Trans Course 22 40

22 - The translation process - part 4
ON THE NET - english

TOROP P.
adequate
translation
tabla lli
21
At the end of the unit twenty-one, we saw the Torop model with eight types of
adequate translations, a model that we provide again here in a lightly different form,
adding the numbers corresponding to the descriptions of every type. Torop has preferred
to use a poetic text for his examples. However, if we keep in mind what we said about
the concept of total translation (see the unit sixteen), it is obvious that, as the
translation model must have a universal character, the use of a poetic text as a sample
should not create an obstacle.
recoding
transposition
analysis
synthesis
analysis
synthesis
dominantcentered
autonomus dominantcentered autonomus dominantcentered autonomus dominantcenter autonomus
TABLA
LLI 21
macro-st precision
mycro-st quotation theme description expression freedom
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
he first division concerns recoding and transposition, which, we want to recall,
distinguishes the transfer of the expression plane (recoding) and the transfer of the
content plane (transposition). In this unit, we will deal with recoding translation, while in
the next one we will examine the four types of transposing translation.
Analysis is the part of the translation process that addresses the original (or prototext),
while synthesis is the projection of the prototext onto the (potential) metatext (or
translated text). If we focus on dominant-oriented analytic recoding, we get what
Torop defines
1. macro-stylistic translation. In this type of translation, the dominant is the
expression plane of the prototext, on which the construction of the metatext content plane
is also based. In the metatext, we observe a compliant preservation of the meter, of the
rhymes, of the strophes (if it is a poem), and of every other formal structure.
It is called "macro-stylistic" because while it preserves, reproduces, or reconstructs the
stylistic features of the original, it does not focus on single elements, aiming instead to
globally reproduce the general style features of the prototext. For example, in this
category fall the translations of poems in rhyme that preserve the meter of the original
but, of course, have a semantic content which is different from the original. As Nabkov
writes in the preface to his famous translation into English of Pushkin's Evgnij Ongin,
To reproduce the rhymes and yet translate the entire poem literally is mathematically
impossible 1.
If the translator chooses an autonomous analytic recoding - "autonomous" in the
sense that the dominant of the prototext becomes the absolute dominant of the metatext,
obscuring every other subdominant - we get what is called
2. exact translation. Unlike the preceding type, the prototext expression plane dominates
to the point that nothing else is left in the metatext. Some researchers call this type
"interlinear translation".
The prototext style and syntax form completely swallow the metatext, upsetting the
phrase construction rules of the receiving language and bending them to conform to the
rules of the original language. The result of this translation can hardly be considered a
text. It is an only an aid to gain access to the original. The most widespread use of this
kind of translation is the publication of poetry with parallel-translated "text" presented
near the original version. This is unreadable as such, useful only as an "explication note"
to the prototext.
Passing from analytic recoding to synthetic recoding - i.e. a translation based on the
expression plane, but aimed at synthesis, in other words at the product of the translation
work, which consequently is also the projection of the text onto a hypothetical, potential
reader conjectured by the translator - we meet the first type of translation based on the
prototext dominant:
3. micro-stylistic translation. The main purpose of this type of translation is to recreate
the individual expressive devices of the author. Under this category fall the exoticizing
translations (preservation of the realia [cultural words] which remind the reader the
cultural distance of the prototext); the localizing translations (modification of the realia
and their substitution by similar cultural words of the receiving culture, so as to obliterate
the cultural distance of the prototext); and the tropic translations (reproduction of the
single rhetoric figures of the prototext).
This type of translation is called "micro-stylistic" because the translation strategy is not
based on the reproduction of the whole formal style of the prototext, but on the
reproduction of the single style features, paying careful attention to their potential
reception by the metatext Model Reader.
Our last type of recoding is called autonomous synthetic recoding, in which the
prototext dominant becomes absolute, in the metatext, obscuring all other elements
(subdominants and secondary elements). Torop calls it
4. quotation translation. In this type of translation, the aim to formally reproduce the
expression plane is considered so important that only formal limitations (grammar and
syntax) prevent the translator to "copy" the original: lexical precision is the absolute
dominant.
The difference between exact translation and quotation translation rests mainly in the fact
that the former is interlinear, it does not respect any syntax rules of the receiving
language, while the quotation translation is lexically exact, but respects the formal
limitations imposed by the receiving language. This is the reason why exact translation is
considered analytical (prototext-oriented), while quotation translation is synthetic (it gives
a relatively higher priority to readability). Sometimes this kind of translation is called
"literal", but we think that this term is too vague and ambiguous to be used in the context
of a scientific taxonomy. We will make this point in the third part of this course.
Until now, we have examined the four types of recoding translation. In the next unit, we
will see the other four types of adequate translation, belonging to the transposingtranslation group.
Bibliographical references
NABKOV V. Foreword. In Eugene Onegin, by Aleksandr Pushkin, edited by Vladimir
Nabkov, 4 vol., Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1975. ISBN 0-691-01905-3.
TOROP P. La traduzione totale. Ed. by B. Osimo. Modena, Guaraldi Logos, 2000. ISBN
88-8049-195-4. Or. ed.Totalnyj perevod. Tartu, Tartu likooli Kirjastus [Tartu University
Press], 1995. ISBN 9985-56-122-8.
1
Nabkov 1975, p. ix.
23 - The translation process - part 5
We reproduce again Torop's eight-part model here in a lightly altered form, with the
addition of numbers corresponding to the descriptions of each type. The first distinction is
between recoding and transposition, which, we remind the readers, distinguishes the
expression plane transfer (recoding) from the content plane transfer (transposition). In
this unit we will deal with transposing translation, while in the previous one we described
the four types of recoding translation.
TABLA LLI 21
This group consists of those translations in which the content is considered so important,
that the translator puts it foremost, even over form when necessary. The first type we are
going to consider is the dominant-oriented analytic transposition, which Torop
defines
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
thematic translation. The expression plane (see unit 21) in this case is subject to
the content plane. Form is sacrificed in the name of comprehensive content. The
translator chooses this procedure in order to facilitate the reception of the content
by the reader.
Nevertheless, we must pay attention to the fact that it is easier for the reader to
access the prototext content, but the reader will be deprived of the chance of
seeing what was its form like. We, therefore, should not generalize affirming that
this type of translation is "closer to the reader". It is a facilitated, simplified version,
for which reason it does not contain all the formal characteristics of the prototext.
An understanding of the semantic content is best achieved using simpler forms. If,
for example, the original is a poem with a well-defined meter, rhythm, and rhyme
scheme, one possible thematic translation is the use of vers libre, in which every
formal structure of the prototext disappears.
To continue with Torop's model, we find the autonomous analytic
transposition, i.e. an analytic transposition in which the dominant (the content, in
this case) is emphasized in an absolute way, to the point that it totally obscures
form. It is called
descriptive translation. Like all autonomous translation types, the prevalence of
the dominant is pushed to the extreme, and the possibility of translating the entire
text is rationally refused. One might think that this kind of translation is seldom
seen, but, contrarily, in some cultures it is the most common.
This type of translation is exemplified by the transposition of a poetic text (in verse)
into a prose metatext. The attitude we found even in the thematic translation
(passing from the rhyme to vers libre) is taken to the farthest limit, and the
passage is taken from verse to prose.
Let us now examine the dominant-oriented synthetic transposition, in which the
focus is moved from the prototext (analysis) to the metatext (synthesis), even if the
transposition dominant (i.e. the content plane) is rendered in relative terms, and
the other planes are seen underneath. That is the so-called
6.
7.
8.
expressive (or receptive) translation. This type of translation is realized when, in

the translator's intentions, the metatext dominant coincides with the metatext
expressiveness. The translator postulates the standard reaction of the prototext
Model Reader and, having this hypothetical reaction in mind, she produces a text
that, at least in theory, has the purpose of eliciting the same kind of reaction in the
metatext Model Reader. The theory behind this approach is called "dynamic
equivalence"; it was predominantly originated by Eugne Nida1.
Let us finally examine the last type of translation: the autonomous synthetic
transposition, which is a type of free interpretation of the prototext content in a
form arbitrarily chosen by the translator. It is called
free translation and, among those examined in Torop's model, is that which
produces a text that differs most from the prototext. It is not a real "translation" as
we commonly use the word; we could call it a remake, as are those that are
commonly described as "liberally drawn from'", or "liberally inspired to'".
9.
An example of autonomous synthetic transposition is perhaps Johnston's 1977 version
of Eugene Ongin, Pushkin's novel in verse, particularly if compared to the more exact
1964 version by Vladimir Nabkov:
If only Lenskyd known the burning
If he had known what wound
wound that had seared my Tanyas

hear!
burned my Tatianas heart
If Tanyad had the chance of learning
If Tatiana had been aware,
that Lensky and Eugene, apart,
if she could have known
would settle, on the morrow morning,
that Lenski and Eugene tomorrow
for which of them the tomb was

yawning,
were to compete for the tombs shelter,
perhaps her love could in the end
ah, possibly her love
have reunited friend to friend!
might have conjoined the friends again!
But, even by accident, her passion
But even by chance that passion
was undiscovered to that day.
no one had yet discovered.
Onegin had no word to say;
Tatiana pined away in secret;
of the whole world, her nurse alone,
alone the nurse might have known -
if not slow-witted, might have known.
but then she was slow-witted.
Here is the prototext transliterated: "Kogda b on znal, kakaja rana / Moej Tatjany serdce
zhgla! / Kogda by vedala Tatjana, / Kogda by znat ona mogla, / CHto zavtra Lenskij I
Evgenij / Zasporjat o mogilnoj seni; / Ah, mozhet byt, e ljubov / Druzej soedinila
vnov! / No toy strasti I sluchajno / eshch nikto ne otkry-val. / Onegin obo vsm
molchal; / Tatjana iznyvala tajno; / Odna by nanja znat mogla, / Da nedogadliva byla".
Ricapitolando, abbiamo esaminato otto tipi teorici di attualizzazione del modello di
processo traduttivo, distinti sulla base di tre criteri fondamentali:
As anyone can see, even without knowing Russian, the content of the right-column
version is quite different from the left-column one. The translator's poetic intent is
evident, and the result is a rhyme poem with a different content and different formal
characteristics from the prototext.
We have examined the eight theoretical types of actualization of Torop's translation
process model. The types are differentiated based on three fundamental criteria:
recoding/transposition, i.e. the distinction between expression plane translation

(recoding) emphasizing formal elements, and content plane translation
(transposition).
analysis/synthesis, i.e. the distinction between the part of the translation

process centered upon the readings/interpretations of the prototext by the
translator (analysis) and the projection of the potential text toward its actualization
in the metatext (synthesis).
dominant/autonomous: it is perhaps the most difficult distinction, because the

word "autonomous" could induce one to think of something very remote from the
prototext. Actually, the dominant-oriented translation accounts - as in JAkobsn's
original view - even with all its hierarchy of subdominants, while the type Torop
calls "autonomous" is an exasperation of the "dominant" concept: the dominant is
elevated to the totalization dimension of governing the entirety of the text, which is
manipulated at will in order to amplify that dominant element.
<
NIDA E. A., TABER C. The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden 1969.
PUSHKIN A. Eugene Onegin. A novel in verse. Edited by Vladimir Nabkov, Princeton,
Princeton University Press, 1990 (first edition: 1964), ISBN 0-691-01905-3.
PUSHKIN A. Eugene Onegin. translated by Charles Johnston with an introduction by John

Bayley, London, Penguin, 1977, ISBN 0-14-044394-0.
1
2
3
Nida, Taber 1969, p. 23.

Pushkin 1979, p. 163.
Pushkin 1990, p. 235.
24 - Language, culture, translation
In order to comprehend the activity of translation, we need to clarify what we mean by
"language" and by "culture" and to point out the relationships between culture and
language. A purely linguistic approach to translation is no longer conceivable but, on the
other hand, it is not possible, either, to concentrate exclusively on the interrelation
between different cultures. Various studies on translation admit both these extremist
conceptions, although they lead to a unilateral vision - as Witherspoon clearly states:
If we look at culture from a linguistic point of view, we get a one-sided view of culture. If
we look at language from a cultural point of view, we get a one-sided view of language 1.
Peeter Torop, chief of the Department of Semiotics at the Tartu University, did extensive
work on translation science. In his latest book Totalnyj perevod2 [Total Translation],
published in Italian and English by Guaraldi-Logos , he says that "language" can be
considered "culture", by resorting to a figure of speech called "synecdoche" that consists
in using a part (language) for the whole (culture). Doing that, we can say that the
approach is "linguistic", as we observed in JAkobsn, because the concept of "linguistics"
extends to many other subjects such as semiotics, cultural anthropology, narratology, and
literary theory.
A second possible view considers "language" not as an object of study as such, but as a
metalanguage: a language used as a means to describe another code, the cultural code.
In other words, according to this conception, the language is seen as a tool to describe
and express the culture to which it belongs.
Torop suggests a third possible description of "language": to see it as one of the many
semiotic systems that can be found in any given culture. By "semiotic system", we mean
every sign system, such as music, painting, and, of course, the natural language. In order
to examine the translation activity we must consider all these three concepts of language.
While considering cultural and linguistic differences simultaneously - and speaking of
translatability in general terms, without focusing on specific works or cases - it is
important to keep in mind that two languages can be more or less translatable into one
another according to how they differ in one of these four ways:
i
The English version is to be published by 2001.

