A Critical Evaluation of Widespread Beliefs in Explicitation Studies from the Perspective of Social Cognitive Linguistics: A Step in the Direction of Reconceptualizing Explicitation in Translation

In this research we critically evaluate two fundamental beliefs in explicitation studies. Our point of departure will be social cognitive linguisticss. These beliefs are as follows: 1) Degrees of explicitness are determined on the basis of linguistic forms. 2) Explicitation is by definition specification. Through evaluating the first beliefs, we argue that degrees of explicitness cannot always be attributed to linguistic forms and other variables such as shared encyclopedic knowledge and contexts should be taken into account. Through evaluating the second beliefs we apply secondary analysis to four examples which have been taken form two previous researches, and demonstrate that it is not the process of specification that has caused explicitation in those cases and consequently explicitation cannot be reduced to this one construal operation. So these beliefs not only are unreliable, but also-being widespread- they have almost made it impossible for researchers to search for and sufficiently explain many potential instances of explicitation.  In light of these findings we propose that explicitation researchers should take into account the socio-cognitive motivations for this type of translational shift, and explicitation and explicitation mechanisms should be defined in terms of various conceptualization processes that take place in the process of explicitation.