance with its context of use . In other words , “ how this complex reflexive communicative intention is meant to be recognized by the recipient ” ( Levinson 1983: 17).
II-What is Implicature?
The conversational implicature is an important aspect of the general phenomenon of indirect communication, which falls within the field of pragmatics, defined by Levinson (1983:24) as ‘the study of the ability of language users to pair sentences with the context, in which they would be appropriate’. The major improvement that the field of pragmatics has recently known is that of Grice’s theory of implicature .
In his (1975) article , ‘ Logic and Conversation’ , Grice presents the foundations of a theory of indirect communication and suggests a an inferential strategy for making out conversationally implicated meaning or conversational implicatures . He (1975:44) distinguishes between two kinds of implicatures , namely conventional and conversational implicatures :
A- Conventional implicature is when the conversational meaning of the words is used to determine what is implicated, besides helping to determine what is said. for e.g. (1):
(1)- She is a begger; therefore she is poor.
In this case , one should certainly commit himself , by virtue of the meaning of the words uttered ( i.e. She is a begger; therefore she is poor) to the truth of proposition that his being poor is a consequence of being a beggar.
This kind of implicature demonstrates the ordinary situation where the speaker means what he says no more, no less.
However, the conversational implicature helps to account for other aspects of meaning that can only be accomodated in the field of pragmatics. Implicature is ‘a notion that can explain how a speaker may mean more than what he/ she says’ and ‘Grice’s use of “conversational” is broader than the ordinary sense of this word; it includes all types of social interaction, whether written or spoken” (Aziz 2003: 63).
II-1- Implicature, its principle and maxims:
Implicature is essentially connected with certain general features of discourse notably, the cooperative principle, which interlocutors are expected to observe in order to ‘help the conversation progress and achieve its goals smoothly’ ( Aziz 2003:63). It is formed as follows: ‘make your contribution such as is required , at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged . Grice (1975:45-46) identifies “ four basic maxims of conversation or general principles underlying the efficient cooperative use of language , which jointly express a general cooperative principle.” ( Levinson 1983:101). These maxims are stated as follows :
(i)- The maxim of Quantity:
1- Make your contribution as informative as required.
2-Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
(ii)- The maxim of quality:
1-Do not say what you believe to be false.
2-Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
(iii)-The maxim of Relation:
“ Be relevant”
(iv)-The maxim of manner:
1- Avoid obscurity of expression.
2- Avoid ambiguity.
3- Be brief.
4- Be orderly.
‘ these maxims specify what participants have to do in order to converse in a maximally efficient , rational ,and cooperative way ; they (interlocutors) should speak sincerely , relevantly , and clearly while providing sufficient information’ (Levinson 1983: 102). Speakers do mostly not follow these maxims in most kinds of conversations and the hearers , on their part , ‘ assume that , contrary to appearances , these principles are nevertheless being adhered to at some deeper level’.
II-2- Flouting the maxims:
The conversational maxims can be either observed or flouted by the speaker. According to Grice (1975:49) , ‘ A participant in a talk exchange may fail to fulfill a maxim in various ways’ including:
1- A speaker may quietly and unostentionaly violate a maxim .If so , in some cases , he will be liable to mislead.
2- A speaker may opt out from the operation both of the maxim and of the CP . He may say , indicate , or allow it become clear that he is unwilling to cooperate in the way the maxim requires .He may say for e.g.I cannot say more ; my lips are sealed .
3-A speaker may be faced by a clash , he may be unable to fulfill the first maxim of quantity without violating the maxim of quality . To illustrate this case , let us consider (2):
(2)- A: Have you written the letter and posted it?
B: I have written the letter.
In this exchange , B’s utterance violates the maxim of quantity as he provides less information than is required in order to fulfill the maxim of quality.
4- A speaker may flout a maxim , that is , he may blatantly fail to fulfill it. For instance, if someone says (3):
(3)- The film was very interesting.
while the movie was very dull , boring , and monotonous. Here the flouting of the maxim of quality is clearly illustrated.
In short, the speaker can either observe or flout these maxims . In this way, the meaning that is conveyed by means of observing a maxim differs from the message expressed as a result of flouting it. Therefore, implicature is the result of violating a maxim or maxims and the speaker expects the audience to work out what he has meant because he assumes that he and the audience are observing the cooperative principle or CP.
So , the concept of “implicature” seems to offer some significant functional – pragmatic – explanations of linguistic facts . Moreover , it provides some explicit account of how it is possible to mean more than what is said .
To make this clear, let us consider this example (4):
(4)- A: I feel hungry!
B: the kitchen is over there.