Languages that have neither the culture nor the language in common, such as Eskimo
and English, or Chinese and Italian or Greek and German;
Languages with similar linguistic structures but different cultural backgrounds, such as
Czech and Slovak. They are both Slavic languages, but the territories occupied by
Czechia and Slovakia were historically more often divided than united. Bohemia
experienced various periods of autonomy or, at times, was absorbed into the German
territory, whereas Slovakia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for long periods.
Another case which may be assimilated to this category, considering the cultural
developments of the past centuries, is that of British English and American English,
which - before the advent of the Internet and of globalization - had rather independent
linguistic developments;
Languages with a completely different linguistic structure but with a similar cultural
background, like Hungarian and Slovak; the former belongs to the Ugric-Finnish stem to which belong few other languages, such as Finnish and Estonian - whereas Slovak is
Slavic; the two regions, though, were often administered by the same central
government (the Kingdom of Hungary, the Austrian Empire or the Austro-Hungarian
Empire);
Languages with similar linguistic structure and cultural background, like Spanish and
French . In this case, we have two Neo-Latin languages and two peoples that have
always had frequent and considerable mutual cultural exchanges.
When - rather than consider couples of language/cultures - we concentrate on a single
text, Torop isolates four different kinds of relationships between culture and language:
Monolingual and monocultural texts;
Monolingual and multicultural texts (in which within a society more than one culture is
found). It is the case of The Blue Flowers by Queneau, where two plots are developed,
set in two distant historical periods and social areas;
Multilingual and monocultural texts (in which, for instance, when narrating the same
events, various languages are used. It is the case of Ortiz Vsquez and other examples
we quoted in unit five - Foreign Languages and Linguistic Awareness);
Multilingual and multicultural texts (like War and Peace by L. N. Tolstj, in which two
languages are used - Russian and French - to represent different aspects and various
classes of the Russian society and of Napoleon's personality);
Whatever approach to the analysis of the translatability of a text into another language/
culture, it is important to realize that, even under the least favorable of conditions
(cultural and/or linguistic distance, complexity and heterogeneity of the text), the
linguistic tool - the natural language, the language of man - is always potentially able to
express elements belonging to another language/culture. Therefore, the important
prerequisite for a text to be translatable is the translator's awareness: translators must
know the differences existing between languages and cultures so that they can work out
translation strategies able to cope with the various translatability problems.
KRUPA V. Some remarks on the translation process, in Asian and African Studies, n. 4,
Bratislava 1968 [1969].
TOROP P. La traduzione totale Ed. by B. Osimo. Modena, Guaraldi Logos, 2000. ISBN
88-8049-195-4. Or. ed. Totalnyj perevod. Tartu, Tartu likooli Kirjastus [Tartu University
Press], 1995. ISBN 9985-56-122-8.
WITHERSPOON G. Language in culture and culture in language, in International Journal
of American Linguistics, vol. 46, n. 1, 1980.
1
2
3
Witherspoon 1980, p. 2.
Torop 2000
Krupa 1969, p. 56, quoted in Torop 2000.
25 - Translatability - part 1
In the previous unit, we have seen that in general the translation activity must deal with
two elements: the cultural distance and linguistic distance between the text to be
translated (prototext) and the language/culture of the text to be produced (metatext).
The practical consequences of such a view of the translation activity are manifold. First,
in the education of a translator there must be, besides linguistic expertise, a specific
knowledge of one or more cultures of the relevant linguistic areas. We chose the English
language to make an example.
In many non-English-speaking countries, the most widespread foreign language taught
in the schools is English and, within the framework of this subject, some elements of
British culture are also taught. In colleges and universities, the cultural subjects related to
the English-speaking countries deal mostly with British culture. This knowledge is
necessary for the prospective translators who will have to deal with British texts.
If, on the contrary, the prospective translation texts belong, for example, to postcolonial
literatures, or to American-English literature, a cultural background regarding those
countries is required. Otherwise, the translator will only be able to accomplish that part of
her work that has to do with linguistic transcoding.
There is no general agreement or definition in the interaction between the language and
the culture. According to the famous researcher B. L. Whorf, language is not so much a
tool through which it is possible to express notions belonging to a culture, as it is a sort
of cataloguing system, a systematization of otherwise disorderly knowledge. This view
overturns the traditional conception in which, within the language/culture relation,
language has the task of formulating acquired knowledge, no matter what the level of
linguistic competence. Following Whorf's line of thought, it is language to which molds
and systematizes knowledge, if two peoples or two persons speak different languages,
they often have different world views, not simply different formulations for the same
conceptions 1. In M. Dummett's opinion, the existence of objects depends upon language;
it is language that decides what types of objects are recognized as existent.
Beyond that, Whorf's theory implicitly places much emphasis on mother tongue
learning. In his view, through the mother tongue one learns the ways in which experience
can be systematized. According to this theory, the learning of a foreign language also
becomes learning of a different world view, of a different concept of culture. In Whorf's
opinion, there is no knowledge without a mother tongue; therefore, there is no univocal
knowledge in multilingual individuals.
Beyond this general view of the language/experience/knowledge relations, Whorf's
thought is not so pertinent to the specific interests of the translator because, when Whorf
deals specifically with translation problems, he studies word-by-word translation2. Within
the framework of a semiotic theory applied to translation activity, the fact that the word
"snow" in Eskimo covers the semantic field of many different English words is of no great
interest, nor necessarily means that between an Eskimo and an outsider there must be
differences with regards to intellectual processes; it means just that they have different
cultural experiences.
Whorf, therefore, provides us with a new captivating perspective, in which language is
not a simple expression tool, but also and above all a cognitive tool. This does nothing to
advance the understanding of the translatability conception, however, but for the fact that
the interlingual translator should be able to understand a new world view for each language/culture she learns. In Whorf's opinion, implicitly, to translate means to transfer a
Weltanschauung. Whorf does not give us any specific indication about translatability,
while Sapir is more explicit about what is translatable and what is not.
Sapir is definite in his cataloguing of texts in relation to translation. According to the
famous linguist, non-linguistic art is translatable, while linguistic art is untranslatable.
Another distinction Sapir makes regards the translatability of texts in which the layer
where we intuitively catalogue our personal experience prevails (latent language content)
and texts characterized by the specific nature of the language in which they are written.
The former are of course more translatable, because they are less linked to the specific
linguistic structure in which they are formulated3.
The question of translatability is dealt with by Hjelmslev, who divides languages into two
categories: restricted languages, like, for example, artificial mathematical languages, and
unrestricted languages, like, for example, natural languages. According the Danish
linguist, translatability is guaranteed between unrestricted languages (i.e. between
natural languages), and also if we translate from a restricted language into an
unrestricted language, but not vice versa:
Any text in any language, in the widest sense of the word, can be translated into any
unrestricted language, whereas this is not true of restricted languages. Everything
uttered in Danish can be translated into English, and vice versa, because both of these
are unrestricted languages. Everything which has been framed in a mathematical formula
can be rendered in English, but it is not true that every English utterance can be rendered
in a mathematical formula; this is because the formula language of mathematics is
restricted, whereas English language is not4.
A linguist who has made important affirmations on translation theory and who can,
therefore, be of great help in establishing what we are talking about when we discuss
translation is W. V. Quine. Quine differentiates between home language, the language
one speaks in his home, and native language, his mother tongue. Each person realizes
early in life that the native language spoken by his countrymen does not always coincide
with his home language, and, therefore, in order to understand, he is forced to submit
the utterances he hears to a radical translation aiming at the differentiation of the
meaning and the pronunciation of the same words depending on their occurrence within
the family or in the wider circle of people using that language5.
The fact that each word acquires a different pronunciation or meaning depending on the
context in which it is empirically formulated, and the consequent impossibility to state the
criteria for a single possible translation of each utterance, give rise to Quine's con-cept of
indeterminacy of translation. If we reason that the home language is the one giving the
energy to face the other speakers' language, we can become accustomed to the
theoretical indeterminacy (polysemy) of linguistic meanings and translation becomes the
main tool to learn language with its semantic nuances. A competent speaker is always a
good "translator" too, especially in an intralingual and intracultural sense, even if this
concept, for obvious reasons, cannot be extended to professional, interlingual translation.
For Quine the concept of translation refers primarily to intralingual translation. In the
next unit, we will examine the thought of other researchers as to the concept of
translatability.
BROWN R. Words and Things. An Introduction to Language. New York, The Free Press,
1968.
HJELMSLEV L. Prolegomena to a Theory of Language Ed. or. Omkring Sprogteoriens
Grundlggelse, Kbenhavn, Festskrift udg. af Kbenhavns Universitet, 1943.
QUINE W. V. Ontological Relativity, in The Journal of Philosophy, n. 65, p. 7, 1968.
SAPIR E. Language. An Introduction to the Study of Speech. New York, Harcourt, Brace
and Co, 1921.
WHORF, B. L. Language, thought, and reality; selected writings. edited by John B. Carroll.
Preface by Stuart Chase. Cambridge (Massachussets), Technology Press of Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, 1956.
1
2
3
4
5
Whorf 1956.
Brown 1968, p. 231.
Sapir 1921, p. 237-238.
Hjelmslev 1973, p.122.
Quine 1968, p. 198,199.
In the previous unit, we analyzed the thought of Sapir, Whorf, and Quine from the angle
of their potential for translation studies. There is, though, another important researcher
who has a rather original point of view on the linguistic expression/awareness relation:
Noam Chomsky [his Russian name should be pronounced "hmski" rather than
"chomski"] 1.
In Chomsky's view, every phrase, before being formulated, is conceived as a deep
structure in our mind. On the deep psychological level, in Chomsky's opinion, a phrase in
any of the different natural languages has the same structure at its origins: the
differences in each linguistic construction arise only when the phrase comes to the
surface level, when, from a psychic phenomenon, it becomes a linguistic utterance.
The Homskian theory, therefore, postulates the existence of elementary, universal
conceptual constructions, common to all mankind. Interlingual translation (and
intralingual translation, too) is always possible, according to Chomsky, because logical
patterns underlying the natural languages are uniform constants. If a speaker actualizes a
deep structure in some way, it can also be expressed in another language 2.
We are not interested in discussing here the success of this theory in linguistics. We will
limit ourselves to observing its consequences for translation studies.
The Homskian view implicates the separation of the information level from the style
level. Information is what originates from "deep structures", while the way in which that
information is conveyed is of secondary importance and belongs to the domain of formal
signs 3.
Returning to the distinction Hjelmslev makes between expression and content planes,
according to Chomsky, it is always possible to translate the content plane, while the
expression plane becomes mere appearance. Every type of literary translation - of
connotative text - is left out in this point of view. Consequently, this view excludes any
kind of translation of texts that, although not literary in nature, do have some connotative
characteristics. It is obvious that, in a connotative text, the dominant is linked mostly to
what, in Homskian terms, is the surface structure, rather than the deep structure.
According to Chomsky, the possibility to translate is unlimited as far as "closed" texts are
concerned - texts that can be interpreted in a single way, without connotations, i.e. a
minimal part of real texts.
Whorf, Quine, and Chomsky did research in linguistics, but the problem of translatability
cannot be faced exhaustively using a purely linguistic approach: a text is a cultural
phenomenon that, within its culture, produces and undergoes many influences. In this
sense, both the prototext and the metatext are equally important texts. Every translation
is to be considered a cultural translation, before it is a linguistic one:
language, text, and text function are different reflections of a single culture. For that
reason, from the point of view of total translation, it is more convenient to speak of culture
translatability. The total translatability concept is complementary, comprising many
different parameters within its field 4.
Advancing from the old quandary of the linguistic untranslatability of connotative texts,
we can consider the concept of translatability in terms of the possibility for a text to
function as a cultural element within its culture. On one hand we need to decide whether
and how the culture represented in a text is translatable; on the other hand we must
know what metatextual and intertextual relations the text will have within the culture/s
receiving it when it is translated.
Another fundamental aspect of translatability is the need for the translator to sometimes
explicate the meaning of the text. The prototext author can afford ambiguities, polysemic
words, or expressions, which are unavailable to the translator. The very fact of reading
the prototext and trying to write it in the language and for the culture that will receive it
involves a process of rational interpretation and, when rewriting, the explication of that
rational act.
Whenever a translator does not understand a passage, an allusion, a reference of the
prototext author, that misunderstanding is often revealed and rationalized in the
translation. Aspects, that in the prototext are implicit, become explicit in the metatext,
and those that are not made explicit form part of the translation loss, owing either to a
rational choice of the translator or simply to misunderstanding. The translation act not
only transmits the prototext content, it also lays bare its structure 5.
The demonstrative nature of translation as text representation must not be regarded as
only subsidiary. On the contrary, it is one of the constitutive features of this subcategory of
representatives since it distinguishes translation as a speech act from, for example,
interpretation in the form of critical comment, or essay, and similar meta-literary
achievements 6.
As we can see translation, in Broeck's opinion, owing to its rationalizing nature, is a form
of interpretation like the critical essay or review. There is no such thing as a neutral
translation. If every translation is a rational interpretation process, it is necessary to make
the translator's critical approach known to the reader as well.
Rationalization in translation undoubtedly plays an important role and has important
consequences. In the next unit we will see how it is possible to exploit the process of the
laying bare of a text, instead of denying the idea as an uncomfortable, self-evident
phenomenon, in order to improve translatability, through a rational management of the
translation loss in the metatext.
BROECK R. VAN DEN Literary Conventions and Translated Literature, in Convention and
Innovation in Literature a cura di T. D'haen, R. Grbel, H. Lethen, Philadelphia,
Benjamins, 1989, p. 57-75.
CHOMSKY N. Questions of Form and Interpretation, Lisse, Peter de Ridder, 1975.
CHOMSKY N. Reflections on Language, New York, Pantheon Books, 1976.
NIDA E. Semantic Components, in Babel, 8, 4.
Press], 1995. ISBN 9985-56-122-8.
1
Chomsky 1976, p. 182.

