Dr. Chahra Beloufa
University of Djilali Liabes, Algeria
The frequency of ‘thanks’ is immense in Shakespeare’s dramatic texts. The significance of the formulaic expression ‘thanks’ differs from one context to another and can be interpreted differently according to the circumstances in which it has been pronounced. Shakespeare makes his characters play with ‘thanks’ either to rebuke, refuse or ironically to mock their interlocutors. ‘Thanks’ is sometimes a strong manipulator of speech; it is verbally given and then returned back as if the two characters are involved in a game, a verbal contest where we would have the impression that both are playing chess. This sort of repetition dramatizes the repeated word and leads to poetic and comic effects on the stage. The multiplicity of its forms and its strategies makes of verbal thanking a speech act serving a range of purposes. Aijmer (1996) identified a variety of functions including sarcasm, irony, closing a conversation or accepting an offer. In this paper, I am going to study the use of ‘thanks’ in adaptations of Much Ado About Nothing (RSC, 2011), Romeo and Juliet, and The Comedy of Errors, exploring the notion of verbal game on stage and screen and how Shakespeare makes of ‘thanks’ a ball in the theatre field. To attain this objective, one would concentrate on the theory of repetition and the notion of verbal duplication. I would show how the play with the sound effects of the word ‘thanks’ makes the audience concentrate on the acoustic attention on certain senses. Finally, I would conclude by exposing that playing with ‘thanks’ can appease the tone of the dramatic scene and render it primarily comic.
The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The Fourth Annual International Conference on Languages, Linguistics, Translation and Literature (WWW.TLLL.IR), 1-2 February 2020, Ahwaz.
