The use of Translation in Linguistic Studies: The Case of But
This study demonstrates an innovative tool of utilizing translation to study linguistic phenomena; connectives (cf. Moeschler, 1989; Degand, 2009;). Based on the Relevance Theoretic Framework and polysemy approach, this paper not only consolidates 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) but it also establishes a paradigm of correspondences to but in Kurdish. Data for this study has been built from 50 opinion articles from English and Kurdish online newspapers. Then, all the occurrences of but and its equivalents in Kurdish are examined and translated, in order to build the paradigm of correspondences. The study proves 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.
