Meaningfulness, the unsaid and translatability: Instead of an introduction

• Authors: Artemij Keidan
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The present paper opens this topical issue on translation techniques by drawing a theoretical basis for the discussion of translational issues in a linguistic perspective. In order to forward an audienceoriented definition of translation, I will describe different forms of linguistic variability, highlighting how they present different difficulties to translators, with an emphasis on the semantic and communicative complexity that a source text can exhibit. The problem is then further discussed through a comparison between Quine's radically holistic position and the translatability principle supported by such semanticists as Katz. General translatability - at the expense of additional complexity - is eventually proposed as a possible synthesis of this debate. In describing the meaningfulness levels of source texts through Hjelmslevian semiotics, and his semiotic hierarchy in particular, the paper attempts to go beyond denotative semiotic, and reframe some translational issues in a connotative semiotic and metasemiotic perspective.

Keywords

EN

linguistic diversity; translatability; Hjelmslevian semiotics

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Open Linguistics
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 1
• Issue: 1

Dates

received

2015-02-16

accepted

2015-07-31

online

2015-11-03

Contributors

author

Artemij Keidan

• Sapienza University of Rome

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Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/opli-2015-0023