IPEDR vol.

26: 376- 383, 2011 ISSN 2010-4626 (2011) IACSIT Press

The Qurn Translators Explicitation Procedures in Translating Implicature in the Chapter Yusuf
Ebrahim Davoudi Sharifabad1, Abdul Amir Hazbavi Department of English Language Translation & Teaching, Bandar Abbas Branch , Islamic Azad University, Bandar Abbas, Iran
Abstract This paper studies the translation strategies regarding translating Implicature in the story of Prophet Joseph in the Holy Qurn. To do so, the author compared and contrasted the conversational implicatures in this story and three English translations of the Holy Qurn. First, the conversational implicatures and their related conversational maxims, i.e. quality, quantity, relation, manner were analyzed and explained in the target verses. Secondly, the mechanisms and strategies of translating the related maxims and CIs in the analyzed verses were investigated. In some verses, some of the translators could explicate the CIs and related maxims, while in some others some translators could not translate the CIs well. The English translators, in rendering the intended verses, used four kinds of translation strategies: the use of footnote, use of parenthesis, use of brackets, and no translation strategy use. Key words: conversational implicature, conversational maxims, the Holy Qurn, translation strategies.

1. Introduction
Translating different texts with various genres has got its own importance in that field, but translating holy texts is considered as a more sensitive and prominent one for such texts get something to do with ideologies and beliefs. Hence, due to the sensitivity and significance of sacred texts, translating them must be done with care and caution. As the translator of religious texts, namely divine books, the translator who takes this burden and commences translating such texts must be fully aware of the specifications and issues related to such kind of translations. Definitely, linguistic knowledge and mastery over the target and source texts and having an acceptable command of translation theories and translation knowledge is crucial. It is believed that translation consists of two processes; reading in the SL and writing in the TL. Any kind of problem in the reading and witting processes leads to mistranslation. Those who have problem in the first process, cannot get the message across, and those who have problems in the second phase, do not mind the differences between languages and linguistic functions. Considering the aforementioned issues, there may be some reasons leading to mistranslation of the Qurn. The first reason is the sacredness of the language of revelation, which prevents the translator to render the structure and message, as s/he deems appropriate in the context of target language text (TLT). Secondly, in some cases source language (SL) and target language (TL) share the same syntactic structures with different functions. Mistranslation arises where these differences are not considered.

2. Statement of the problem

A large proportion of the Qurn consists of implied meanings and implicatures; namely, those chapters narrating conversations, e.g. the Qurnic stories. This study attempts to study conversational maxims and implicatures used in the Qurnic story of Prophet Joseph -in Arabic Yusuf- and the English translators strategies to explicate the implicatures in this Qurnic story. The selected story is of a great Prophet, Joseph, whose story is narrated completely in one chapter i.e. the twelfth chapter of the Qurn. This chapter is entirely devoted to Prophet Joseph. Therefore, the question to be answered here is that how
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. Corresponding author: Tel: +60124426104, E-mail: davoudiebrahim@gmail.com 376

implicature in a conversational interaction is made and what are the translators strategies in explicating such implied meanings. The theory applied to this paper is the Gricean Theory of the Cooperative Principle. According to Grice as cited in Crystal [1], the cooperative principle states that in a conversation, the speakers try to contribute appropriately. If the conversational maxims are observed, the cooperative principle is observed too, and if not, the cooperative principle is flouted, then Implicature is made.