In this conversation, B says ‘ the kitchen is over there , but in fact means more than that i.e. if you (A) want to eat go to the kitchen and prepare foryou something to eat.
III-The context in translation:
The context constitutes a major element in the pragmatic analysis of any utterance bearing a pragmatic meaning, namely the conversationally implicated utterances, whose understanding by the hearer relies entirely on the context, in which the utterance is used, in order to work the meaning out. Consider (5) :
(5)- John is back.
This sentence may pragmatically express threatening , warning , or just informing ... In that, the context controls the meaning that we derive from an utterance.
Similarly, conversations are also bound to the context of use , in which they take place. For example (6):
(6)-(A): I will not be able to come to the party tomorrow.
(B): It’s o.k.
B’s answer is uclear unless we connect it to the context , which depends heavily on whether A’s refusal to B’s offer ( i.e. the coming to the party) was appropriate to the situation or not. Thus , B’s answer ( it’s o.k.) may express either his understanding of A’s circumstances or it is an ironical way to urge A to think again .
Types of context are several ; they are identified as follows :
- Context of reference: It is what an utterance refers to in the outside world.
- Context of utterance : It is related to the whole atmosphere in which an uttrerance takes place i.e. the speaker , hearer , time , place , positions of both speaker and hearer , mood of the utterance ...
- Context of culture: It is related to the ways of thinking and behaving within a particular language community. Therefore, language in general,or any message meant to be conveyed appropriately in a language should be linked to the culture they belong to .
Since the defining function of translation is ‘ rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text’ ( Newmark 1988:5)and as long as the shift in language necessarily requires a shift in culture , then every process of translation entails a change in terms of culture .
The difference between what a speaker says and what he means eludes us to make a distinction between the nature of a sentence and that of an utterance. ‘A sentence is an abstract theoretical entity defined within a theory of grammar’ . It is in other words a unit of grammatical analysis . Meanwhile, an utterance is the actual use of a given sentence in a given situation or an actual context.
The following sentence : “there is a table missing here!” is an abstract linguistic form that has grammatical elements ( verb , subject , adverbial, ...etc.) which have paradigmatic and syntagmatic functions. However , if we put this sentence into a context like the following : the manager of a restaurant enters at the main hall and finds out that one of the tables is missing . He utters ‘ there is a table missing here !’ the meaning or meanings that we might infer from this utterance may be as follows:
- the utterance constitutes a mere statement .
- the speaker by virtue of this utterance implicitly condemns his assistants of being responsible of this loss.
- he warns them to be more vigilant and cautious ..
- etc ...
Similarly, the distinction between what the speaker says and what he means in a conversationally implicated utterances is a relation of abstract to concrete.
IV-The sentence meaning vs the utterance meaning in translation :
The ability of the hearer to decode the speaker’s utterance and to infer its meaning though the utterance may seem odd, unclear, implicit, or inappropriate to the situation, is due both to their observation of the cooperative principle and perhaps to their sharing of the same language and culture.
In the process of translating a text, translators try hard to bridge the gap between the culture of the source text (i.e. the source culture) and the culture to which they translate, by using different methods depending on the type of context, and of the utterance itself. Thus , the translator may change the structure , make things clearer , or add some elements to make the utterance more explicit...etc. The following data will illustrate several aspects of implicature as a linguistic phenomenon specific to the conversational style.
(1)- فلما حاذته خاطبها بصوت منخفض قائلا:
من يتحمل مرارة الصبر يبلغ...
When she approached him he spoke quietly:
‘He, who endures the bitterness of waiting, attains …’
Here, we notice that both contexts do resemble and that there was no shift in context and that the implicature is explicitly accounted for in both languages. Thus, the speaker, by virtue of the process of implicature, was able to mean more than what he says by flouting the maxim of quantity in يبلغ... in Arabic, attains…in English and observe the maxim of quality. In other words, though the speaker left this utterance incomplete; the hearer was able to understand the implied meaning on the basis of the cooperative principle.
(2)- مالك جلست هكذا؟
أنا ضيف يا معلمة, و الضيف لا يهان.
Why do you sit there?
I’m your guest and a guest ought not to be insulted.
By virtue of the cooperative principle, the Arabic text is intended to hide some important elements such as reference. In the above example, we have two types of reference: The first is the place reference ‘sit there’ and the second is the indefinite pronoun in the Arabic text ‘أنا ضيف’, which does not express clearly to whom belong this guest, and which is turned into a possessive pronoun ‘your’ . The English text makes things clearer. In other words, the scope of difference in the source text between what is said and what is meant was bridged in the translated text. The next example also illustrates the gap between the said and the meant:
(3)- هذا شيء لا تفهمه, و ما أجدر بك أن تموت حسرة على لكمة ممايصيبه.
