On the Significance of the Cognitive Core of Translation

Abstract

Assuming that successful communication is high on the agenda of most translation work it would seem essential for translators to understand what translation can and cannot achieve, purely on the basis of the way the human mind works. This paper presents some further developments of the relevance-theoretic treatment of translation set out in Gutt (2000). Translation is viewed as a higher-order act of communication (HOAC) – an act of communication that is about another (lower-order) act of communication. Any act of (ostensive) communication necessarily involves two focal elements: the stimulus, which is the perceptible element, and the interpretation, the body of thoughts which the communicator intends to share with others. From this it follows that higher-order acts of communication can focus on either of these two elements: they can attempt to reproduce the stimulus (s-mode) or they can attempt to give access to the intended interpretation (i-mode) of the lower order act of communication. The paper investigates the properties and implications of these two modes and their applicability to translation. It also aims to draw out the ways in which the different characteristics of these modes affect the communicative impact of translated texts.