2. 1 Conversational Implicature:
Modern discourse analysis was first initiated by Grice [2], who coined the term Conversational Implicature in his seminal paper Logic and Conversation. In the mentioned seminal paper, Grice [3] explained Conversational Implicature only in one paragraph. Potts [4] quotes the exact passage by Grice in full as: In some case, the conversational meanings of the words used will determine what is implicated, besides helping to determine what is said. If I say (smugly), He is an Englishman; he is therefore, brave, I have certainly committed myself, by virtue of the meaning of my words, to its being the case that his being brave in consequence of (follows from) his being an Englishman. But while I have said that he is brave, I do not want to say that I have said (in the favored sense) that it follows from his being an Englishman that he is brave, though I have certainly indicated, and so implicated, that this is so. I do not want to say that my utterance of this sentence would be, strictly speaking, false should the sequence in question fails to hold. So some implicatures are conversational, unlike the one with which I introduced this discussion of implicature (pp.1-2). According to Grice [5], as cited in Crystal [6], implicature is a linguistic concept which is about how people use language. Grice [7], maintained that a conversational implicature uses the cooperative principle, which controls the "efficiency of conversations. The cooperative principle includes four maxims of: Quantity: 1) Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of exchange). 2) Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. Quality: 1) Do not say what you believe to be false. 2) Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. Relation: Be relevant. Manner: 1) 2) 3) 4) Avoid obscurity of expression. Avoid ambiguity. Be brief (Avoid unnecessary prolixity). Be orderly. (Grice [8])

The coinage of the term implicature is for explaining how we can identify the illocutionary force of an utterance that lacks an explicit indicator of its illocutionary intention, Abrams, [9]. The example that Abrams made to clarify the point is the following sentence, Can you pass the salt? According to Abrams, grammatically speaking, although this example is in the form of a question, it is used by the speaker, and rightly understood by the hearer as the polite form of a request. Abrams [10] commented: Grice proposed that users of a language share a set of implicit expectations which he calls the communicative presumption- for example, that an utterance is intended by a speaker to be true, clear and above all relevant- and that exegesis vary in accordance with the ways that utterances accord with, or seem intentionally to violate, the expectations set up by this shared presumption. Other language theorists have greatly expanded the analysis of the collective assumptions that help
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to make utterances meaningful and intelligible, and serve to make a sustained discourse a coherent development of significations instead of a mere collocation of independent sentences. (p.233). Hatim and Mason [11] also believe that implicature is the root of the "communicative effect of the utterance. So, the communicative effect of the utterance also stems from the implicature yielded by defying the norm of uniformity and in the process flouting one of the maxims of cooperative linguistic behavior, namely the manner (p.119). They maintained, flouting any of the cooperative maxims is bound to yield an implicature (p. 140).

2.1.1 Cooperative Principle (CP)

According to Yule [12], the Cooperative Principle states that in conversation each participant tries to contribute appropriately, at the required time, to the existing talk exchange. To elaborate on the issue, Yule makes an example: Consider the following scenario. There is a woman sitting on a park bench and a large dog lying in front of the bench. A man comes along and sits down on the bench. Man: Does your dog bite? Women: No. (The man reaches down to pet the dog. The dog bites the mans hand.) Man: Ouch! Hey! You said your dog doesnt bite. Woman: He doesnt. But thats not my dog. (p.36) One of the problems in this scenario has to do with communication. It seems that the problem in this conversation is caused by the mans assumption that more was communicated than was said. The problem is the mans assumption that his question Does your dog bite? and the womans answer No both apply to the dog in front of them. From the mans perspective, the womans answer provides less information than expected (p.36). However, the idea that the conversation proceeds based on a comprehensive principle was the principle of cooperative maxims by Grice [13] . According to this principle, in a conversation the speakers obey the four maxims, i.e. the maxims of quantity, quality, relevance and manner. Based on this assumption which is merged with the general knowledge of the world, the receiver can get the meaning of the conversation from the "literal, semantic meaning" of what is said to the "pragmatic meaning. Then s/he interprets the sender's message with his or her own words. In a conversation, the environmental situations or the context and pretext of the conversation determine the sender's and receiver's reactions [14]. Participants in conversations assume that their audience to whom they are talking to is subconsciously following the above-mentioned maxims and cooperate with each other in the course of conversation to try to make sense of what is being said [15].

