Translating as a mode of thinking translation as a model of thought

Abstract

This article approaches translation and translation studies from a philosophical perspective. Theories and ideas, by George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, Mark Turner, Fredson Bowers, etc., are discussed. The basic issues in the field of translation studies, such as translatability, fidelity, pluri‐signification, and decoding and reconstructing of meaning are touched upon. Translating is illustrated as a mode of thinking combining communication, decoding, and transforming. It is argued that such processes of thought as transmitting and receiving, deducing, inferring and intuiting, and interpreting, imagining, and inventing are inherently involved. Translation is categorized into three types: ‘surrogate’, ‘contingent’, and ‘co‐eval’, on the basis of three different views of the world dependent on a point of departure which ranges from subjective interpretation to extreme objectivity or utmost reality. The study of translation comprises the study of all forms of intellectual activity: deduction, analysis, inference, intuition, etc.