The Translation of English Comment Clauses in Shakespeare's Othello into Arabic

Abstract

Comment clauses (or parentheticals)  are a type of clauses which  are syntactically disconnected from the clause to which they are attached and which are syntactically incomplete (lack complementation).They show a reflection of the main clause,commentary or assessment on the main clause and  hence  show more  spatial flexibility, lower tone, and semantic independence .

The present study  focuses on comment clauses as pragmatic markers and the implicit meaning carried by these clauses .The problem is that  most translators overlook this type of clauses because  of their unawareness of the implied meaning carried by such clauses,especially when they translate them.It is hypothesized that the interpretation of comment clauses is situational.To prove this hypothesis, ten texts have been arbitrarily  selected  from Shakespeare's Othello translated into Arabic by  four well- known translators, namely: Jabra Ibrahim Jabra  Muhammed Mustafa Badawi, Ghazi Gamal  and Khalil Mutran. The study concludes  that the  interpretation of comment clauses depends largely on the  situation in which they are used.The study also  discloses that the failure in translating such clauses is due to the  unawareness of the implicit meaning that the comment clauses carry (whether in spoken or written). Finally,the study recommends that translators should carefully deal with comment clauses wherever they come across them,for such a type of clauses could form a slippery area.