لعل الضرب شرف لا أدركه.
-That’s something you can’t understand you’ll die longing for the blow that fall on him.
- Probably a beating from you is too good for me.
The same thing happens here, the gap between the said and the meant in the Arabic text is wider than in the English text; the prepositional phrase ‘from you’ makes the reference even more explicit.
However, we may have sometimes translation of conversational passages without requiring a shift in the context and the meaning of the utterance remains unchanged. The following two examples illustrate a case of implicature, where in both languages the effect and the intended meaning remain the same:
(4)-قال كبيرهم :
- كيف تخاطبنا هكذا و نحن أبناؤك البررة؟
فقال السيد ساخرا:
- بل أبناء أمكم.
His elder son asked:
‘How can you speak to us like this? We are your devoted sons’
‘From now on you’re your mother’s sons!’
Besides involving a case of explicitness i.e. the introduction of a time reference ‘from now on’ to the translated text, we have a clear case of implicature: It is obvious that the sons and the mother have genetic relationship; that is to say, they are her sons and she is their mother. However, and by virtue of the cooperative principle, the hearer would infer the intended meaning, which is in this context an ironical way to say that his (the speaker’s) sons care only about their mother and that he withdrew from their parenthood.
(5)-فقالت أم حميدة و هي تهز رأسها و ترعش حاجبها:
السيد سليم علوان على سن و رمح !
فشدت قبضتها على المشط حتى كادت تنفذ أسنانه في راحتها و هتفت :
- سليم علوان صاحب الوكالة ؟
Shaking her head and making her eyebrow dance, the match-maker replied:
- Mr salim alwan, in all his majesty !
- Hamida gripped her comb so tightly that its teeth almost broke in her hand. She shouted:
- Salim alwan the owner of the company?
In the above conversation, the fact of repeating the statement salim alwan (the owner of the company) is not a mere redundancy besides, there is no other character in the story having the same name. It is rather a way to emphasize or highlight the speaker’s astonishment when she heard the news.
IV-1-When a figure of speech is involved!:
(6)-و صفق طالبا كاسا ثالثا ثم قال باشفاق:
و الا دهى من ذلك أن زوجي قد تقيأت في الأسبوع الماضي..
فقال عباس متظاهرا بالاهتمام :
لا بأس عليها
He clapped and ordered a third glass and continued :
‘Worst of all, mu wife vomited last week..’
Pretending concern at the news, abbas said:
‘Oh , that’s nothing to worry about, I hope .’
In this passage, we notice that there are a variety of processes that are used . First of all, the intended meaning of تقيأت في الأسبوع الماضي
is not that the speaker’s wife was ordinarily sick but that of being pregnant. In the translated text, the task of inferring what is really meant by the speaker is reserved to the audience –always- according to the cooperative principle.Second, the translated text shows clearly that the utterance ‘لا بأس عليها’ represent in the Arabic context a wish or a hope. For this reason, the translator added ‘I hope’to make the meaning even explicit to the audience.
It is worth pointing out that “Implicature” is a very crucial linguistic device of conveying indirectly communicated meanings. And like implicature, figures of speech such as metaphor and irony entail as well the flouting of one of the conversational maxims. The following examples will illustrate a case of metaphor, irony and another type of metaphorical utterances:
(7)-أدركت المعلمة أنه يلمح الى زوجها فاربد وجهها و قالت بلهجة تنم عن الوعيد:
-ماذا تعني يا أخا الديدان؟
فقال الرجل و لم تكن تعوزه الجرأة:
- أخونا الفاضل جعدة.
Husniya realised that he was referring to her husband and her face pales as she asked menacingly:
‘just what do you mean by that, you snake ?
‘ our charming friend Jaada’ ansewered Zaita, his courage caused him some surprise.
In the above conversation, the utterance “أخا الديدان” or “the brother of worms” explicitly contravenes or more specifically flout the maxim of quality ( i.e. do ot say what you believe to be false) . We know from the situation and the context that the speaker refers to the hearer , who is a human being , not an animal nor an insect.Thus, the speaker metaphorically means by the utterance that the hearer is a filthy, villainous, abject,scorned...person because of his behaviour and way of living . One thing to be noticed here is that the translation of this metaphor was not a very faithful to the source text; however the translationremains very significant and relevant to the situation in which the utterance takes place.
Using the same passage (7), one can take notice of another figurative process implied through observing the utterance meaning of ‘أخونا الفاضل جعدة’, which if put in its context of use will clearly illustrate a case of irony, where this utterance means totally the opposite i.e. that he is a unpleasant, foul, detestable person. In the same way, the shift in language and thus in culture made things change; however, the sense of irony is reserved.
