Polysemy of English “But” and Challenges in its Translation into Kurdish
This study demonstrates an innovative method/ practice of utilizing translation to study the linguistic phenomena, connectives (cf. Moeschler, 1989; Degand, 2009;). Based on the Relevance Theoretic Framework and polysemy approach, this paper consolidates research that examines the polysemy of English but (cf. Wilson and Sperber, 2004; Fischer, 2006) and rejects the ambiguity account by Anscombre, and Ducrot (1977) and Hall (2004), and also establishes a paradigm of correspondences for but in Kurdish. Data for this study consists of 50 opinion articles from English and Kurdish online newspapers. All the occurrences of but and its equivalents in Kurdish are examined and translated, in order to build the paradigm of correspondences. The study suggests that there are four different interpretations of a general procedure encoded by but, namely; contrary to expectations, contrast, correction and dismissal, and that these procedural meanings are translated into Kurdish as: keҫi, bełam, be pêçewanewe and bełkû respectively.
