Explication Of Implicatures In The Persian Translation Of Barack Obama’s Selected Speeches

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Date
2015-10
Authors
SANATIFAR, MOHAMMAD SALEH
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Abstract
Translating texts / discourses that contain ample implicatures such as political speech is one of the most provoking aspects of translation. The reason is that the translator cannot confidently decide if uncovering implicatures in the translation of such texts / discourses makes it more relevant to the target readers, to follow Gutt, or makes it less relevant by putting an extra burden of mental processing on them, to follow Gutt’s critics. The related literature widely supports the former; however, few empirical studies support it. This thesis is a cognitive step forward in this area. It seeks to examine if ‘explication’ in Persian translation of implicatures intended by Obama in his political speeches would make translation more ‘relevant’ to the Iranians, as the target readers, and reduce their mental processing demand. Furthermore, the thesis seeks to examine how the initial cognitive level of the Iranians affect the degree of relevance and finally what module of translation, non-explicated or explicated, is more acceptable to them. Sperber and Wilson’s (1986) relevance theory, as an ostensive-inferential theory of pragmatics and particularly implicatures, combined with Gutt’s application of relevance theory to translation and van Dijk’s cognitive account of relevance in political discourse form the theoretical and the analytical model of this research. Methodologically, the research is of a causal nature and draws on a quantitative-qualitative design to answer two quantitative and two qualitative research questions. The textual corpus of the study consists of a selection of Barack Obama’s political speeches delivered between the years 2008 to 2013. A number of 373 Iranians, as the target population of the study, are selected and surveyed for their opinions on the ‘degree of explicitness’ before and after the ‘explication’ of implicatures in a questionnaire. Analysis of the data and the findings in the first place affirm the applicability of relevance theory in identification of political implicatures. Second, the findings reveal that ‘explication’, if fulfilled appropriately by political experts, significantly enhances the ‘relevance’ of translation to the target readers. It is further shown that explication is an ‘ongoing’ relevance-enhancing mechanism which stops automatically where the target readers meet the expectation of relevance. Third, the study concludes a normative relationship between ‘explication’ and ‘acceptability’ in translation of political implicatures. Fourth, through a more indepth interview and based on the results, the study extracts nine categories and explains the most possible reasons for the target readers’ reflections in the survey. In this thesis, the crucial role of ‘cognition’ in pragmatic translation is highlighted, and it is revealed that translation is truly a triad cognitive interaction between the communicator, the translator and the receptor.
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Explication Of Implicatures In The Persian Translation , Of Barack Obama’s Selected Speeches
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