A conventional metaphor as being another recognized kind of metaphor “is one which forms a part of our everyday understanding of experience, and is processed without effort”.(crystal 1992:249).It is accounted for in the following examples:
(8)-أجل الحلو خطيبك ؟!
كلا لم تنس و لكن سيان التذكر و النسيان ترى هل تعترض أمها حقا و حدجتها بنظرة نافذة , فأيقنت أنها كاذبة في انتقاذها و هزت منكبيها استهانة و قالت باستخفاف و احتقار:
- ذبحة.
“Yes the barber, have you forgotten that he‘s your fiancee?”
No she had not forgotten, but in this case, to forget and to remember are the same.Was her mother going to stand in her way? The girl peered closely at her and saw that her criticism was a mere sham. She shook her shoulders indifferently:
- “He must go”.
(9)- فقال بجرأة عجيبة:
أريدك أنت و لا شيء غيرك....
- ذبحة.
With an extraordinary audacity, he answered:
“ I want you, nothing but you”. This direction almost made her stumble:
“ I wish you were dead”. She blured out.
The utterance ‘ذبحة literally translated into the English text as slaughter(ing), slaying or murdering is an illustration of conventional metaphors that are used in a language as an instinctive reaction to something we hate, dislike, or abhorr . What is interesting to notice is that the same utterance is translated in two different ways according to two distinct contexts.:in (8) and (9)the Arabic version uses only the noun phrase “ذبحة” but in the English text, it is rendered into a full sentence with a modal of obligation “must” in (8) and by a sentence expressing a wish in (9).Most of the time, the English texts make things even clearer to the audience than the Arabic text does.
In fact, translation of metaphors and other figures of speech is a very problematic issue, especially within a conversational style.That is to say, metaphors used in an unmarked manner can be more or less dealt with explicitly according to their scope of use. However, when the metaphorical expressions are inserted in a conversational framework, their meaning may vary depending on the purpose of their use. Let alone the relationship of the speaker and the hearer (audience), the mood of the conversation, and the general context...
CONCLUSION
The Gricean implicature based on the cooperative principle and the conversational maxims constitute a very important element in Pragmatics. This notion helps us account for certain aspects of meaning that neither Semantics nor Syntax succeeded in doing it. Implicature is a special kind of pragmatic inference. Its main function is to explain how it is possible for a speaker to mean more than what he says on the basis of the cooperative principle and the four maxims : quantity, quality; relation and manner. These maxims may either be observed or flouted by the speaker, causing a shift in meaning. These conversational maxims and obviously the CP regulates the human speech in all language communities
We’ve seen through this research that the translations of conversational passages requires a shift in language, in culture and therefore, in context. This may entail also a shift at the level of maxims handling.
Thus, we can say that pragmatics and notably the notion of implicature constitute the corner stone of translation processes and of speech in general.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Crystal, David.(1992).An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Language and Languages. Oxford: Blackwell.
Grice, H.P.(1975). “Logic and Conversation”.In Syntax and Semantics3: Speech acts.(1975:41-58).New York: Academic press.
Levinson,Stephen.(1983).Pragmatics: A reader .Cambridge : cambridge University Press.
Mahfouz,Naguib.(1947).Zuqaq Al Midaq.Cairo:Maktabat Misra.Trnsl by Le Gassic,Trevor.(1975).Midaq Alley.Cairo:American University Press.
Newmark,Peter.(1988). A Textbook of Translation.London:Prentice Hall.
Yowell,Y.Aziz.(2003). “Pragmatics And Translation:The Role of Conversational Implicature in Translation”. In Turjuman. (2003,12(2), p.63-82).Tangier:Ecole Supérieure Roi Fahd de Traduction.
Translation is the process of rendering a message from language one, which is usually called the source language or ST as a short hand, to language two i.e.the target language or simply the TT. It is defined by Crystal(1992:394-5) as : ' the process or result of turning the expressions of one language (the source language ) into the expressions of another ( the target language ) so that the meanings correspond . Several levels of translation exist ; in a word for word translation , each word (or morphem) in the source language is translated by a word (or morpheme) in the target. The result often makes little sense , especially when the idioms are involved . In a literal sense, the linguistic structure of the source text is followed, but is normalized according to the rules of the target language . In a free translation, the linguistic structure of the source language is ignored, and an equivalent is found based on the meaning it conveys. The three levels can be illustrated by French translators" of ' it's raining cats and dogs ' ; il est pleuvant chats et chiens ( word for word) ; il pleut des chats et des chiens (literal); il pleut a verse (free).