Chomsky 1975, p. 37.
3
Nida 1962.
4
Torop 2000, p. 112.
5
Torop 2000, p. 113 f.
6
Broeck 1989, p. 59.
Once accepted that the translation process, as we have demonstrated in the previous
unit, is a rationalized interpretation preventing a reader of the metatext to read it with all
the ambivalences and different potential interpretations available to the prototext reader,
we have to undertake the problem of translation loss. How is it possible to express the
thought content that the rationalization necessary to produce the translation erases, and
inform the metatext reader about this forced rationalization?
2
Torop proposes to take advantage of the opportunities offered by a book. Since a

translated text, in its practical life, takes on the form of a publication, the parts that are
untranslatable within the text, the interpretation choices that are no longer available to
the metatext reader owing to the translator's policy, the presence of cultural terms
(realia) that complicate comprehension in the receiving culture "can be 'translated' in the
commentary, in the glossary, in the preface, in the illustrations (maps, drawings,
photographs) and so on" 1.
Otherwise, if the translator opts for a "transparent", unperceivable translation, in which
the interpretation and rationalization work is unconscious in the translator (because she is
not able to realize the linguistic and cultural differences between prototext and metatext),
or even in a hidden fashion (the translator rationalizes and simplifies the text and takes
shortcuts without presenting the whole roadmap of the possible interpretations, but
presents the reader with the abridged version as if it were fully detailed), the result would
be to nullify the reader's responsibilities and to deny the cultural differences.
We agree with Torop when he states that one of the duties
of translation activities is to support (ideally) the struggle against cultural neutralization,
leveling neutralization, the cause, in many societies, on one hand, of indifference toward
cultural "clues" of the author or the text (above all in multiethnic nations) and, on the
other hand, to stimulate the search for national identity or cultural roots. Even in
developed democratic countries, there are examples of totalitarian, rather than total,
translation, i.e. of a reideologizing (in the broadest sense of the word) "rewriting" of the
translation 2 .
This problem is particularly important in the present, owing to growing opportunities and
the rapidity of global communication. The technical tools themselves provide for
enormous possibilities for the transfer of information all over the world. It is up to the
user to decide whether the purpose of such potential should be the homogenization of
cultures and languages in a single global blob or, contrarily, the potential of these
technical tools should be used to strengthen cultural differences and to spread the
culturally distinctive features that, in the past, have played small role in the interactions in
the semiosphere.
We favor the second choice, and struggle against what Torop rightly calls "totalitarian
translation", i.e. unfounded appropriation of other's cultures, reideologization of the texts.
The totalitarian approach tends to minimize the impact of a text in the dominant culture,
to facilitate its fruition, to simplify it and offer its products to a public less and less aware
of their own cultural identity and that of the other cultures they interact with.
In this view the translator's mission is crucial: she can preserve cultural differences and
insert them as they are into the receiving culture, or, on the contrary, she can deny the
existence of such differences and appropriate what belongs to different cultures in a
stealthy way.
Holmes, the founder of translation studies as a discipline, has proposed a very efficient
model to describe the translator's choices within the framework of her own/other's
dialectics. Holmes holds that the translator operates in three areas: the linguistic context,
the literary intertext, and the socio-cultural situation. In these three spheres, the
translator may opt for a greater or lesser preservation of the other's element in the
translated text, which is visualized along two axes: exoticizing versus naturalizing, and
historicizing versus modernizing:
Each translator of poetry, then, consciously or unconsciously works continually in various
dimensions, making choices on each of three planes, the linguistic, the literary, and the
socio-cultural, and on the x axis of exoticizing versus naturalizing and the Y axis of
historicizing versus modernizing 3.
In other words, in Holmes's view, there is a diachronic axis, along which the
chronological, historical distance between prototext and metatext is measured. Along this
axis, the translator can opt for the preservation of the historical element (historicizing) or
for its adaptation to the times of the metatext (modernizing). Moreover, there is a
synchronic axis, along which the cultural differences are measured against one another,
not concerning the single historical periods, but as they occurred in different areas. Along
this axis, the translator can opt for the preservation of the other's element (exoticizing) or
for its adaptation to the receiving culture (naturalizing or, better, familiarization,
domestication).
Obviously, historicization and exoticization are choices that tend to preserve the other's
element in the translation, while modernization and naturalization tend to deny the
diachronic and synchronic differences.
On the basis of this model, Holmes thinks it possible to describe the attitude of a culture
toward translation. The famous researcher holds that, for instance, in the 18th century
there was a general trend toward modernizing and naturalizing of the translated texts
(just think of the belles infidels phenomenon in France, for example); in the Romantic
19th century there had been, in Holmes's opinion, a greater trend toward exoticizing and
historicizing, while in the 20th century the situation is more complex:
Among contemporary translators, for instance, there would seem to be a marked tendency
towards modernization and naturalization of the linguistic context, paired with a similar but
less clear tendency towards in the same direction in regard to the literary intertext, but an
opposing tendency towards historicizing and exoticizing in the socio-cultural situation 4.
Some book collections play witness to such a trend.
In the following units, we will see the great importance of JUrij Lotman's studies for the
definition of translatability.
HOLMES J. S. Translated! Papers on Literary Translation and Translation Studies.
Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1988. ISBN 90-6203-739-9.
Press], 1995. ISBN 9985-56-122-8.
1
2
3
4
Torop 2000, p. 129.

Torop 2000, p. 129-130.
Holmes 1988, p. 48.
Holmes 1988, p. 49.
28 - Lotman and translatability - part 1
An important contribution to translation studies and to the definition of the concept of
"translatability" from a semiotic point of view comes from JUrij Lotman, founder of the
Tartu School of Semiotics. Let us examine its origins.
We must return to the '40s, to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), where the young JUrij
Lotman enrolls in the University and - interrupted by his participation as a soldier in World
War II - earns a human sciences degree. Many of his teachers were the same scholars
who, in the two previous decades, had taken part in the Formalist and Structuralist
movements. One of them was Vladmir JA. Propp, famous the world over for his studies
on folklore and fairy tales.
In 1950, having earned his degree with honors, Lotman seeks employment, but, without
fail, each time he is about to be hired, someone else is employed in his place at the last
minute. The young researcher ignores that an anti-Semitic policy is taking place, and
Lotman is an unwitting victim.
Meanwhile a former college mate finds a job at the Tartu University, and she finds that
there are other vacant positions too; Lotman moves immediately to Estonia. Here, local
authorities are too busy in the struggle against the local populace resistance, hostile to
Soviet regime, to find resources for the campaign against Jews, even if they had received
precise orders from Moscow 1. Moreover, in Estonia there were not many Jews left, after
the mass deportations during the Nazi occupation.
So it seems that the fates have deemed Lotman to begin his university career in Tartu,
the second most important town in Estonia - the northernmost of the Baltic States,
officially proclaimed an independent Republic in 1991. The prestigious Tartu University
was ounded in 1632. In the 1960s, Lotman is particularly interested in the methods of
analyzing poetic texts and in the research on the ideological models of culture. In 1960,
he gives his first course in structural poetics and, in 1962, publishes his Lectures on
Structural Poetics 2.
In 1962 in Moscow, the Cybernetics Council and the Slavic Studies Institute, where
many structural linguistics trends originate, organized a symposium on the structural
study of sign systems. Since these two disciplines (cybernetics and structural linguistics)
are considered officially pseudo-scientific and are rejected by the official Soviet academic
world, the symposium acquires a truly innovative and anti-conformist character. During
the symposium lectures were read, among others, about
language semiotics, logic semiotics, automatic translation, art semiotics, mythology,
language and description of non-verbal communication systems (i.e. road signs, card
divination language, etc.), semiotics of the communication with deaf-mutes, ritual
semiotics 3,
then eventfully published in the now famous "theses". After receiving a copy of the
Moscow symposium theses, Lotman traveled to Moscow to meet with his Russian
colleagues and proposes a partnership program geographically based in Tartu.
As a consequence, the prestigious review Trudy po znakovym sistemam was founded in
1964 which exists and thrives to this day and is now printed with three additional titles:
Sign Systems Studies, Tid mrgissteemide alalt (in Estonian) and Semeiotik. In 1964,
the first conference of the newborn school is held in Tartu. Many people call this school
simply "The Tartu school" because the annual review published there is still one of the
most important references for world semiotics.
Lotman died in 1993. The Semiotics professorship is now held by Peeter Torop (widely
quoted in the previous units), one of the most famous researchers, among other fields, in
the application of semiotics to translation studies.
PIn Lotman's writings there is something very interesting for translation studies. To
understand what Torop says about translatability, we do best to begin from the general
Lotmanian view of culture:
[...] if, for the biological survival of an individual, the satisfaction of some natural needs is
enough, the life of any group whatsoever is not possible without a culture [...] All man's
needs can be divided into two groups. To the first group belong the needs that must be
immediately satisfied and cannot (or can hardly) be accumulated. [...] The needs that can
be satisfied by accumulated store form a different group. They are the objective basis for
the acquisition, by the organism, of extra-genetic information 4.
In the nature/culture dialectics, Lotman attributes to man, among all the other living
beings, the only possibility of belonging to both systems:
Man, in his struggle for life, is, therefore, inserted in two processes: in one he intervenes
as a consumer of material values, of things, in the other he is, instead an accumulator of
information. Both are necessary for existence. If for man, as a biological creature, the first
is enough, social life implies both 5.
However, in Lotman's opinion, there are not only the culture space and the nature space
in the semiotic world; there is a non-culture space as well, "that sphere functionally
belonging to Culture, but not fulfilling its rules" . When Lotman says "Culture", he refers
to the whole of the cultures constituting man's world and, within each of them, he
isolates a "language set", so that every member of any given culture is "a sort of
polyglot".
As we will see, the Lotmanian view of culture is strictly related to translatability and
translation studies.
[...] culture is a gathering of historically formed semiotic systems (languages) [...] The
translation of the same texts into other semiotic systems, the assimilation of different
texts, the moving of the boundaries between texts belonging to culture and those beyond
its boundaries are the mechanisms through which it is possible to culturally incorporate
reality. Translating a given section of reality into one of the languages of culture,
transforming it into a text, i.e. into an information codified in a given way, introducing this
information into collective memory: this is the everyday cultural activity sphere. Only what
has been translated into a sign system can become part of memory. The intellectual
history of humankind can be considered as a struggle for memory. Not by chance, the
destruction of a culture manifests itself in the form of destruction of memory, annihilation
of texts, oblivion of nexuses 7.
In later writings, particularly in the essay called On the semiosphere, his semiotic view is
based more and more on the concept of translation.
[..] all semiotic space can be considered a single mechanism (if not organism). Then not
this or that brick will appear as the foundation, but the 'great system' called
"semiosphere". The semiosphere is the semiotic space outside of which the existence of
semiosis is impossible 8.
In the next unit, we will see that the functioning of this huge and complex organism has
a dense network of translations at its base.
EGOROV B. 'izn i tvorcestvo JU. M. Lotmana. Moskv, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie,
1999. ISBN 5-86793-070-X.
LOTMAN JU. Izbrannye stati v trh tomah. vol. 1. Stati po semiotike i tipologii kultury.
Tallinn, Aleksandra, 1992. ISBN 5-450-01551-8.
LOTMAN JU. Lekcii po strukturalnoj potike. In JU. M. Lotman i tartusko-moskovskaja
semioticeskaja shkola. Moskv, Gnozis, 1994, p. 10-263. ISBN 5-7333-0486-3. Edizione
italiana: JU. Lotman, La smiosfera, Venezia, Marsilio, 1985. ISBN 88-317-4703-7.
LOTMAN JU. Stati po tipologii kultury. Tartu, 1970.
USPENSKIJ B. Tartuskaja semioticeskaja 'kola glazami e ucastnikov, in JU. M. Lotman i
tartusko-moskovskaja semioticeskaja shkola. Moskv, Gnosis, 1994c, p. 265-351. ISBN
5-7333-0486-3.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Egorov 1999, p. 48-49.