2.1.2 Observing the Maxims

Shahsavandi [16] explained observing the maxims as, "these maxims along with the cooperative principle, are held to be always at work and specify what participants have to do in order to communicate in an efficient and cooperative way based on such written conventions of language use" (p.59). She further stated: In the following exchange: A. (to a passerby) Ive just run out of petrol. B. Oh, theres a garage just round the corner. By observing the maxims in a direct way, the speaker implicates where A may obtain petrol, and A, based on the assumption that the speaker is following the maxims, would come at some straightforward inferences that the garage not only is round the corner, but also will be open and selling petrol (p.59).
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2.1.3 Flouting the Maxims:

In speech, if a person does not observe any of the mentioned maxims, s/he has flouted them, and it is in contradiction with Grice's cooperative maxims. In this situation, it can be said that a kind of malfunctioning has occurred in the language performance. Most of the time, flouting these maxims is occurred intentionally. For instance, in occasions that a person is going to play a joke with someone else, s/he may flout one of the maxims mentioned which, otherwise, should be observed in a normal situation. Sometimes the deliberate violation of a maxim in a speech is the result of the interaction between the sender and receiver, and in fact, "the receiver does perceive" this process or interaction. If the sender does not mean to flout the principle to be perceived as such, or if the receiver does not understand that, they are deliberate, then communication degrades into lying, "obfuscation, or simply "breaks down altogether. To make a humorous effect, the speakers may flout cooperative maxims (Munday. [17]; Cook, [18]). Cook makes an example of flouting the maxim of quality without lying. "I've got millions of bear bottles in my cellar, or my car breaks down every five minutes" (p.31). The deliberate flouting of meaning here implies that a figure of speech such as hyperbole is used in the conversation. In other examples, Cook is to show metaphor and Irony and sarcasm; metaphor: ("Queen Victoria was made of iron"), Irony and sarcasm: ("I love it when you sing out of key all the time"). The example of Irony and sarcasm depends on the assumption that they will be interpreted as deliberate flouting of the charge "to be true" rather than as untruths intended to deceive. In all the mentioned examples, the importance of the "sender's correct estimation of the receiver's state of knowledge" is clear. These figures of speech, hyperbole, metaphor, irony, sarcasm, depend upon the sender's knowledge that average house cellars will not hold millions of bottles, women are not made of iron, and so on. Since implicature in the Qurn mainly concerns with indirect meaning, it has a great influence on the way we interpret the divine message, so in this process, translation of the implied meanings plays a very important role. 2.2 Explicitation Procedures: Explicitation has been defined variously by different scholars who mainly maintain that explicitation refers to a concept that something is added, in meaning, which is called clarification, or in form that is called expansion, Yazdani, [19]. Explicitation is discussed in Yazdani [20], as a 'translation technique involving shift from the source text (ST) concerning structure or content'. 2.2.1 Addition, Explicitation, and Expansion Nida [21], mentions the terms addition, subtraction and alternation as different process of adjustment in translation. He categorizes nine kinds of addition including 'filling out ellipted expressions, additions required by grammatical restructuring, and connectives. He argues: The purpose of different techniques of adjustment among which is addition, consists of four elements as: a. adjusting the TT form to the structural requirements of TL b. creating semantic equivalence c. aiming at equivalence in stylistic appropriateness and d. transmitting the communicative load equivalently (p.45) There are many approaches to define explicitation. In the following section, the concept of explicitation will be discussed through different points of views, but what is common among them is that translator adds some information to the text whether in meaning or from. Vinay and Darbelnet [22] introduced the concept of explicitation for the first time. In their glossary of translation techniques, explicitation is defined as the process of introducing information into the target language which is presented only implicitly in the source language, but which can be derived from the context or the situation. The concepts of explicitation and implicitation have further been developed by Nida [23], who, however doesnt actually use the terms ' explicitation ' and ' implicitation '. Nida deals with the main techniques of adjustment used in the process of translating; namely, additions, subtractions and alterations.
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He believes that amplification from implicit to explicit status takes place when ' important semantic elements are carried implicitly in the receptor language'. Klaudy (cited in Baker, [24]) believes that "explicitation hypothesis formulated by Blum-Kulka was the first systematic study of explicitation". Blum- Kulka (cited in Baker, [25]) examines professional and non-professional translations from English into French and vice versa. She notes that shifts occur in the types of cohesive devices used in the target text and records instances where the translator expanded the target text by inserting additional words. She found that both phenomena have the effect of raising the target text's level of explicitness compared to the corresponding source text. She argues that these translational features may not be language pair specific; but may rather result from the process of interpretation of source text. On the basis of her own study and research into the inter-language of learners of English, she introduces explicitation hypothesis which says that " the rise in the level of explicitness observed in translated texts and in the work of second language learners may be a universal strategy inherent in any process of language meditation ", cited in Baker, [26]. Since explicitation refers to any kinds of adjustment strategy a translator may apply to the translated text to disambiguate the implicit meaning, there may be different kinds of explicitation such as addition, omission, expansion and so on. The type of explicitation, as the observed data of the study show, if used by translators, is just addition. Therefore, the researcher has just focused on this type of explicitation.