I- Translation and the field of pragmatics:
There is no doubt that translation is an important means of communication. Its principal function is to establish linguistic links between speakers of different languages , by means of transferring a message from an unknown language to the known one.
While we consider that the central problem of translation is how to choose the translation method that is most adequate to the text , there are other problems that need more consideration and analysis . Such problems come out when , for instance , we translate a conversational text. In any conversation , the speaker (S) produces an utterance (U) which he addresses to the hearer (H) in a given context (C) , with the intention of conveying into H a given meaning (Mn) . The hearer , on his part, decodes the speaker’s utterance in context . Thus , it is assumed that participants in a communication activity observe a set of rules and principles including the ‘ cooperative principle’ ( cf. Grice 1975) . One of the most intricate problems that we face when trannslating a conversation is how to render the message adquately from S.T into T.T in accordance with its context of use . In other words , “ how this complex reflexive communicative intention is meant to be recognized by the recipient ” ( Levinson 1983: 17).
II-What is Implicature?
The conversational implicature is an important aspect of the general phenomenon of indirect communication, which falls within the field of pragmatics, defined by Levinson (1983:24) as ‘the study of the ability of language users to pair sentences with the context, in which they would be appropriate’. The major improvement that the field of pragmatics has recently known is that of Grice’s theory of implicature .
In his (1975) article , ‘ Logic and Conversation’ , Grice presents the foundations of a theory of indirect communication and suggests a an inferential strategy for making out conversationally implicated meaning or conversational implicatures . He (1975:44) distinguishes between two kinds of implicatures , namely conventional and conversational implicatures :
A- Conventional implicature is when the conversational meaning of the words is used to determine what is implicated, besides helping to determine what is said. for e.g. (1):
(1)- She is a begger; therefore she is poor.
In this case , one should certainly commit himself , by virtue of the meaning of the words uttered ( i.e. She is a begger; therefore she is poor) to the truth of proposition that his being poor is a consequence of being a beggar.
This kind of implicature demonstrates the ordinary situation where the speaker means what he says no more, no less.
However, the conversational implicature helps to account for other aspects of meaning that can only be accomodated in the field of pragmatics. Implicature is ‘a notion that can explain how a speaker may mean more than what he/ she says’ and ‘Grice’s use of “conversational” is broader than the ordinary sense of this word; it includes all types of social interaction, whether written or spoken” (Aziz 2003: 63).
II-1- Implicature, its principle and maxims:
Implicature is essentially connected with certain general features of discourse notably, the cooperative principle, which interlocutors are expected to observe in order to ‘help the conversation progress and achieve its goals smoothly’ ( Aziz 2003:63). It is formed as follows: ‘make your contribution such as is required , at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged . Grice (1975:45-46) identifies “ four basic maxims of conversation or general principles underlying the efficient cooperative use of language , which jointly express a general cooperative principle.” ( Levinson 1983:101). These maxims are stated as follows :
(i)- The maxim of Quantity:
1- Make your contribution as informative as required.
2-Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
(ii)- The maxim of quality:
1-Do not say what you believe to be false.
2-Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
(iii)-The maxim of Relation:
“ Be relevant”
(iv)-The maxim of manner:
1- Avoid obscurity of expression.
2- Avoid ambiguity.
3- Be brief.
4- Be orderly.
‘ these maxims specify what participants have to do in order to converse in a maximally efficient , rational ,and cooperative way ; they (interlocutors) should speak sincerely , relevantly , and clearly while providing sufficient information’ (Levinson 1983: 102). Speakers do mostly not follow these maxims in most kinds of conversations and the hearers , on their part , ‘ assume that , contrary to appearances , these principles are nevertheless being adhered to at some deeper level’.
II-2- Flouting the maxims:
The conversational maxims can be either observed or flouted by the speaker. According to Grice (1975:49) , ‘ A participant in a talk exchange may fail to fulfill a maxim in various ways’ including:
1- A speaker may quietly and unostentionaly violate a maxim .If so , in some cases , he will be liable to mislead.
2- A speaker may opt out from the operation both of the maxim and of the CP . He may say , indicate , or allow it become clear that he is unwilling to cooperate in the way the maxim requires .He may say for e.g.I cannot say more ; my lips are sealed .
3-A speaker may be faced by a clash , he may be unable to fulfill the first maxim of quantity without violating the maxim of quality . To illustrate this case , let us consider (2):
(2)- A: Have you written the letter and posted it?
B: I have written the letter.
In this exchange , B’s utterance violates the maxim of quantity as he provides less information than is required in order to fulfill the maxim of quality.