Lotman 1994.
Uspenskij 1994, p. 270.
Lotman 1970, p. 26-27.
Lotman 1970, p. 28.
Lotman 1970, p. 30.
Lotman 1970, p. 31.
Lotman 1992, p. 13.
29 - Lotman and translatability - part 2

In the previous unit, we have seen that Lotman imagines the whole of reciprocally
interacting texts and languages as a system, and calls this system "semiosphere". One of
the main qualities of this system is itsdelimitedness. The semiosphere is confined by the
space which surrounds it; it can be extrasemiotic (a space where signification processes
do not occur, like a natural space) or heterosemiotic (i.e. belonging to another semiotic
system, for example, a musical text versus a pictorial text) 1.
As it happens in the geographic world, it is the notion of "border" to recall the concept
of "translation". Where there are no borders, there is no need for translations:
[...] the semiotic border is the sum of the bilingual translation "filters" passing through
which the text is translated into another language (or other languages) that are outside a
given semiosphere. The "closedness" of a semiosphere manifests itself in the fact that this
can get in touch neither with heterosemiotic texts nor with non-texts. In order for these
texts to appear real in the eyes of a given semiosphere, it has to translate them into one
of the languages within its inner space, i.e. to semiotize the facts. For this reason the
border points of the semiosphere can be considered similar to the sensorial
receptors translating outer stimuli into the language of our nervous system, or to blocks
of translation that adapt to a given semiotic sphere, a world that is foreign to it 2.
The semiosphere, that can be thought of as larger or smaller according to the definition
of its inner and outer boundaries, is a huge translation organism. Translation is at the
basis of the existence of sense, of culture:
The function of any border or film - from the living cell membrane to the biosphere as a
film (according to Vernadskij) covering our planet and to the semiosphere border consists in the limitation of penetration, in filtering, and in the adaptive reprocessing of the
external into the internal. At different levels, this invariant function occurs in different
ways. At the semiosphere level, it means a distinction between its own from the others', a
filtering of the outer communications and their translation into its own language, as well
as transforming the outer non-communications into communications, i.e. semioticizing
what comes from outside and its transformation into information.
From this point of view, all the translation mechanisms serving the outer contacts belong
to the semiosphere structure 3.
According to Lotman's theory, there is a complex hierarchy of systems composing the
semiosphere and shaping (cultural) life of the universe causing continuous reciprocal
interactions and influences, from the minimal level of the right hemisphere/left
hemisphere dialectics within a subject's brain (see the units on JAkobsn), up through the
maximum level of the entire universe, thanks to their differences.
The information translation across these boundaries, the interplay between different
structures and substructures, the direct uninterrupted semiotic "trespassings" of one or
other structure into the "other's territory" shape the generation of meaning, the
production of new information 4.
In other words, translation is the basis of sense generation. What is inside a system (a
fact, a phenomenon, an event), until the moment when it remains what it is without
being described, is outside the semiosphere, it remains in the extrasemiotic world. This
argument is closely connected to what we have said in the first part of this course about
the relation between thought (mental material) and its verbalization (translation into
verbal material).
As a thought, without any verbal description, remains an extrasemiotic fact, it does not
become meaningful for any system outside the individual psyche if not translated into
words, so an outer, extrapsychic phenomenon, (for example the presence of an oak tree
in a meadow) remains a fact that does not exist in the semiosphere until when it is
translated into some kind of code. From a semiotic point of view, it remains 'other' until
that moment when the semiosis world incorporates it.
If in every meadow an oak grew, if all the world were made of meadows and so on, if,
in other words, in the semiosphere the level of entropy were zero, in the semiosphere
there would be no life, the semiotic world would be dead.
The structural heterogeneity of semiotic space creates reservoirs of dynamic processes
and is one of the mechanism through which new information is elaborated within the
sphere 5.
From this point of view, the concept of translatability acquires a new light. The
difference between systems is no longer the problem par excellence of translators. On the
contrary, the presence of this difference is necessary to the life of the cultural world.
Translation loss is no longer viewed as a cumbersome burden the managing of which is a
problem to translators. The fact that it is never possible to translate everything
guarantees the preservation of differences and the preservation of cultural life.
The translator, in a broad sense, as intended in the total translation view, is thus the
tool of life in the semiosphere. Translatability is a relative concept, but a minimum level of
translatability is guaranteed by the contiguity of many systems - many semiospheres within the universe.
In the next unit, we will examine the translatability concept with the aid of the thought
of one of the founders of semiotics, Charles S. Peirce.
LOTMAN JU. Izbrannye stati v trh tomah. vol. 1. Stati po semiotike i tipologii kultury
p. 11-24. Tallinn, Aleksandra, 1992. ISBN 5-450-01551-8.
1
2
3
4
5
Lotman 1992,
Lotman 1992,
Lotman 1992,
Lotman 1992,
Lotman 1992,
p.
p.
p.
p.
p.
13.
13. My emphasis.
14. My emphasis.
17.
16.
30 - Peirce and translatability

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), who never had a permanent position at any
university, however devoted his entire life to research and wrote thousands of pages,
giving birth to one of the two great currents of semiotics. Saussure originated the other,
often referred to as Structuralism. Peirce's works were published mostly after his death.
This is one of the reasons why, nearly a century after, his thought has still, in part, to be
explored.
The Austrian researcher Dinda Gorle has devoted much work to the potential
applications of Peirce's thought to translation studies. She has analyzed translation
(translatability) from the point of view of Peircean semiotics. She also introduced the term
semiotranslation into the scientific language.
In Peirce's opinion, a sign, or representamen, is something that stands for something
else in some aspects or capacity and that addresses someone, i.e. creates in the mind of
that person an equivalent sign or a more developed sign 1. In other words, there is a
triad sign-object-interpretant, where "interpretant" stands for the mental image that a
sign produces within us.
If, for example, I read the word "cat", this word evokes a reaction in my mind, an
image, a meaning, a psychic sign, which in my mind describes, in nonverbal language,
my personal, mental (and partially unconscious) notion of "cat". This psychic sign is
individual, subjective, and different for each of us and has, on one hand, a relation to the
verbal sign "cat" (the word), on the other hand, a relation to the 'object' cat (the animal).
As we have said in the units on the translation as a mental process, in translation there
is no direct link between a prototext verbal sign and a metatext verbal sign. Each verbal
sign, and each group of verbal signs, first evokes the subjective psychic sign in the
translator's mind, from which the translator can project another verbal sign, or group of
verbal signs onto the receiving language/culture.
It should be obvious from that, in the Peircean view, that each reading is a subjective
interpretation, varying in time, of the text read. Consequently, every translation is a
subjective translation, varying in time, of each translated text.
The translated equivalents (in semiotic terminology, the interpretants) cannot, of course,
be more than a guide, the invention of the translator 2.
The "translatability" notion, in Peircean terms, sheds a very original light on the subject,
particularly because the sense of the translating act varies in time, space, culture: it is
conditioned by the linguistic, cultural, and historical context in which it is received.
Original works are, and often remain over time, authentic, autonomous, unique, and
hence essentially irreplaceable entities. A translation, however, lacks the stability of an
original work and becomes ossified as a dated text-sign 3.
This is caused not only by the fact that every translation is a subjective interpretation
referring to a definite diachronic context, but also because all sign systems are bound to
pass from a state of chaos to a state of order, from a state of imagination to a state of
rationality.
Nothing is ever fixed: all sign and sign-systems move from a more chaotic, surprising,
paradoxical, etc. state and go through translation towards a more ordered, predictable,
ratuionalized state [...] Meaning as meant by new translations is destined to remain
relative, because the truth can only be reached in the hypothetical long run. New patterns
from new translations and from new translators may arise from seemingly nowhere.
Instead of eternity, Peircean translations are provided by chance 4.
After these premises, what remains of the "translatability" notion? First, it is obvious
that everything that, in a translator, produces an interpretant is translatable. In other
words, any sign is, in some way, translatable. Such translatability, however, has an
ephemeral value, to the point that the very notion of "translatability" becomes redundant:
It cannot be emphasized enough that translations become obsolete because the general
and specific cultural context (such as the parameters of the communicative task of the
translator and the expressive functionality of the text, original as well as translated)
changes continuously, thereby undermining questions such as translatability vs.
untranslatability and fidelity vs. infidelity, and making them wholly redundant 5.
This implies that a translation can never be considered "finished", is always improvable. It
has little sense to speak about "standard edition" or "authorized version", if not from a
merely commercial point of view: from a semiotic point of view a version, in itself, is
transitory, and the locution "standard version" is an oxymoron6.
Interlingual translation is a dynamic comparison of two cultures that eventually
emphasizes and complicates the sometimes irreconcilable differences between the two
languages and the two cultures 7.
Translatability is another way to define the parameter of the difference between two
cultures in a given time and from a given point of view.
In the next unit, we will peek at the way the translatability problem is faced and studied
by the Estonian scholar Peeter Torop.
GORLE D. L. Semiotics and the Problem of Translation with Special Reference to the
Semiotic of Charles S. Peirce. Alblasserdam, Offsetdrukkerij Kanters, 1993.
PEIRCE C. S. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, 8 vol., Cambridge (MA), Belknap
Press, 1931-1966.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Peirce, 2, p. 228.
Gorle 2000, p. 125.
Gorle 2000, p. 127.
Gorle 2000, p. 126.
Gorle 2000, p. 127.
Gorle 2000, p. 128.
Gorle 2000, p. 133.
31 - Torop and translatability - part 1
In the previous units, we examined some points of view on translatability extrapolated
from the thought of linguists, philosophers, semioticians, and culturologists. From their
often diverging opinions it is difficult to synthesize a common position to consider a
temporary conclusion in translation studies on the "translatability" concept.
The only element emerging clearly from all quoted essays is maybe that the
"translation" notion is indefinite. There are many views on the language/culture,
language/thought relations. We have seen that, in Lotman's view, the teeming life in the
semiosphere is a swarm of translations. In this view, translatability is a sort of chlorophyll
for the photosynthesis of cultural life, without which culture would come to an end.
The moment a person understands a notion, within the dynamic standpoint of linguistictextual-cultural communication we can consider such act a radical translation
phenomenon. But if, on one hand, everyone can understand (translate) a phenomenon in
her own way, giving a personal, original contribution to semiosphere, on the other hand
there is a sort of "standard perception", a standard, undefined mode in which a text is
read (interpreted), in which some of its cultural and textual connotations are perceived 1.
Beyond the possibility to freely interpret any cultural object, which may reach the
extreme of what Eco calls "aberrant decoding", there also is
culture as education, memory, and perception by the reader of any new text depending on
the cultural experience of the perceiver, to the point that in a sense any text in a reader's
hands has already been read; in other words, it is immediately subjected to customary
rules, peculiarities are neutralized, novelties lost. While, at the opposite extreme, there is
encompassed within the text itself, an image of the audience, that is, the possibility of a
given optimal perception 2.
In Torop's opinion, as there cannot be a single approach to translatability, it is possible
to isolate three distinct aspects:
translatability as a cultural-linguistic and poetic aspect of the text: the approach

