A Speech Act Approach to Translation of English Politeness Formulas into Arabic

Abstract

This paper tackles the difficulties faced by translators while trying to communicate the pragmatic aspects of speech acts containing politeness strategies. Also, it gives a brief account of the speech act theory introduced by Austin (1962) and developed by Searle (1979). The study further presents the cross-cultural concept of politeness; the basic facts about the politeness theory and the relationship between politeness and translation. Twelve selected texts were translated by four subject translators. Their performances were analyzed and discussed depending on the politeness strategies of Searle model of speech acts (1979) and Brown and Levinson (1987). This study aims at drawing attention to the pragmatic dimensions in the translation of politeness formulas. The scope of study is limited to the politeness strategies in the social English interactions and translations of these speech acts into Arabic. The research mainly concludes that translators do care about conveying the pragmatic aspects in translating the politeness formulas into Arabic.