4- A speaker may flout a maxim , that is , he may blatantly fail to fulfill it. For instance, if someone says (3):
(3)- The film was very interesting.
while the movie was very dull , boring , and monotonous. Here the flouting of the maxim of quality is clearly illustrated.
In short, the speaker can either observe or flout these maxims . In this way, the meaning that is conveyed by means of observing a maxim differs from the message expressed as a result of flouting it. Therefore, implicature is the result of violating a maxim or maxims and the speaker expects the audience to work out what he has meant because he assumes that he and the audience are observing the cooperative principle or CP.
So , the concept of “implicature” seems to offer some significant functional – pragmatic – explanations of linguistic facts . Moreover , it provides some explicit account of how it is possible to mean more than what is said .
To make this clear, let us consider this example (4):
(4)- A: I feel hungry!
B: the kitchen is over there.
In this conversation, B says ‘ the kitchen is over there , but in fact means more than that i.e. if you (A) want to eat go to the kitchen and prepare foryou something to eat.
III-The context in translation:
The context constitutes a major element in the pragmatic analysis of any utterance bearing a pragmatic meaning, namely the conversationally implicated utterances, whose understanding by the hearer relies entirely on the context, in which the utterance is used, in order to work the meaning out. Consider (5) :
(5)- John is back.
This sentence may pragmatically express threatening , warning , or just informing ... In that, the context controls the meaning that we derive from an utterance.
Similarly, conversations are also bound to the context of use , in which they take place. For example (6):
(6)-(A): I will not be able to come to the party tomorrow.
(B): It’s o.k.
B’s answer is uclear unless we connect it to the context , which depends heavily on whether A’s refusal to B’s offer ( i.e. the coming to the party) was appropriate to the situation or not. Thus , B’s answer ( it’s o.k.) may express either his understanding of A’s circumstances or it is an ironical way to urge A to think again .
Types of context are several ; they are identified as follows :
- Context of reference: It is what an utterance refers to in the outside world.
- Context of utterance : It is related to the whole atmosphere in which an uttrerance takes place i.e. the speaker , hearer , time , place , positions of both speaker and hearer , mood of the utterance ...
- Context of culture: It is related to the ways of thinking and behaving within a particular language community. Therefore, language in general,or any message meant to be conveyed appropriately in a language should be linked to the culture they belong to .
Since the defining function of translation is ‘ rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text’ ( Newmark 1988:5)and as long as the shift in language necessarily requires a shift in culture , then every process of translation entails a change in terms of culture .
The difference between what a speaker says and what he means eludes us to make a distinction between the nature of a sentence and that of an utterance. ‘A sentence is an abstract theoretical entity defined within a theory of grammar’ . It is in other words a unit of grammatical analysis . Meanwhile, an utterance is the actual use of a given sentence in a given situation or an actual context.
The following sentence : “there is a table missing here!” is an abstract linguistic form that has grammatical elements ( verb , subject , adverbial, ...etc.) which have paradigmatic and syntagmatic functions. However , if we put this sentence into a context like the following : the manager of a restaurant enters at the main hall and finds out that one of the tables is missing . He utters ‘ there is a table missing here !’ the meaning or meanings that we might infer from this utterance may be as follows:
- the utterance constitutes a mere statement .
- the speaker by virtue of this utterance implicitly condemns his assistants of being responsible of this loss.
- he warns them to be more vigilant and cautious ..
- etc ...
Similarly, the distinction between what the speaker says and what he means in a conversationally implicated utterances is a relation of abstract to concrete.
IV-The sentence meaning vs the utterance meaning in translation :
The ability of the hearer to decode the speaker’s utterance and to infer its meaning though the utterance may seem odd, unclear, implicit, or inappropriate to the situation, is due both to their observation of the cooperative principle and perhaps to their sharing of the same language and culture.
In the process of translating a text, translators try hard to bridge the gap between the culture of the source text (i.e. the source culture) and the culture to which they translate, by using different methods depending on the type of context, and of the utterance itself. Thus , the translator may change the structure , make things clearer , or add some elements to make the utterance more explicit...etc. The following data will illustrate several aspects of implicature as a linguistic phenomenon specific to the conversational style.
(1)- فلما حاذته خاطبها بصوت منخفض قائلا:
من يتحمل مرارة الصبر يبلغ...
When she approached him he spoke quietly:
‘He, who endures the bitterness of waiting, attains …’
Here, we notice that both contexts do resemble and that there was no shift in context and that the implicature is explicitly accounted for in both languages. Thus, the speaker, by virtue of the process of implicature, was able to mean more than what he says by flouting the maxim of quantity in يبلغ... in Arabic, attains…in English and observe the maxim of quality. In other words, though the speaker left this utterance incomplete; the hearer was able to understand the implied meaning on the basis of the cooperative principle.