inducing one to view the translatability/untranslatability spectrum along the axis of
texts, of their intrinsic features, independent of the interaction between a text and
a single reader, i.e. from the single fruition;
translatability of the perceptive or conceptual unit of the text: the same view as in
the previous point, but here the text is thought of in the form of a fragment, not as
a whole;
translatability as pre-definability of the reception of a text in a given culture; in this

case, the relation is emphasized between a given text and a given culture, and the
potential interactions are analyzed.
Translators can choose one of these aspects considering them different dominants in the
approach toward the text to be translated.
Beyond this group of possible dominants, referring to text, the prototext, the translator,
or the receiving culture may also be translation dominants.
In the first case, the original itself dictates its optimal translatability. In the second case
the translator, as a creative personality, realizes herself through the choice of the
translation method, and the translation method indicates the definition of the level of
translatability. In the third case, the translator founds her strategy on the possible reader
of the metatext, or on the cultural (social, political) norms; in other words, she defines the
degree of translatability based on the conditions of perception. They are three general
types of translatability 3.
Moreover, Torop isolates five translatability parameters, each matching a different
translation strategy. Let us look at the table showing the description of the single
parameters in the left column and, in the right column, the corresponding translation
strategies 4:
CULTURE TRANSLATABILITY
Translatability parameters
Translation strategies
Language:
grammar categories
realia
conversational etiquette
associations
world image
discourse
nationalization (naturalization)
trans-nationalization
denationalization
mlange
Time:
historical
authorial
of the events
cultural
archaization
historization
modernization
neutralization
social
geographic
psychological
localization
visualization
naturalizationk
exotization
neutralization
Space:
perceptive concretization:
Text:
gender signals
chronotopic levels
narrator and narration
expressive aura of the character
author lexicon and syntax
expression media system
preservation/non-preservation of the
structure (element and level hierarchy)
preservation/non-preservation of cohesion
metatext complementary (book):

presupposition
interpretation
readers reaction
readers version
intratextual clarification
interlinear commentaries
special commentaries at the end
general systematic commentaries
metatextual compensation
Work:
Socio-political maniputalion:
norms and taboos (editio purificata)
translation tendentiousness
(tendentious) purification of the texts

text orientation
In the next unit, we will examine, one by one, each parameter and its corresponding
strategies.
ECO U. Interpretation and Overinterpretation. Umberto Eco with Richard Rorty, Jonathan
Culler, Christine Brooke-Rose; edited by Stefan Collini. Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1992. ISBN 0521402271 (hard) 0521425549 (pbk.).
Press], 1995. ISBN 9985-56-122-8.
1
2
3
4
Torop 2000,
Eco 1995, p.
Torop 2000,
Torop 2000,
p. 141.
82. Torop 2000, p. 141.
p. 142-143.
p. 157.

We have seen, at the end of the previous unit, Torop's scheme of culture translatability.
Let us now try to understand what these categories mean and what are their
corresponding translation strategies.
The language parameter is easy to intuitively understand even without explanations.
It consists of:
grammatical categories: in some cases two languages are different because of the
presence/absence of some grammatical category. Translatability problems are linked to
the absence, for example, of the article in some languages. In this case, when translating
from one such language into a language with definite and indefinite articles, each name
implies a difficult choice: translating without article, with definite or indefinite article? For
example, when I have to translate the Russian word roza, I must choose among three
possibilities: "rose", "a rose", and "the rose". The same goes for the presence/absence of
declinations, prepositions, verbal tenses and so on.
realia: these are words existing only in one given culture, like spaghetti in Italian,
balalaika in Russian,hutzpah in Yiddish, Kndel in German, and so on. The translator can
choose to simply transcribe (or transliterate when the alphabets are different) the word,
or to translate it: in this case, she has the opportunity to create a neologism, to
substitute the cultural words with other realia (usually of the receiving culture), to provide
an approximate translation, or a translation fitting in that context only 1.
The conversational etiquette is a peculiar case of realia: in each culture given types of
relations in certain situations are taken for granted by convention. One particular example
concerns the grammatical person used when addressing someone, which, in some
cultures, expresses the degree of familiarity: translating from English, for example, the
translator has the problem of the pronoun you that can suggest familiarity or not; in
other languages, the non-familiar address is rendered with the third person, or with the
plural second person, and so on.
By associations we mean words with peculiar connotations not always understandable
or easy to render in another language: for example, trade marks that give an idea of
luxury or deprivation, colors indicating mourning, love, jealousy, etc.
World image, i.e. the degree of explicitness of a language, can be a problem.
Translating from a figurative language into a more explicit culture, often a text is obtained
that is perceived as hermetic while, on the contrary, translating from a more explicit
language into a more figurative culture, often results in a text that is perceived as
redundant.
The discourse aspect is linked to the awareness of the specific translation problems
related to scientific and technical jargons.
In the right column, the possible strategies are listed: those that tend add familiarity to
the translated text (nationalization, for example), and those that tend to mix elements of
different cultures.
The time parameter concerns the period connected to the prototext culture, the
author's historical time, and the historical time in which the narrated events are set. The
more frequent translatability problem concerns the author's historical time, because the
translator must choose between modernization and preservation of time distance
(archaization), or can even try to recreate a distance between translator and reader
comparable to the distance between author and author's contemporary reader
(historization). If the historical distance is denied, the result is called neutralization. The
time of the narrated events becomes a complex problem when, in the prototext, different
periods appear, and each period has its own particular language 2.
The space parameter. Social space consists in the preservation/suppression of
sociolects. Since social differences are different in various cultures, dialects, slang, argot
can sometimes be rendered with dialects of the receiving culture, but the result is never
completely satisfactory and, in some cases, the translation loss is very conspicuous.
Psychological space concerns both the reader and the translator. It is important for the
reader to perceive the inner unity of the text, attainable using both lexical coherence and
imagery in the text. In some cases, as far as the translator is concerned, it is important to
reconstruct the concrete scene of the imaginary world described by the prototext.
Among the possible strategies that come to mind are: localization (commented
translation, with insertion of the translator's interventions), visualization (graphical
representation of situations), adaptation to places familiar to the receiving reader,
exotization (preservation of specific characteristics of an exotic culture), and
neutralization (generalization of local peculiarities, standardization).
In the next unit, we will examine the next three parameters: text, work, and sociopolitical determinacy.
Press], 1995. ISBN 9985-56-122-8.
VLAHOV S. FLORIN S. Neperevodimoe v perevode. Moskv, 1980.
1
2
Vlachov , Florin 1980.

Torop 2000, p. 145.
The text parameter takes a look at poetic and literary technique. The first aspect
taken into account is that concerning the genre codes. When some expressions reflect a
typical formulation of a given literary genre (for example, "Once upon a time" recalls to
the mind the beginning of a fairy tale) in a text, it is important for the translator to grasp
the signal and, if possible, to reconstruct it. The translatability problems concern, above
all, those literary genres that are absent from the metatext culture.
Chronotopes 1. The translator must distinguish the problems related to the plot
chronotope (narration or narrator language), to the psychological chronotope, concerning
the expressive aura of characters, and to the metaphysical chronotope, regarding the
peculiar author's lexicon. The main translatability problems are related to complex
linguistic or poetic structures, to peculiar narrative modes of the characters, as in many
Leskov's tales 2. In particular, in the tale quoted below, the inner narrator orally tells a
story to people around him. There are many overlapping narration layers. We have a
spoken speech in writing, as we can note from the repetitions ("but") and verbal tense
incongruences. Please note that the oral speech is not only in quotes, but also in the
inner narrator's voice:
But Luk didn't have even a minute to talk, he doesn't answer grandpa, but quickly pushes
the icon out to the Englishman through the peephole. But he pushes it back as fast as he
has taken it.
"But how come" he says "there's no seal?"
Luk says:
"What do you mean, no seal?"
"But there's no seal" 3
It is called "expressive aura of the character" the perceptive coherence with which a
character is described. This implies a descriptive coherence first by the author, then by
the translator too. Otherwise, the metatext reader will not be able to individuate the
character with the same clearness of the prototext reader. Sometimes the editing without
the consultation of the translator - for example when the publisher wants a lexical
renewal of an old translation, as is often the case with the reprinting of classic works break the coherence in the perception of a character because the intervention is not
agreed upon with the translator. If such "renewals" remove the dated aspect of a
translation, they remove a fundamental affirmative trait too.
Torop rightly observes that the expressive aura of a character sometimes begins with
the name of the character, when it is meaningful: Dostoevskij's idiot is called Myshkin,
deriving from the name mshka, "little mouse".
Translatability problems arise from the peculiar lexical use by an author. There can be
favorite words, images, particular world views. There are lexical peculiarities linked to
literary currents, which must be recognizable.
The system of expressive means has to do with the rhythm of the text, the repetition of
elements, motives, metaphors, and connotations. Even in this case, it is fundamental for
the translator to be able to manage a like system of intratextual links.
The work parameter has to do with the creation of the metatext as a book, as a
published volume, sometimes with critical apparatuses, notes, afterword, chronologies,
etc. This parameter influences the perception of the work by the audience. The
translation text in itself, as interpretation of the prototext, can aim at reinforcing the idea
the audience already has of that work or, on the contrary, try and create a new one, elicit
a different reaction in the reader.
The presence of a metatext (extratextual apparatus) is, in some cases, necessary. In the
editions of classical works for the mass audience, the absence of a commentary is a real
belittling of the reader, in Gasparov's view 4. Moreover, the translations of Greek and
Latin classics must be published with didascalic general metatexts:
Offering such a system is the main task of the contemporary commentary that fully plays
its cultural role; and this implies not word-for-word, not interlinear, but coherent, essaylike explanations, of a type that has not yet been elaborated 5.
If someone holds that metatexts limit the reader's freedom, readers often do not have
the necessary information to understand a text polysemy, its mechanisms, and its
dominants.
The socio-political determinacy parameter concerns the forms of censure and
ideological manipulation of a translation. There are two possible cases: censure by the
translation buyers (in this case, the translator is a victim of the censure, and editing has
the purpose to create an editio purificata. Otherwise, the translator can abuse her role
and have the metatext express what effectively it does not.
Torop's parameters describing translatability/untranslatability are complementary and
not mutually exclusive. The categories have been chosen in order to be applicable not
only to interlingual translation, but to intersemiotic translation, as well.
In the next unit, we will examine a problem related to translatability: translation loss.
GASPAROV M. O perevodimom, perevodah i kommentarijah [On what is translated, on
translations, and on commentaries]. Literaturnoe obozrenie, n. 6, 1988, p. 45-48.
OSIMO B. Introduzione. In L'angelo sigillato. L'ebreo in Russia, by N. S. Leskv. Milano,
Mondadori, 1999, p. vxxxi.
Press], 1995. ISBN 9985-56-122-8.
1Chronotope, literally, means "timespace". In other words it expresses a text
coordinates, from which it is possible to calculate a diachronic (historical) and diatopic
(space) distance between a text and the culture onto which it is projected. The
topographic chronotope concerns the plot spacetime. The psychological chronotope
concerns the characters, their world view. The metaphysical chronotope concerns the
author's view. Torop 1984, p. 139-142.
2 Osimo 1999, p. xviii-xx.
3 Leskov, The Sealed Angel
4 Gasparov 1988, p. 48.
5 Gasparov 1988, p. 47.
34 - Loss, Redundancy, Translatability
In the preceding units, we dwelled on one of the fundamental problems in translation
studies: translatability. It is fundamental because it regards the recurring question of the
translatability of poetry, for example, and the other old saw of faithful/unfaithful
translations.
We would like to assure ourselves of having expressed clearly that neither of these
questions can be answered in absolute terms.
Discussion on the statement "poetry is translatable" does nothing to contribute to the
scientific debate nor does its contrary, nor "translations should be faithful", or even,
"translations should be free". We will discuss in greater detail some common clichs like
these in the third part of our course. Since the theme of this first part of the course is
fundamental concepts, we will limit ourselves to just indicating some possible perceptions
of the word "translatability", keeping in mind that, in this respect, there is nothing
absolute in any sense.
If one opts for an absolute position, the risk is to drift off into mysticism, as Walter
Benjamin did. In his opinion
the original sin [...] is also "the original sin of the linguistic spirit". [...] "Each superior
language is a translation of the inferior, until the deployment, in the ultimate clarity, of the
word of God, which is the unifying force of this linguistic movement". In other words, any
linguistic condition below Paradise, depending on the distance that separates it from
Paradise, that it has from Truth, is intent on redemption, it seeks translation as well 1.
From a practical point of view, it is much more useful to try, as Torop did, to classify the
different aspects of translatability. This gives the possibility to concretely intervene and
understand before we begin what, in a given situation, is translatable; then it will be
possible to decide how we can convey to the metatext reader what could not be provided
at the first instance.
Translatability problems are often originated by cultural differences. In cultures where
there is snow six months of the year, there are many verbs to express "to snow" and
many nouns to express "snow", depending on the quality of the snow: icy, wet, friable,
etc. Translating into a language/culture where snow is seldom seen, a word-for-word
translation is necessarily impossible. In countries like Italy or France, there are qualities
and varieties of cheese and wine that, elsewhere, could be simply unimaginable, and so
can be untranslatable. However, if the translator chooses to render "Chteau d'Yquem" as
"white wine" or "gorgonzola" as "cheese", she produces a huge and unforgivable
gastronomic loss.
There is the opposite case as well: translation from a culture in which there are fewer
categories in a given context (grammatical, cultural, etc.) into a culture with more
categories. In this case, the result of literal translation is redundant, has a surplus of
meaning, a situation so common that we hardly notice the phenomenon any more. An
excellent example is the presence/absence of the article as a grammatical category, as
we have shown in the unit 32, with the Russian word roza.
Another example is the expression "New York City" in non-English languages. In
languages like Italian, where cities are preceded by an article while states are not, it is a
redundant expression. "Vado a New York City" has the same meaning as "Vado a New
York". In English, it is necessary to specify "city" in order to distinguish it from the state.
In Italian, this is redundant because, if one means the state, one must say "Vado nel New
York". Washington D.C. would propose a similar problem. In Italian, as in other
languages, the "D.C." is redundant because one who wishes to indicate the state would
use the appropriate article: "Vado a Washington" or "Vado nel Washington"
Continuing with toponyms, the title of Wim Wenders' film Paris, Texas was not
translated when the film was distributed in Europe, otherwise Europeans would not have
understood that the title is about an American city called "Paris", rather than the French
capital. Americans tend to express the names of non-US towns this way, too, writing, for
example, "Strasburg, France", "Tallinn, Estonia", or "Helsinki, Finland". When one who
translates from English uses this kind of expression, it sounds very strange in the
receiving culture. For a European citizen it is obvious that Tallinn is in Estonia, and the
expression is redundant. It would sound equally strange to a US citizen if a text read