3. Methodology
The method followed in this study is descriptive and the researcher, after finding and analyzing the instances of implicature, examines the English translations of the related verses of the maxims of implicature. Through a descriptive method, the researcher attempts to describe and interpret the status of phenomena. Thus, this research is a comparative study of implicatures in Arabic and its English translations.

3.1 Materials
Since the present thesis intends to apply a contrastive analysis to the Qurn and its English translations, it seems sensible that there should be enough variety and quantity concerning the materials. As for quantity, four English translations of the Qurn were selected each containing their own characteristics. These translations are various and different from each other in style. The following English translations of the Qurn were implemented to the study: The English translation of the Qurn with detailed commentary by S.V. Mir Ahmed Ali [27] The English translation of the Qurn by T.B. Irving (American English) [28] The English translation of the Qurn by Al-Hilali & Muhsen Khan [29]

3.2 Procedure
In the present study, the verses of the Qurn including implicature and their English translations, in the story of Prophet Joseph are compared and contrasted. The procedure is that, first, the Arabic verse, which contains implicature, is mentioned. Then the English translations are presented and analyzed. To investigate the mechanisms and strategies existing in the English translations of the story of Prophet Joseph in the Qurn regarding implicatures and their realizations, the researcher utilized a contrastive analysis of two languages. To have a right examination of the mentioned translations, the researcher found and analyzed the implicature and its related maxims, then he focused on the methods and strategies of the made translations.

4. Data Analysis
Here, the sample verses, which contain any of the discussed maxims, are analyzed. The underlined sentences or phrases in each example are the verses containing implicature. In the analysis part, the total frequency of the used maxims and translators strategies are focused.

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4.1 Maxim of Quality:

)12:11-12( * Mir Ahmed Ali: Said2they3: "O' Our father! What cause is with thee that thou dost not trust us with regard to Joseph? Verily we are his well-wishers" * Send him with us tomorrow that he may 4enjoy himself and play, and verily we for him shall be the guards. Irving: They said:" Our father, what's wrong with you that you do not trust us with Joseph? We are quite sincere about him * Send him along with us tomorrow to relax and play. We'll look after him." Al-Hilali & Muhsin Khan: They said: "O our father! Why do you not trust us with Yusuf (Joseph), - when we are indeed his wellwishers?" * "Send him with us tomorrow to enjoy himself and play, and verily, we will take care of him." Unlike the other three English translations, Mir Ahmed Ali who made use of an old language style, by giving enough clues and information in the footnote, e.g. (a), translated the CI and the maxim of quality more appropriately and explicitly.