(2)- مالك جلست هكذا؟
أنا ضيف يا معلمة, و الضيف لا يهان.
Why do you sit there?
I’m your guest and a guest ought not to be insulted.
By virtue of the cooperative principle, the Arabic text is intended to hide some important elements such as reference. In the above example, we have two types of reference: The first is the place reference ‘sit there’ and the second is the indefinite pronoun in the Arabic text ‘أنا ضيف’, which does not express clearly to whom belong this guest, and which is turned into a possessive pronoun ‘your’ . The English text makes things clearer. In other words, the scope of difference in the source text between what is said and what is meant was bridged in the translated text. The next example also illustrates the gap between the said and the meant:
(3)- هذا شيء لا تفهمه, و ما أجدر بك أن تموت حسرة على لكمة ممايصيبه.
لعل الضرب شرف لا أدركه.
-That’s something you can’t understand you’ll die longing for the blow that fall on him.
- Probably a beating from you is too good for me.
The same thing happens here, the gap between the said and the meant in the Arabic text is wider than in the English text; the prepositional phrase ‘from you’ makes the reference even more explicit.
However, we may have sometimes translation of conversational passages without requiring a shift in the context and the meaning of the utterance remains unchanged. The following two examples illustrate a case of implicature, where in both languages the effect and the intended meaning remain the same:
(4)-قال كبيرهم :
- كيف تخاطبنا هكذا و نحن أبناؤك البررة؟
فقال السيد ساخرا:
- بل أبناء أمكم.
His elder son asked:
‘How can you speak to us like this? We are your devoted sons’
‘From now on you’re your mother’s sons!’
Besides involving a case of explicitness i.e. the introduction of a time reference ‘from now on’ to the translated text, we have a clear case of implicature: It is obvious that the sons and the mother have genetic relationship; that is to say, they are her sons and she is their mother. However, and by virtue of the cooperative principle, the hearer would infer the intended meaning, which is in this context an ironical way to say that his (the speaker’s) sons care only about their mother and that he withdrew from their parenthood.
(5)-فقالت أم حميدة و هي تهز رأسها و ترعش حاجبها:
السيد سليم علوان على سن و رمح !
فشدت قبضتها على المشط حتى كادت تنفذ أسنانه في راحتها و هتفت :
- سليم علوان صاحب الوكالة ؟
Shaking her head and making her eyebrow dance, the match-maker replied:
- Mr salim alwan, in all his majesty !
- Hamida gripped her comb so tightly that its teeth almost broke in her hand. She shouted:
- Salim alwan the owner of the company?
In the above conversation, the fact of repeating the statement salim alwan (the owner of the company) is not a mere redundancy besides, there is no other character in the story having the same name. It is rather a way to emphasize or highlight the speaker’s astonishment when she heard the news.
IV-1-When a figure of speech is involved!:
(6)-و صفق طالبا كاسا ثالثا ثم قال باشفاق:
و الا دهى من ذلك أن زوجي قد تقيأت في الأسبوع الماضي..
فقال عباس متظاهرا بالاهتمام :
لا بأس عليها
He clapped and ordered a third glass and continued :
‘Worst of all, mu wife vomited last week..’
Pretending concern at the news, abbas said:
‘Oh , that’s nothing to worry about, I hope .’
In this passage, we notice that there are a variety of processes that are used . First of all, the intended meaning of تقيأت في الأسبوع الماضي
is not that the speaker’s wife was ordinarily sick but that of being pregnant. In the translated text, the task of inferring what is really meant by the speaker is reserved to the audience –always- according to the cooperative principle.Second, the translated text shows clearly that the utterance ‘لا بأس عليها’ represent in the Arabic context a wish or a hope. For this reason, the translator added ‘I hope’to make the meaning even explicit to the audience.
It is worth pointing out that “Implicature” is a very crucial linguistic device of conveying indirectly communicated meanings. And like implicature, figures of speech such as metaphor and irony entail as well the flouting of one of the conversational maxims. The following examples will illustrate a case of metaphor, irony and another type of metaphorical utterances:
(7)-أدركت المعلمة أنه يلمح الى زوجها فاربد وجهها و قالت بلهجة تنم عن الوعيد:
-ماذا تعني يا أخا الديدان؟
فقال الرجل و لم تكن تعوزه الجرأة:
- أخونا الفاضل جعدة.
Husniya realised that he was referring to her husband and her face pales as she asked menacingly:
‘just what do you mean by that, you snake ?
‘ our charming friend Jaada’ ansewered Zaita, his courage caused him some surprise.