"The White House, Washington D.C.".
Unfortunately, translation is not a matter so simple that it is possible to learn only some
general rules, and that is not our intent in this case, anyway either. Nevertheless, we
would like to point out some extreme examples of translation loss and redundancy. Here
is a puzzling sentence from an Armenian fairy tale.
A Bedouin went to the hag. During tavaf, his dastar was stolen 2.
This translator complied absolutely with the principle of transliteration of cultural words.
We agree that it would not make any sense to standardize all realia, in this way
A man went to the temple. During the service, his hat was stolen.
nor to nationalize them, to appropriate them:
Bill went to the McDonald's. While he gulped his cheeseburger, his Stetson was stolen.
That sounds neither very Armenian, nor very fairy-tale-like. However, it is necessary for
the text to be understandable, and the quoted translation of the Armenian fairy tale is
not.
An on-going and complex argument translated into practical terms suggests the
distinction into different types of texts and different types of receivers. I remember a
student, during the discussion of his translation dissertation, explain the term "chipper" to
the committee, which was not translated, but simply echoed in other languages, for
example "cippatore", creating neologisms known only in a restricted technical area. Any
philologist would have protested but, being an object of practical use, any other word
would have hampered communication.
Undoubtedly, a reader must allow for a certain amount of effort in understanding a text
that comes from a different culture. Some of the most famous translations penetrated
cultures with locutions that, at first initially caused dismay and confusion. Shultz's "Great
Pumpkin" was at first received with disquiet by non-English-speaking readers. Now Linus'
name is closely related to the "Grande Cocomero", or "La Grande Citrouille" or "De Grote
Pompoen", or "HaDla'at HaGdolah" in their respective versions of the Peanuts streap.
The translator must know very well, not only the language, but also, more importantly,
the culture of the prototext. It is necessary to distinguish realia from common words, and
keep in mind that, what in the prototext may pass absolutely unobserved, in the metatext
can have a strong exotic connotation. It is crucial, as we have often said, to analyze the
dominants of the text to be translated. The translator must focus on the translatability of
the dominants of a given text for a given audience. Subdominants, to be placed
hierarchically in order of importance within the given context, can even be translated
without/outside the text, in the critical apparatus or metatext: footnotes, endnotes,
chronology, notes on the author, reviews, encyclopedic items, maps, glossaries, and so
on.
APEL F. Sprachbewegung: eine historisch-poetologische Untersuchung zum Problem des
bersetzen, Heidelberg, Winter, 1982, ISBN 3533031071. Italian edition: Il movimento
del linguaggio. Una ricerca sul problema del tradurre. Edited by Emilio Mattioli and
Riccarda Novello. Milano, Marcos y Marcos, 1997. ISBN 88-7168-188-6.
HACHATURJAN N. Realija i perevodimost. (O russkih izdanijah skazok O. Tumanjana). In

Masterstvo perevoda, n. 9, Moskv, Sovetskij pisatel, 1973, p. 42-61.
1
2
Apel 1997, p. 193.

Hacaturjan 1973, p. 47-48.
35 - Translation as cultural mediation

ON THE NET - in italian
GINZBURG N.
In unit 17, while covering intertextual translation, we have already seen the Lotmanian
concept of "semiosphere", that implies the definition of the concept of "limit" or "border".
The first limit that human beings have to cope with during the early months of their lives
is that between their inner sphere and the exterior world.
The infant does not perceive specific limits. At first, he may consider his mother's breast
- an object he often comes into contact with - to be far more "his own" than the tip of his
foot, which he will perhaps discover later on, during an expedition aimed at exploring
what, for the time being, is generically the outer world, the outer reality.
Also the infant recognizes features that are his own and features that belong to others:
this is proved by the fact that, for example, the image of his mother's face (and the same
goes for other figures that play a similar role, like the father, the baby sitter etc.) or the
sound of her voice can calm the infant.
When the infant is about seven or eight months old, he usually develops the so-called
"stranger anxiety": he has learnt how to recognize the familiar figures (his own) and to
trust them, and he is now learning to be wary of any that are new or strange (others').
Moreover, in unit 5, we observed how the perception of the meaning of a word is
weighed through our individual experience, how the semantic spectrum of a word cannot
be exactly identical for two speakers, since it is partially built on the basis of individual
experience.
Communication, at any rate, is a possible activity, even though a "total communication"
in inexistent and any communicative act, as we have seen, produces a loss.
The translator must take upon herself, not only linguistic mediation, but also the task of
cultural mediation - an activity that everybody carries out, more or less consciously.
Within each natural language we can express anything in various ways, which can often
depend on the familiar, local, regional, or national culture: the semiosphere, adopting
Lotman's term, is made up of cells and sub-cells: the smallest one being the individual;
the largest one, the universe. In between, we find sets containing more individuals, which
may share some communicative modalities, such as the family:
Nella mia casa paterna, quand'ero ragazzina, a tavola, se io o i miei fratelli rovesciavamo
il bicchiere sulla tovaglia, o lasciavamo cadere un coltello, la voce di mio padre tuonava:
Non fate malagrazie!
Se inzuppavamo il pane nella salsa, gridava: Non leccate i piatti! Non fate sbrodeghezzi!
non fate potacci!
Sbrodeghezzi e potacci erano, per mio padre, anche i quadri moderni, che non poteva
soffrire.
Diceva: Voialtri non sapete stare a tavola! Non siete gente da portare nei loghi!1.
We think that the incipit of Lessico Famigliare by Natalia Ginzburg is a good example of
how, within the framework of the Italian language, every family can create its own
culture, as opposed to the culture of the rest of Italian society. "Malagrazie",
"sbrodeghezzi", "potacci", and "loghi" are words that cannot be found on any Italian
dictionary. Natalia Ginzburg proposed herself as a cultural mediator between her own
family of origin and the standard language, and intralingually translated for the reader
some lexical peculiarities which, otherwise, in most cases are lost with the people who
made them up and made use of them, often unconsciously.
Cultural mediation, which is part of translation, is, therefore, an activity that we all carry
out in our daily lives.
[...] any form of dialogue or constructive communication is based, at its origins, on the
sharing of emotions as are the first definitions a child builds to "make sense" of the
world. The capillary action that the act of mediation plays on our culture must necessarily
pass through an education toward empathy 2.
Not only do we carry out cultural mediation every day, but we also know how to diversify
this activity according to the kind of relationship existing among individuals from the
affective point of view:
If two persons are linked by friendship or, anyway, if there is any underlying
communicative intention between them, words are understood in a thoroughly different
way from those exchanged between enemies or persons who are indifferent one to
another 3.
The translator is a special mediator who, unlike the mediator in psychology, must
concentrate on the cultural rather than on the affective bonds:
[...] anyone who has the honor and the difficulty to be a person must be, after all, a
"mediator". He has the right and a duty to care about other's difficulties, to intervene
between antagonists, to create links where links are no longer or where they have grown
weak4.
After what we have said, it is apparent that - even before dealing with the linguistic
difference between prototext and receiving culture - the translator must know who is the
addressee of his mediation work, his Model Reader. This may alter considerably the
formulation of his translation strategy.
Here is an example concerning intralinguistic translation. Every Monday, Francesco
Alberoni writes an article for the front page of Corriere della Sera, one of the most widely
distributed Italian newspapers, bestowing pieces of advice. Who is his Model Reader? Let
us look at what he says in one of his articles:
What should we do when the situation in which we live is unbearable? [...]
disappointments push us to close within ourselves [...] We refuse to learn or to study. [...]
Geniuses avoid being caught up in such nonsense and concentrate only on the thing that
counts5.
He seems to be addressing someone who is frustrated, lazy, and not very cultured. His
article - far longer than the passage we have quoted here - says nothing but obvious
things. It could be summarized in a few words: "If you are stressed due to the strong
competition that characterizes our society, concentrate your efforts on innovation".
Had he written this sentence, he would not have taken his Model Reader into account;
however, in a nutshell, that is the exact meaning of his article. Alberoni was good at
translating, at mediating between the straightforwardness of the message and the need
for reassurance a clerk, on the subway, on Monday morning feels before entering his
office where a not very pleasant routine awaits him.
The reader who is swept away by the strategy of the author of this article, after feeling
involved (but not offended) by certain allusions to frustration - that is to say, after
realizing that Alberoni is sympathetic towards him - at the end of the article receives
another encouragement: you can consider yourself a genius if you manage to
concentrate on an objective without distracting your attention.
It is understood that a translator working on texts in two different languages has the
author of the original, with his own considerations about his own Model Reader behind
her; however, the Model Reader of the prototext does not always coincide with that of the
metatext. This is due both to the cultural differences between the two societies (for
example, in the receiving culture the middle class, which the Model Reader may belong
to, may be less developed), and to the differences concerning the publishing policy, in
which the translator rarely has a strong say.
We will expand on these topics, which we have only mentioned here, in the third part of
this course, dedicated to production.
CASTELLI S. La mediazione. Teorie e tecniche. Milano, Cortina, 1996. ISBN 88-7078-391X.
GINZBURG N. Lessico famigliare. Torino, Einaudi, 1972 [1963].
TREVARTHEN C. Sharing makes sense: intersubjectivity and the making of an infant's
meaning. InLanguage Topics. Essays in Honour of Michael Halliday, ed by R. Steele et al,
Amsterdam, Benjamins, 1987.
1
2
3
4
5
Ginzburg 1972, p. 9.
Castelli 1996, p. 63.
Corriere della sera, 18 settembre 2000.
36 - Intersemiotic translation - part 1