4.2 Maxim of Quantity:

(12:37)

Mir Ahmed Ali: Said he (Joseph): "There shall not come unto you the food which ye are fed with but I inform ye two of its exegesis before it cometh unto ye two; this is of what my Lord hath taught me; Verily I have forsaken the religion of the people who believe not in God, and of the hereafter, they are disbelievers.5 Irving: He said:" Food will not be brought either of you to sustain you, unless I will tell you their exegesis even before it reaches you. That is something my Lord has taught me. I have left the sect of folk who do not believe in God and are disbelievers in the Hereafter. Al-Hilali & Muhsin Khan: He said: "No food will come to you (in wakefulness or in dream) as your provision, but I will inform (in wakefulness) its exegesis before it (the food) comes. This is of that which my Lord has taught me. Verily, I have abandoned the religion of a people that believe not in Allah and are disbelievers in the Hereafter (i.e. the Kananioon of Egypt who were polytheists and used to worship sun and other false deities). In this verse, Prophet Joseph by being more informative than is required, flouts the maxim of quantity and by doing so makes a CI. He first asks the prisoners to be informed of the interpretation of their dreams before eating the food, and before saying anything about the interpretation of their dreams, he emphasizes that what he says to them is from his God. By such a deliberate flouting of the quantity maxim, Joseph is to introduce and propagate his God to them and let them know what a Powerful and Omniscient

2
3

. Mir Ahmed Ali (p.767): The request was with determined plot. . Mir Ahmed Ali (p.767): Brothers of Joseph 4 . Mir Ahmed Ali (p.767): Amuse 5 Mir Ahmed Ali (p.792): Joseph wanted to be quick in interpreting the dreams for the was death for one of them. He first preached Islam, the correct faith in God, so that the man might die with faith in God and then interpreted the dreams. 381

God he has. All English translations have rendered the CI well. It seems that this part of Irving's translation of this verse is vague or maybe incorrect: either of you to sustain you.

4.3 Maxims of Relation and Manner:

(12:77) Mir Ahmed Ali: They said: If he stealth, indeed did 6steal before, 7a brother of his, but Joseph kept it a secret to himself, and disclosed it not unto them; he8 said: "you are in an 9evil condition, and God knoweth best what ye allege. Irving: They said:"If he has been [caught] stealing, then a brother of his stole something previously." Joseph kept his secret to himself and did not reveal it to them. He said:" You are in a worse plight! God is quite Aware of what you describe." Al-Hilali & Muhsin Khan: They ((Yusuf's (Joseph) brothers) said: "If he steals, there was a brother of his (Yusuf (Joseph)) who did steal before (him)." But these things did Yusuf (Joseph) keep in himself, revealing not the secrets to them . He said (within himself): "You are in worst case, and Allah knows best the truth of what you assert "! In this conversation, when there is no name of Joseph and the brothers' audiences know nothing about Joseph's theft, brothers by saying that Benjamin like his own real brother, Joseph, is the thief, deliberately flout the maxim of relation. There seems to be no relation between naming Joseph and Benjamin's stealing the goblet, but the brothers by saying that Benjamin and Joseph are thieves want to isolate themselves from Benjamin and Joseph. They flout this maxim to imply that we are ten real brothers and these two, Benjamin and Joseph, are our stepbrothers. They want to show that unlike Benjamin and Joseph, they are good people. They apparently flout the relation maxim to exonerate themselves. Two of the definitions of the maxim of manner by Grice are that the interlocutors should be brief and orderly. It means that they should avoid unnecessary prolixity. Here, this maxim is flouted by Joseph's brothers. By talking about something extra which the audience has no background about it, Joseph's brothers deliberately flouted the maxim of manner to again exonerate themselves. Regarding the English translations, evidently no translation had done explicitation in the translation of CI in this verse. Even Mir Ahmed Ali who has made a detailed interpretive-like translation has not made any explicitation in this verse and has not translated the CI properly. All the English translators have translated the CI in this verse literally.

