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The Theory of Translation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

W. Haas
W. Haas
Affiliation:
University of Manchester.
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Extract

To translate is one thing; to say how we do it, is another. The practice is familiar enough, and there are familiar theories of it. But when we try to look more closely, theory tends to obscure rather than explain, and the familiar practice—an ancient practice, without which Western civilisation is unthinkable—appears to be just baffling, its very possibility a mystery.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 37 , Issue 141 , July 1962 , pp. 208 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1962

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References

page 210 note 1 I borrow the example from Professor Forster's, L.Translation, in ‘Aspects of Translation’ (Studies in Communication 2, 1958).Google Scholar

page 210 note 1 Ogden, C.K. and Richards, I. A., The Meaning of Meaning, Ch. 1.Google Scholar

page 211 note 1 Cf. the interesting paper by Rabin, C. on ‘The Linguistics of Translation’ in Aspects of Translation, p. 125.Google Scholar

page 212 note 1 Cf. Wittgenstein, L., The Blue and Brown Books, Philosophical Investigations.Google ScholarRyle, G., Ordinary Language (Phil. Review, 1953),Google Scholar‘The Theory of Meaning’ in British Philosophy in the Mid-century.Google ScholarFirth, J. R., Papers in Linguistics (chs. 3, 14–16).Google Scholar

page 214 note 2 Ryle, G., ‘The Theory of Meaning’ in British Philosophy in the Mid-Century, 256.Google Scholar

page 215 note 1 Geistesraum, being the most serious drawback of some inquiries into ‘semantic fields’ which are otherwise of considerable interest (cf. J. Trier's works, e.g. Deutsche Bedeutungsforschung in ‘Germanische Philologie’, 1934).Google Scholar

page 215 note 2 Ryle, G., Ordinary Language (Philosophical Review, 1953), p. 185.Google Scholar

page 216 note 2 Russell, B., An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, 65.Google Scholar

page 217 note 1 Cf. Wittgenstein, L., Philosophical Investigations on Ostensive Definition, par. 28 ff, especially par. 30/31.Google Scholar

page 217 note 2 James, Wm., Essays in Radical Empiricism (‘The Thing and Its Relations’), 93 f.Google Scholar

page 218 note 1 Quine, W. V. O., From a Logical Point of View, 67.Google Scholar

page 218 note 2 Wittgenstein, L., Philosophical Investigation, § 30.Google Scholar

page 218 note 3 Ibidem, § 33.

page 219 note 1 It is on record that the botanists required two general colour-terms which would correspond to the only two colour words of Bassa. They created, but with reference to their own languages, xanthic and cyanic. Cf. Gleason, H. A., An Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics, 4 f.Google Scholar

page 220 note 1 Cf. e.g. Russell, B., op. cit., pp. 67, 76;Google ScholarQuine, W. V. O., op. cit., p. 68.Google ScholarKörner, S., Conceptual Thinking, p. 7.Google Scholar

page 220 note 2 A special language of reference, constructed for the purposes of logical or epistemological inquiry, may of course be compared with ordinary language, without being made its core or source. Of the authors just mentioned, neither Quine nor Körner seems to be interested in ‘deriving’ ordinary language from the referential. Indeed, Professor Quine seems to repudiate the idea (op. cit., p. 78).

page 221 note 1 Professor Körner would require of ostensive rules that they contain a ‘comparing clause’: this and this and ‘everything like it’. But until we have said: ‘Thatis not a cat’ or ‘That is a dog”, everything is like a cat, in some sense. Professor Körner says that we have understood an ostensive rule, ‘when we are competent to give urther instances or to give “anti-examples”’ (Conceptual Thinking, pp. 7, 33). If ‘or’, here, were replaced by ‘and’, my point would be made. (Professor Körner tells me that he would accept the conjunction.)

page 222 note 1 See Russell: ‘fortunately, many occurrences fit into natural kinds’ (Inquiry, p. 76).

page 226 note 1 In fact, the Chinese logographic script is even less closely related to the spoken languages of those who use it. Such spoken utterances as might accompany the reading of the written words are rarely intelligible to anybody by ear alone. The script is a visual language on its own; to have learned to write and read it is to have made oneself bilingual. It is not surprising then that speakers of different languages can understand one another by means of this script; they have learned the same third language.

page 227 note 1 Cf. Forster, L., Translation, pp. 11 ff. in ‘Aspects of Translation’ (Studies in Communication, 2).Google Scholar

page 227 note 2 Cf. p. 209, above.

page 227 note 3 Rabin, G., op. cit., 136.Google Scholar

page 228 note 1 A functional or instrumental theory of meaning, when fully worked out, should be able to explain in detail how this happens: i.e. how expressions acquire their meanings from their contexts, and how their meanings continually and continuously change. This is a task for linguistic studies. The present discussion can do no more than try to discern the general direction which such studies would take.