In various parts of the course (starting from unit 8, when we dealt with the subdivision of
the different kinds of translation according to JAkobsn), we said that a translation from
one system of signs (for example, the verbal system) into another system of signs (for
example, a non-verbal system) and vice versa definitely falls into the field of translation
studies. In this case, the fact that at one end of the translation process there is not a
verbal text does not make it any less important; on the contrary, due to some
implications, it becomes of crucial importance to describe the translation process in
general.
Instead of considering an intersemiotic translation as a borderline case that JAkobsn,

for some reason, dragged into that classic essay on the linguistic aspects of translation
(probably the most quoted traductological essay ever), it would be better, for this reason,
to consider it an activity that enables us to redesign the translation process from new
(therefore, very interesting) points of view.
In order to do that, we need to extend the concept of "text". Segre says:
In common usage, text, deriving from the Latin TEXTUS, 'fabric', develops a metaphor in
which the words forming a work are seen, in view of the links that join them, as a
weaving. This metaphor, anticipating the observations about the cohesion of a text, hints,
in particular, at the content of the text, what is written within a work1.
If we interpret this in its broadest sense, without taking into account the fact that Segre
is referring to "words" and "written", we can transfer the concept of text to any work,
even musical, pictorial, filmic works and so on. In these other cases, too, the work is a
consistent and coherent fabric, "a system of structures that are co-implicated at various
levels, so that each element takes on a value in relation to the others"2.
Steiner also agrees with those who involve intersemiotic translation in the broader
science of translation:
A "theory" of translation, a "theory" of semantic transfer, must mean one of two things. It
is either an intentionally sharpened, hermeneutically oriented way of the totality of
semantic communication (including Jakobson's intersemiotic translation or
"transmutation"). Or it is a subsection of such a model with specific reference to
interlingual exchanges, to the emission and reception of significant messages between
different languages. [...] The "totalizing" designation is the more instructive because it
argues the fact that all procedures of expressive articulation and interpretative reception
are translational, whether intra- or interlingually3.
Now we will try to prove that it is useful, from a methodological point of view, to include
intersemiotic translation in the search for a generic description of the translation process.
First, we need to stress that there are some differences between verbal languages - that
are discrete - and iconic languages (such as painting and figurative arts in general) - that
are continuous 4. What does that mean? That in discrete languages we can tell one sign
from another, whereas in continuous languages the text is not divisible into discrete
signs. If a painting represents a tree, it is not easy to divide that text into single signs.
Lotman efficiently explained this:
The impossibility of an exact translation of texts from discrete languages into nondiscrete languages and vice versa depends on their principally different nature: in discrete
linguistic systems, text is secondary in relation to sign, i.e. is divided distinctly into signs.
To isolate the sign as an initial elementary unit does not present any difficulty. In
continuous languages, text is primary: it is not divided into signs, but it is itself a sign, or
it is isomorphic to a sign5.
We said, more than once, that any kind of communicative act, including any kind of
translation process, is never complete, we always have a loss: a part of the message that
does not reach its destination. In the next unit, we will see what this implies within
intersemiotic translation.
MARCHESE, A. Dizionario di retorica e di stilistica. Milano, Mondadori, 1991. ISBN
88-04-14664-8.
SEGRE C. Avviamento all'analisi del testo letterario. Torino, Einaudi, 1985. ISBN
88-06-58735-8.
STEINER G. After Babel. Aspects of Language and Translation. Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 1992.
88-8049-195-4. Or. edTotalnyj perevod. Tartu, Tartu likooli Kirjastus [Tartu University
Press], 1995. ISBN 9985-56-122-8.
1
2
3
4
5
Segre 1985, p. 28-29.

Marchese 1991, p. 323.
Steiner 1992, p. 293-294.
Torop 2000, p. 134-135.
Lotman 1992, p. 38.
37 - Intersemiotic translation - part 2

In intersemiotic translation, like in any kind of translation in general, instead of pretend
that it is possible to translate/communicate everything, against the evidence, it is
advisable to take the loss into account from the start and, consequently, to work out a
translation strategy that rationally enables us to decide what are the most distinctive
components of the text and, conversely, those that can be sacrificed in favor of the
translatability of another aspect of the text. Clver says that a translated text is inevitably
not equivalent to the prototext and, at the same time, it contains something more or
something less with respect to the prototext.
Any translation will inevitably offer both less and more than the source text. A translator's
success will depend [...] also on the decisions made as to what may be sacrificed [...]1.
In substance, what Clver says can be linked to what we have already said about the
dominant (see, in particular, unit 19). Before approaching a text, the translator must
make a series of decisions aimed at pinpointing the dominant of the text, not only in an
intrinsic sense but also in function of the cultural context in which the original is located,
within the culture where it was originated, and the cultural context onto which the
original is projected, within the receiving culture.
When we translate one text into another, the series of decisions made may not be
completely apparent to the reader of the translation if, for example, there is not a
translator's afterword or another sort of metatext explaining the reason of her choices.
Sometimes even the translator is unaware of her own choices, because she made them
irrationally: she approached the translation, if you can accept the expression, without
consciousness. In this case, the translation strategy is simply random.
One of the reasons for such irrationality is that, at any rate, both at the beginning and
at the end of the translation process we have a text. If we do not analyze thoroughly its
differences, what was lost in the passage from the original may escape our notice.
Denotative, connotative aspects, images, sounds, rhythms, syntactic structures, lexical
coherence, intratextual, intertextual references, and so on: some of these components
may not be found in the translated text, but this is not necessarily apparent.
Conversely, when one of the two texts in an intertextual translation is not verbal, the
choice between the parts to be translated and those that must be sacrificed is far more
apparent. Indeed, the intersemiotic translator, willing or not, is forced to divide the
original text into parts. It does not matter how: denotation/connotation, expression/
content, dialogues/descriptions, intertextual/intratextual references etc. Then she must
disassemble the prototext into these parts, find a translating element for each of them,
and reassemble them recreating the coherence and cohesion, which - as we have just
observed - is the essence of a text.
Let us take filmic translation for example. Torop expressed an interesting opinion about
it:
The main difference between film and literary work lies in the fact that literature is fixed
in a written form, while in a film the image (representation) is supported by the sound, in
form of music or words2.
The difference that Torop highlighted concerns the written word and the pronounced
word. In films, the former is used rarely whereas dialogue is given much space. A filmic
composition can be divided into different elements: dialogue between characters, the
physical setting, possible voice-overs, the musical score, the editing, the framing, lighting,
coloration, close-up or not, perspective, the composition of the frame and, in the case of
human voice, also the timbre and the intonation. In order to carry on the filmic
translation of a verbal text, a rational subdivision of the original is inevitable for deciding
to what elements of the filmic composition to entrust the translation of given stylistic or
narratological elements of the prototext.
Here are some examples. Let us suppose we have to deal with the filmic translation of a
novel. The author of the screenplay may decide to take the dialogues of the textual
original and to use them exactly as they are in the film. This is what happened in most of
Nick Dear's film version of Pride and Prejudice made for the BBC 3.
There are other aspects of the prototext that can, however, be rendered in various
ways. Let us go on about the Austen's film version; in the text, when Elizabeth Bennet
receives a letter, the narrator obviously recounts it, whereas in the film we can see the
actress, Jennifer Ehle, open the envelope, and read the letter. Part of the text is read in
voice-over (by the actress herself), while other parts serve as a sound background for
other scenes (basically, we have a flashforward of the images with respect to the sound).
Other parts are seen from the sender's point of view as he writes them, as it happens
with a letter from Darcy, with a quick flashback.
Other parts of the film translation are necessarily interpreted in a freer way. Let us take,
for example, the music that accompanies many dances. In the absence of a specific
suggestion by the author, the screenwriter was obliged to choose arbitrarily - from the
repertoire of English dance music between the 18th and the 19th centuries - those used
for the soundtrack. Jane Austen's style, her way of narrating, probably represents another
inevitable translation loss.
We have said that intersemiotic translation implies a sort of subdivision of the original
into various elements and the identification of components able to translate said elements
within the coherence of the translated text.
The same is equally valid for textual and intertextual translation.

At a more general level, we can say that to translate means to rationalize. If, in the
original, some ambiguous or polysemic elements are found, first of all the translator must
read them, identify them, interpret them and then she must translate what is
translatable, in a rational way. This may lead us to think that, in a translated text, it is
easier to distinguish the various elements of the work, that there are fewer ambiguous
passages, or that the polysemy of words is diluted.
When the translated text, however, is built in an extra-literary code, like with translation
into film, we observe a paradox: in a film it is more difficult to tell the expression plane
from the content plane; with respect to a written text, it is more difficult to analyze the
series of images, sounds and words in motion. For this reason, in a film (as well as in
poetry), an artistic device based on a more irrational principle may appear more marked
than in written prose.
Is, then, the filmic version of a novel simultaneously more rational and less rational than
the original? Notwithstanding the intrinsic prevalence of the irrational component in films
or in painting or in music - namely, in the product of the translation process - it is evident
that the process is, at any rate, more rational. To say the least, in the translator's mind it
is clear what element translates a given component, and what components are left
untranslated (lost).
Let us take the case of Prokofev's Peter and the Wolf. In some versions for children,
there is even a sort of "preface" explaining what musical instruments correspond to which
characters of the fable so that, once the interpreter has made his choice, the latter is
evident to the user too. In this case, the translation criteria are apparent, as well as what
was transposed into music, what could be found in the fable and what was remaining as
a translation loss.
One last aspect of intersemiotic translation that we would like to take into consideration
is that of translatability. Since the original text and the translated text, or metatext, are
not easily comparable in terms of specific criteria, the concepts of "translatability" and
"accuracy" can only be considered in conventional terms. Textual translation follows the
principle according to which an original can possibly have many different translations, all
of them potentially accurate; such potentiality is even more developed in intersemiotic
translation, to such an extent that any attempt to retranslate a text into its original
language - hoping to recreate, as a result, the original text - is inconceivable. As Torop
says, it is not possible to recognize a text that has been reverse-translated, because it will
result in a new text 4.
AUSTEN J. Pride and Prejudice. Screenplay by Nick Dear, London, BBC, 1995.
CLVER, C. On intersemiotic transposition. Poetics Today, vol. 10, n. 1, Tel Aviv, The
Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, 1989.
Press], 1995. ISBN 9985-56-122-8.
1
2
3
4
Clver 1989, p. 61.

Torop 2000, p. 300.
Austen 1995.
Lotman 1992, p. 35-36. Torop 2000, p. 135.
38 - Translation and theory of models