5. Conclusion
If the translators of the Holy Qurn, before commencing to translate the Divine Book, study some useful exegeses of the Holy Qurn, they would undoubtedly make more appropriate and natural translations of this Sacred Book. Studying the exegeses of the Holy Qurn causes translators to enjoy a wealthy background of the text type of the Holy Qurn and its related problems. There is some hidden information especially in the CIs of the Holy Qurn for which the translators' knowledge can help them make the implicated meaning explicit, and consequently produce an appropriate translation of the conversational implicatures in the Holy Qurn. In the investigated English translations of this paper, it was concluded that some of the translators have tried, by making use of some translation strategies such as parentheses, brackets or footnotes, to
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Mir Ahmed Ali (p784):Their selling of Joseph to the merchants. Mir Ahmed Ali (p.784):Joseph 8 Mir Ahmed Ali (p.784):Joseph 9 Mir Ahmed Ali (p.784):This remark indicates Joseph's hearted and resentment against falsehood 382

explicate the implicated meaning of the CIs, while some others failed to notice this point and have made literal translations. One of the important factors in translating the CI is shift of addressee. Since in a sequence of some verses, the addressees may shift and a kind of CI is made, the translators may face difficulties in translating the CI for not paying attention to the shift of addressee. The translators' knowledge of the methods and strategies of translation and the ways they are realized in the translation of the Holy Qurn is of significance and help to the translators. Translators' knowledge of linguistics is, largely, helpful for them in making a good translation of the Holy Qurn. The translators' linguistic knowledge of ST and TT affect the quality of translation greatly. The translators of the Holy Qurn should know the language of revelation very well. By studying the exegeses of the Holy Qurn, they would be familiar with the language of revelation.

References
[1] to [8] D. Crystal, An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Language and Languages. Blackwell: Oxford. 1992 [4] C. Potts, Into the Conversational-Implicature Dimension. 2006. Retrieved June 18, 2008, from http://www.philosophy-compass.com. 1-19. [9] H. M. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers. 1993 [11] B. Hatim, B. and I. Mason, The Translator as Communicator. London: Routledge. 1997 [12] G. Yule, (2000). Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press [14] G. Cook, Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1989 [15] J. Munday, Introducing Translation Studies, Theories and applications. London: Routledge. 2011 [16] S. Shahsavandi, Translating the Holy Qur'n: Conversational Implicature. Translation Studies Quarterly0, 2006 4 (13), 55-66. [17] J. Munday, Introducing Translation Studies, Theories and applications. London: Routledge. 2011 [18] G. Cook, Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1989 [19] M. Yazdani, Transmission of Cohesion through Explicitation in Qurnic Translation: a Case Study on Chapter XII: Yusuf. Unpublished masters thesis, Allameh TabatabaI University, Tehran. 2004 [20] M. Yazdani, Transmission of Cohesion through Explicitation in Qurnic Translation: a Case Study on Chapter XII: Yusuf. Unpublished masters thesis, Allameh TabatabaI University, Tehran. 2004 [21] E. A. Nida, Toward a Science of Translating. Leiden:E.J.Brill.1976 [22] J. P. Vinay and J. Darbelnet. (1958). Stylistique compare du francais et de l'anglais: me-thode de traduction. Nouvelle edition revue et corrigee, (1972). Paris: Didier. [23] E. A. Nida, Toward a Science of Translating. Leiden:E.J.Brill.1976 [24] M. Baker, Rutledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. London and New York: Routledge. 2001 [25] M. Baker, Rutledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. London and New York: Routledge. 2001 [26] M. Baker, Rutledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. London and New York: Routledge. 2001 [27] S. V. Mir Ahmed Ali, The Holy Qurn. Karachi: The Sterling Printing & Publishing Company. 1964 [28] T. B. Irving, The Qurn, Tehran: Suhravardi. 1998S [29] T. D. Al-Hilali and M. Muhsen Khan, The Nobel Qurn. Riyadh: Dar-us-Salam Publications. 1995

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