The functions, convergences, and divergences of Italian allora and French alors are analyzed in two Italian texts (the Novellino, in Old Italian, and Paso Doble, in Modern Italian) and their French translations. The discourse marker is used differently in the two languages, and the contrastive analysis allows us to better assess those differences, by explicitly quantifying the degree of correspondence, omissions, and non-literal translations. Furthermore, our work confirms the existence of functions which may be identified as more central or more peripheral within a certain configuration, and emphasizes the existence of cross-language preferences for a more/less rich * Our thanks to Jonathan Hunt and to two anonymous referees for discussing a previous version.Though this paper is the product of collaborative research, § 1 is attributable to Carla Bazzanella, § 2.1 to Johanna Miecznikowski, § 2.2.1 to Cristina Bosco, § 2.2.2 to Alessandro Garcea, § 2.3 to Francesca Tini Brunozzi, and § 3 to Barbara Gili Fivela. set of forms for expressing a particular function. The polyfunctionality and context-boundness which characterize discourse markers in general are held responsible for differences in translation, thus motivating the several shades of meaning which distinguish Italian allora (with regard both to Old and Modern Italian) from French alors.Key words: discourse markers, translation, polyfunctionality, context, allora, alors, Italian, French. Translating discourse markersWithin the theoretical framework outlined in Bazzanella (1995Bazzanella ( , 2006a, and on the basis of existing empirical studies of Italian allora and French alors (cf. section 2), we will approach allora/alors analyzing the functions, convergences, and divergences of the two cognates in two Italian texts (the Novellino, in Old Italian, and Paso Doble, in Modern Italian) and their French translations. We will not be dealing here with the general topic of translation, but only with some specific points related to the translation of discourse markers (DMs), a functional category (cf., inter alia, van Dijk 1979, Schiffrin 1987, Hansen 1998, Jucker and Ziv 1998, Pons Bordería 1998, Martín Zorraquino and Portolés 1999, Fischer 2000, Aijmer and Simon-Vandenbergen 2006. DMs, no more considered as a peripheral phenomenon, have increasingly been studied in recent years, and have contributed to the change of grammar paradigms towards pragmatics and interactional linguistics.Four features of DMs are generally agreed upon by scholars, though an unified treatment is still lacking. Let us start with the first two features: -their polyfunctionality, i.e. the fact that they operate on several levels simultaneously, 1 and -their relatedeness to the speech situation and not to the situation talked about, which corresponds to an extreme sensitiveness to the variation of both context and cotext.The close context-boundness and the polyfunctionality of DMs constitute, of course, a crucial problem for translation. Though the indeterminacy of translation 10...

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This special issue aims to explore the semantic and pragmatic dimensions of meaning in terms of their significance and relevance in the study of argumentation. Accordingly, the contributors to the project, who have all presented their work during the 2nd Argumentation and Language conference, which took place in Lugano in February 2018,1 have been specifically instructed to produce papers which explicitly tackle the importance of the study of meaning for that of argumentative practices. All papers therefore cover at least one aspect of this complex relationship between argumentation and meaning, which contributes to delivering a state-of-the-art panorama on the issue. Drawing from computational linguistics, semantics, pragmatics and discourse analysis, the contributions to this special issue will illuminate how the study of meaning in its different forms may provide valuable insights for the study of people’s argumentative practices in different contexts, ranging from the political to the private sphere. This introductory discussion tackles specific aspects of the intricate relationship between pragmatic inference and argumentative inference – that is, between meaning and argumentation –, provides a brief survey of existing interfaces between the study of meaning and that of argumentation, and concludes with a presentation of the contributions to this special issue.

L’expansion des réseaux internationaux dans le monde professionnel en général et académique en particulier rend indispensable une collaboration plurilingue et pose le problème de savoir comment les participants gèrent pratiquement ce plurilinguisme. Un des moyens mis en œuvre est la traduction orale informelle. Une analyse conversationnelle des séquences de traduction fans lesquelles des chercheurs s’engagent ponctuellement lors de réunions de travail montre que la traduction est utilisée par les participants comme une ressource interactive non seulement pour assurer l’intercompréhension, mais aussi pour mettre en relief des éléments et pour affirmer des positions argumentatives. Loin d’être une pure transposition d’une langue à l’autre, elle a des effets configurants sur les contenus élaborés. Elle permet en outre de décrire une forme d’exploitation située des ressources linguistiques une activité sociale particulière.

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