As we have observed, there are various possible models of the translation process and
each one tends to emphasize certain components to the detriment of others.
In the first units of the course, we dealt with the translation process especially as a
mental process, highlighting the implications involving the translator's psyche and the
required mental processing.
Subsequently, underlining the importance of culture in translation, we compared the
world culture system, of semiosphere, to a gigantic intertext, inside which all texts are
translations that do not necessarily have to be interlingual. No texts are "virgin" or "pure"
because, within the complex system of mutual influences, writers - aware or unaware 1,
willing or not - rely on a pre-existing cultural heritage.
From this point of view, we can categorize a text according to whether or not it adds
something to what has been written. In this latter case, we can single out various other
possibilities:
1.
text that, without adding new concepts, address different categories of readers: for
example, educational texts explaining to the general public concepts that were
previously expounded in scientific texts (vulgarization, popularization, adaptation,
education);
2.
texts that, without adding new concepts, address readers of different cultures/
languages, to whom - otherwise - the prototexts would be inaccessible (interlingual
translations, articles, items of encyclopedias);
3.
texts that, without adding new concepts, take the place of prototexts denying their
existence, claiming to be prototexts (plagiarism, falsification).
However, in addition to these analytical approaches - and others that we have not
mentioned here, such as the linguistic and the normative ones - it is also possible to
consider translation itself as a model: the translated text represents, either explicitly or
implicitly, a previous text2, or prototext. Like in the relationship between prototype and
model, the product is not reversible in the relationship between prototext and prototext.
In other words, if we translate a text into another language and then we ask someone
to translate the translation back into the original language (inverse translation), we will
not obtain, as a result, the prototext, the original. As we have stressed many times, this
is due to the fact that the result of the translation process depends on the dominant
chosen by the translator and on how the subdominants are collocated in hierarchic order.
Consequently, as we clearly observed from Torop's oft quoted scheme, not only are there
various adequate translations, but also there are various kinds of adequate translation of
one same text. Moreover, neither within the field of didactics (where the existence of the
translation normative model theoretically makes more sense) is it possible to determine
which of the two adequate translations is "the best".
Another element that, as Hermans stresses, the translation and model notions have in
common is that, in order to be considered a translation, it is necessary for a social group
to consider it such3.
In other words, if I translated a sonnet by Shakespeare into Italian and passed it off as
mine, until the day I were exposed, that sonnet might circulate as an original text, or
prototext.
The same goes for the inverse situation: if I published a book of my own poetry stating
that it is an anthology of translations of contemporary poets from all over the world, the
text might circulate as a metatext and everyone would consider it as an (interlingual)
translation.
Such difference becomes particularly important in those cultures in which a different
status is attached to translated text with respect to the originals: conversely, there are, or
there might be, cultures in which - once it is established that texts do not appear from
thin air - all texts are equated with metatexts, with "translations" (were they interlingual
translations or not).
Another element that model and translation have in common is the fact that they are
subject to certain rules. Even if we refuse the concept according to which translation
cannot be taught as a set of rules, within a given culture there are, at any rate, some
social norms, which - maybe unconsciously - induce translators to produce metatexts that
are considered acceptable (in that culture).
Here, the concept of model translation and the concept of cultural model intersect; the
former may yield different concrete results according to the concrete culture in which it is
materialized 4.
If, for instance, an English translator decided to translate the famous Chekhov's play
"The Cherry Orchard" as "The Morello Cherry Orchard" or "The Sour Cherry Orchard", on
the basis of a more careful analysis of the original Vishnevyj sad, and considering the
canonical English title to be quite aged and not a very suitable translation of the original,
her choice would hardly be accepted by the English-speaking cultures. In this case we
would have two possibilities: either has the translator enough social and economic
influence so as to prove that her choice is adequate and to have the literary market
accept it, or otherwise she would be forced to fall back on the accepted title.
This brief overview of the models/translations relation served as an introduction for the
subject of the next unit: translators in society.
BLOOM H. Poetry and Repression: Revisionism from Blake to Stevens. New Haven, Yale
University Press, 1976. Traduzione italiana: L'angoscia dell'influenza. Una teoria della
poesia, a cura di Mario Diacono, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1983. ISBN 88-07-10001-0.
HERMANS T. Models of translation. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies.
London, Routledge, 1998, p. 154-157. ISBN 0-415-09380-5.
1
2
3
4
Bloom 1976.
Hermans 1998, p. 156.
Hermans 1998, p. 156.
Hermans 1998, p. 157.
39 - Translators in society
ON THE NET - in italian
Lumet Sidney
Translators are social animals, because to translate means to communicate. Translators
are also cultural animals if, as we said, translation is first of all the translation of one
culture into another. In this respect, whoever belongs to a community - meant as social
group in the broadest sense of the term - and must deal with people who do not belong
to that community is obliged to translate in order to communicate from within to the
outside of the social group. In every community, communication is based on an extremely
high percentage of elements that are taken for granted as assimilated around which the
communication takes place. If a message started from a compendium of all the
assimilated data, it would be interminable.
However, since in every community the obvious, assimilated data may vary, those who
live within it and operate outside that community must carry out translations.
A good example may be Sydney Lumet's film A Stranger Among Us1. A policewoman has
to investigate within a Hassidic Jewish community in New York and, in order to do it, she
must pretend to be a member of that community. The whole film is centered around the
translation problems between the culture of the Hassidic community and the broader
standard culture of New York.
If we imagine the cultural universe as a giant organism composed of cells - according to
the biological metaphor which Lotman took from Vernadskij - translation is an activity
that takes place at membrane level: the translation between the individual and the
outside takes place within the membranes of the smallest cells (individuals), as we said in
unit 35. The translation between the inside and the outside of the communities takes
place within the membranes of sets of cells (community, families, social groups, clubs,
associations, etc.).
As we saw in unit 17, Lotman dealt with the concept of "limit" or "border", which
represents the separation element between one's own and the other's and creates the
chance to communicate through the activity of translation.
But is the translator in the center of society (being an operator of the communication)
or is he on its sidelines (being relegated to the "membrane")?
Translation could be a solitary activity if, in most cases, the translator must have at her
disposal remote-communication tools such as telephone, fax and email. The use of these
instruments is spreading, the potentialities of computer-mediated communications are
increasing and, simultaneously, communication costs are being reduced; all this makes
the physical distance between the translator and the customer a less and less important
factor.
We can also see the problem from another point of view: if it's true that the translator
can work from whatever country she likes, it is also true that she manages to find work
with difficulty and, consequently, has difficulty in making her name circulate in the
society, unless she has created a series of social relationships

become a well-known professional.
aimed at allowing her to
The translator is an oxymoron: she is in the center of the society and, simultaneously,
on its sidelines. In the center, because of everything we have said about her fundamental
function in the communication system; on the sidelines because, by definition, she works
at the border between two cultures/languages. In the center, because a very high portion
of the press is made of translations; on the sidelines because, in many cases, it is denied
or ignored that they are translations or, when it is not denied, the translator's role (and
name) is hardly ever brought to light.
Some translators complain about this, while it would be more useful to understand what
the reasons are behind it. Evidently, a culture of translation is missing and, for many
generations, there were no institutions teaching translation. There are still people
convinced that there is no need for a culture of translation, that an engineering text
should be translated by an engineer, that a literary text should be translated by a writer,
and so on.
Fortunately, in many parts of the world the University Institutes for translators and
interpreters have the same structure. Such institutes - in line with the more general
university structure - are organized into a common triennium, at the end of which
students obtain a diploma in linguistic mediation, and a further biennium subdivided into
three different courses (technical-scientific translation, literary translation, conference
interpreting), at the end of which students obtain a master's degree.
Translators can be subdivided in various ways. There are translators employed in
companies where they do clerical work and translate or write documents in various
languages.
There are also freelance translators who work inside and outside the publishing industry.
Such distinction follows pragmatic criteria rather than ontological ones.
Translators who do not work for publishers - and who are often called "technical"
translators, even if they do not only deal with technical texts - are considered alike any
other freelancer.
Translators who work for publishers - and who are often called "literary" translators
even if they deal with non-fiction or scientific texts - usually provide a collaboration
whose consistency is quite variable. From the tax viewpoint, they are equated to writers.
In both fields, but especially outside the publishing industry, there are a number of
small and medium companies that gather the translators' labor force in various ways:
translators' cooperatives and associations, which represent the fairest form of

organization: the resources (premises, equipment, capability) are in common, but
profits are distributed in proportion to availability and capability;
big translation companies (like Logos, that gives space to this course), where we
find both external translators - who provide their collaboration - and internal
translators who are usually responsible for a linguistic combination or a sector;
translation agencies. There are various kinds, but they are all based on the same
concept; the commercial mediator (between customer and translator) gets a
brokerage commission, whereas the translator earns a part (often paltry) of the
original compensation.
There are trading associations and awards for translators, but the bulk of the activity
takes place outside these circuits. Translators themselves find it difficult to identify with
their group and, despite their shared job titles, there are remarkable differences, also at
the practical level, between a literary translator who works for the publishing industry and
a translator of manuals; therefore, the concept of "defense of the profession" becomes
quite abstract.
Now that the institutional basis for translators' university education has been laid and
the disciplinary self-consciousness of translation science is increasing exponentially, we
can expect nothing less than a better tomorrow.
LUMET S. A Stranger Among Us. Con M. Griffith, E. Thal. Usa, 1992.
ROBINSON D. Becoming a Translator. An Accelerated Course. London, Routledge, 1997.
ISBN 0-415-14861-8.
1
2
Lumet 1992.
Robinson 1977, p. 203.
40 - Perception, production, tools,

reception
We have arrived at the last unit of the first part of this translation course, which was
first published on the site http://www.logos.it and subsequently in the traditional form of
a paper volume. Now it is time to summarize and explain how we are going to carry out
the following stages of the course.
Those who followed the on-line course had the chance to see its general index, which
contains - in outline - the structure of all its five parts. It is a course on general
translation, that is to say it does not address specific linguistic combinations, but aims at
providing any translator or student of translation with some basic knowledge.
The first part served as an introduction: we tried to lay the theoretical basis of the
fundamental concepts, without expounding on the single stages of the translation
process.
The next part of the course - which will be on-line in the year 2001 - is dedicated to the
first of the four stages into which we tried to divide the translation process: perception.
The translator is in a peculiar position within the communication system: she is the
reader of the original prototext and the author of the translated metatext. We decided,
therefore, to pinpoint the first stage of the translation process in the reader's and, more
specifically, in the translator's perception of the text - as we touched upon in units 6 and
7 of this first part.
The second part of the course - divided into 40 units - will deal with the issue of the
perception and interpretation of the text, the issue of the hermeneutic circle of the
translated text, the problems that concern the translation-oriented analysis of the text,
the problems of the dominant and the translation strategies.
The third part - dedicated to production - deals with that stage of the translation
process in which the text is projected as the translator perceives it into the receiving
language and culture. The problem of the chronotope and of the chronotopic distance
between the original and the translation becomes, at this point, of crucial importance. A
new element comes into play upon the stage of the translator's perception of the original:
the addressee, the Model Reader around whom the translation strategies are created.
Furthermore, the part dedicated to production represents an excellent chance to deal
with some clichs found in translation studies: the concepts of adaptation, accuracy,
equivalence, and freedom. Eventually, it will be possible to examine the various kinds of
translation, with their individual peculiarities. We will analyze the technical-scientific
translation, along with the issues concerning the various jargons, the translation for
cinema and television, the poetic translation, and some other subtypes of translation.
Moreover, in order to produce a text it is important to know some rules concerning the
wording of texts in general. At the beginning of this first part we examined the ISO rule
dedicated to translation, while in the third part of the course we will examine some of the
ISO rules concerning indexes, summaries, bibliography, editorial rules, use of inverted
commas and of punctuation marks and so on.
The fourth part of the course, called "tools", is a sort of appendix to the previous one.
While in "Production" we will analyze that stage of the translation process in which the
translated text is created, here we will examine the tools with which it is physically
possible to produce the text. In this category, we can find the technological tools, paper,
computer, and Internet resources, translation memories, terminological databases, and
the tools for the lexical and style analysis.
The fifth part, dedicated to Reception, concerns the way in which the metatext, the
translated text, enters the receiving culture and is accepted. At first glance, it might seem
that this stage no longer concerns the translator, but rather the publisher, or the
marketing agent or the expert in culturology and relationships among cultures. In reality,
we are positive that it is fundamental to know the final destination of a translated text, in
order to comprehend the working of the translation process that produced it and to
understand how to plan a translation strategy as well as how to imagine a Model Reader.
Those who followed the course, either in its Internet or in its paper version, will have
the chance to take an exam and receive certification for each exam passed. An exam will
be offered for each of the parts into which the course is divided. Three annual sessions
will be organized, in February, June, and October. Those who pass the exams will receive
a certificate that will attest both the attendance and the accomplishment of the
candidate.
The exercises, which can be found in the Appendix, will serve as a valuable tool to
check one's level of accomplishment, also in view of the exam.

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22 - The translation process - part 4

ON THE NET - english

expressive (or receptive) translation. This type of translation is realized when, in

If he had known what wound

wound that had seared my Tanyas

burned my Tatianas heart

If Tanyad had the chance of learning

If Tatiana had been aware,

that Lensky and Eugene, apart,

if she could have known

would settle, on the morrow morning,

that Lenski and Eugene tomorrow

for which of them the tomb was

were to compete for the tombs shelter,

perhaps her love could in the end

ah, possibly her love

have reunited friend to friend!

might have conjoined the friends again!

But, even by accident, her passion

But even by chance that passion

was undiscovered to that day.

no one had yet discovered.

Onegin had no word to say;

Tatiana pined away in secret;

of the whole world, her nurse alone,

alone the nurse might have known -

if not slow-witted, might have known.

but then she was slow-witted.

recoding/transposition, i.e. the distinction between expression plane translation

analysis/synthesis, i.e. the distinction between the part of the translation

dominant/autonomous: it is perhaps the most difficult distinction, because the

PUSHKIN A. Eugene Onegin. translated by Charles Johnston with an introduction by John

Nida, Taber 1969, p. 23.

The English version is to be published by 2001.

Chomsky 1976, p. 182.

Torop proposes to take advantage of the opportunities offered by a book. Since a

Torop 2000, p. 129.

Egorov 1999, p. 48-49.

29 - Lotman and translatability - part 2

30 - Peirce and translatability

translatability as a cultural-linguistic and poetic aspect of the text: the approach

translatability as pre-definability of the reception of a text in a given culture; in this

metatext complementary (book):

(tendentious) purification of the texts

32 - Torop and translatability - part 2

Vlachov , Florin 1980.

expression is redundant. It would sound equally strange to a US citizen if a text read

HACHATURJAN N. Realija i perevodimost. (O russkih izdanijah skazok O. Tumanjana). In

Apel 1997, p. 193.

35 - Translation as cultural mediation

36 - Intersemiotic translation - part 1

Instead of considering an intersemiotic translation as a borderline case that JAkobsn,

Segre 1985, p. 28-29.

37 - Intersemiotic translation - part 2

The same is equally valid for textual and intertextual translation.

Clver 1989, p. 61.

38 - Translation and theory of models

society, unless she has created a series of social relationships

aimed at allowing her to

translators' cooperatives and associations, which represent the fairest form of

40 - Perception, production, tools,

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