In the above conversation, the utterance “أخا الديدان” or “the brother of worms” explicitly contravenes or more specifically flout the maxim of quality ( i.e. do ot say what you believe to be false) . We know from the situation and the context that the speaker refers to the hearer , who is a human being , not an animal nor an insect.Thus, the speaker metaphorically means by the utterance that the hearer is a filthy, villainous, abject,scorned...person because of his behaviour and way of living . One thing to be noticed here is that the translation of this metaphor was not a very faithful to the source text; however the translationremains very significant and relevant to the situation in which the utterance takes place.
Using the same passage (7), one can take notice of another figurative process implied through observing the utterance meaning of ‘أخونا الفاضل جعدة’, which if put in its context of use will clearly illustrate a case of irony, where this utterance means totally the opposite i.e. that he is a unpleasant, foul, detestable person. In the same way, the shift in language and thus in culture made things change; however, the sense of irony is reserved.
A conventional metaphor as being another recognized kind of metaphor “is one which forms a part of our everyday understanding of experience, and is processed without effort”.(crystal 1992:249).It is accounted for in the following examples:
(8)-أجل الحلو خطيبك ؟!
كلا لم تنس و لكن سيان التذكر و النسيان ترى هل تعترض أمها حقا و حدجتها بنظرة نافذة , فأيقنت أنها كاذبة في انتقاذها و هزت منكبيها استهانة و قالت باستخفاف و احتقار:
- ذبحة.
“Yes the barber, have you forgotten that he‘s your fiancee?”
No she had not forgotten, but in this case, to forget and to remember are the same.Was her mother going to stand in her way? The girl peered closely at her and saw that her criticism was a mere sham. She shook her shoulders indifferently:
- “He must go”.
(9)- فقال بجرأة عجيبة:
أريدك أنت و لا شيء غيرك....
- ذبحة.
With an extraordinary audacity, he answered:
“ I want you, nothing but you”. This direction almost made her stumble:
“ I wish you were dead”. She blured out.
The utterance ‘ذبحة literally translated into the English text as slaughter(ing), slaying or murdering is an illustration of conventional metaphors that are used in a language as an instinctive reaction to something we hate, dislike, or abhorr . What is interesting to notice is that the same utterance is translated in two different ways according to two distinct contexts.:in (8) and (9)the Arabic version uses only the noun phrase “ذبحة” but in the English text, it is rendered into a full sentence with a modal of obligation “must” in (8) and by a sentence expressing a wish in (9).Most of the time, the English texts make things even clearer to the audience than the Arabic text does.
In fact, translation of metaphors and other figures of speech is a very problematic issue, especially within a conversational style.That is to say, metaphors used in an unmarked manner can be more or less dealt with explicitly according to their scope of use. However, when the metaphorical expressions are inserted in a conversational framework, their meaning may vary depending on the purpose of their use. Let alone the relationship of the speaker and the hearer (audience), the mood of the conversation, and the general context...
CONCLUSION
The Gricean implicature based on the cooperative principle and the conversational maxims constitute a very important element in Pragmatics. This notion helps us account for certain aspects of meaning that neither Semantics nor Syntax succeeded in doing it. Implicature is a special kind of pragmatic inference. Its main function is to explain how it is possible for a speaker to mean more than what he says on the basis of the cooperative principle and the four maxims : quantity, quality; relation and manner. These maxims may either be observed or flouted by the speaker, causing a shift in meaning. These conversational maxims and obviously the CP regulates the human speech in all language communities
We’ve seen through this research that the translations of conversational passages requires a shift in language, in culture and therefore, in context. This may entail also a shift at the level of maxims handling.
Thus, we can say that pragmatics and notably the notion of implicature constitute the corner stone of translation processes and of speech in general.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Crystal, David.(1992).An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Language and Languages. Oxford: Blackwell.
Grice, H.P.(1975). “Logic and Conversation”.In Syntax and Semantics3: Speech acts.(1975:41-58).New York: Academic press.
Levinson,Stephen.(1983).Pragmatics: A reader .Cambridge : cambridge University Press.
Mahfouz,Naguib.(1947).Zuqaq Al Midaq.Cairo:Maktabat Misra.Trnsl by Le Gassic,Trevor.(1975).Midaq Alley.Cairo:American University Press.
Newmark,Peter.(1988). A Textbook of Translation.London:Prentice Hall.
Yowell,Y.Aziz.(2003). “Pragmatics And Translation:The Role of Conversational Implicature in Translation”. In Turjuman. (2003,12(2), p.63-82).Tangier:Ecole Supérieure Roi Fahd de Traduction.