Strategies and Errors in Interpreting Conversational Implicatures of Political Discourse

Abstract

This study aims to examine Barik's (1971) categorization, as strategies or errors, in the interpretation of implicatures in English>Arabic and Arabic>English political discourses and, further, to find the effect of employing the categorization on the original message's recovery. Qualitative content analysis methodology is used in this study. Occurrences of Barik's (1971) categorization were collected to be examined. The study finds that interpreters' use of Barik's (1971) categorization in implicature interpreting is as errors rather than strategies in English>Arabic interpretation, but as strategies rather than errors in Arabic>English interpretation. The use of errors can be attributed to a lack of source message comprehension. Substitution was the dominant strategy in English>Arabic implicature interpreting; gross phrasing substitutions, which entail differences in meaning, were the dominant type of substitution. Misinterpreting implicature includes a partial or total loss of the source message. However, instances of coining unstated, unintended meanings were detected, which does not only lose the communicative function but also misleads the audience.