Translating the speech act of Insinuating in Shakespearean Tragedy, Othello

Abstract

The present research intents to study the speech act of insinuating in the Shakespearean tragedy Othello .In the light of pragmatics in general and speech acts theory in particular. Both literary translation and linguistic, represented by speech act theory deal with the performative function of language rather than the communicative role of language. Both of them highlight the implicit meaning of the literary text through tracing the characters motives, emotions, needs, and concerns for mapping the implicit meaning of the text and conveying it into the target language. The Arabic translation of Othello, introduced by the national council for translation, Egypt represents some translation problems of the speech act of insinuating in the Shakespearean tragedy. Thus, the present study aims at highlighting the main principles of speech act theory that can reflect insinuating in Shakespearean Tragedy, Othello. In addition, it connect the main principles of speech act theory to the literary translation through selected texts of the Arabic translation of Othello, translated by Muhamed Mustafa Badawy. The research hypothesizes that :1.speech act theory can be applied to this particular literary genre (tragedy),and 2.the source and target languages might exhibit network of different patterns of the acts. Finally the study ends with some conclusions .