Discourse in the Novel

Universe of the Mind:. Semiotic Theory of Culture. Yuri M. Lotman. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990.288 pp. $45.00 (cloth)

Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture

Ways of Worldmaking

There has been growing interest in the use of qualitative methods in health research amongst health and social care professionals. Good qualitative cross-cultural research analysis is not an easy task as it involves knowledge of different approaches, techniques and command of the appropriate languages. This article aims to discuss and explore some of the key processes and concepts involved in conducting translation and transliteration of qualitative research.

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Understanding the Processes of Translation and Transliteration in Qualitative Research

The Routledge Handbook of Language Awareness is a comprehensive and informative overview of the broad field of language awareness. It contains a collection of state-of-the-art reviews of both established themes and new directions, authored and edited by experts in the field. The handbook is divided into three sections and reflects the engaging diversity of language awareness perspectives on language teaching and teachers, language learning and learners, and extending to additional areas of importance that are less directly concerned with language instruction.

In their introductory chapter, the editors provide valuable background to the language awareness field along with their summary of the chapters and issues covered. A helpful section giving further reading suggestions for each of the chapters is included at the end of the book. This volume is essential reading for graduate students and researchers working in the sphere of language awareness within applied linguistics, sociolinguistics and across the wider spectrum of language and communication.

The Routledge Handbook of Language Awareness

The most common difficulty in translation studies has traditionally been the dilemma between the historical and synchronic approaches in the analysis and description of the culture of translation. On the one hand the culture of translation might be presented as the sum of various kinds of translated texts (repertoire of culture), on the other hand it might be described as the hierarchy of the various types of translations themselves. The first approach assumes plenty of languages for such description, in the latter one suggests only one language for the same representation. A cultural critic faces the same problems. In these perspectives the translation reveals important mechanisms of the performance of culture. First of all it is the semiotic interpretation of the theory of translation, introduced by the number of scientists beginning with R. Jakobson and including U. Eco who put together interlinguistic, intra-linguistic, and inter-semiotic translations, so crucial for the further understanding of culture. As a result, the general notion of culture might be described as the process of total translation. And secondly, the other valuable contribution to the theory of translation has been made by both M. Bakhtin and J. Lotman in terms of the synthesis of two traditions in semiotics of culture resulted in juxtaposing such notions as dialogism and autonomy — creolization, polyphony, counterword, and translation. Translating as an activity and translation as the result of this activity are inseparable from the concept of culture. The translational capacity of culture is an important criterion of culture’s specificity. Culture operates largely through translational activity, since only by the inclusion of new texts into culture can the culture undergo innovation as well as perceive its specificity. After the expansion of the paradigm of postcolonial and the related field of gender studies into translation studies, the borderline between culture studies and translation studies has become fuzzier, yet at the same time, there has emerged a visible

Translation as translating as culture

Since 1984 when J. Lotman’s article “On semiosphere” was published, this concept has been moving from one terminological field to another. In the disciplinary terminological field of the Tartu–Moscow School semiotics of culture, ‘semiosphere’ is connected with terms ‘language — secondary modelling system — text — culture’. From interdisciplinary terminological fields, the associations either with biosphere and noosphere, or with logosphere, are more important. As a metadisciplinary concept, semiosphere belongs to the methodology of culture studies and is associated with the concepts of holism and the part and the whole. In this context, semiosphere marks the complementarity of disciplines studying culture, the movement towards the creation of general culture studies and “understanding methodology”. On the background of the contemporary trends of science it has to be remembered that semiosphere is simultaneously an objectand a metaconcept. The dynamism of culture as a research object forces science to search for new description languages but the new description languages in turn influence the cultural dynamics as they offer new possibilities for selfdescription. Often, however, from a historical perspective, a new description language is nothing but a methodological translation. Thus also the term semiosphere joins together several concepts that are related to semiotics of culture and that have gained new relevance on the background of the culture’s developmental dynamics. The concept of semiosphere brings semiotics of culture again into contact with its history, as it also brings applicational cultural analysis into contact with the history of culture and with the newest phenomena in culture. These contacts determine the place of the semiotics of culture among the sciences studying culture. 1 The article is based on the presentation at the First International Meeting for the Study of the Semiosphere, organized by Irene Machado and her colleagues in Sao Paulo, Brazil, August 22–27, 2005.

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Semiosphere and/as the research object of semiotics of culture

IF ONE WANTS to understand translation, it is necessary to look at all its aspects from the psychological to the ideological. And it is necessary to see the process of translation, on the one hand, as a complex of interlinguistic, intralinguistic, and intersemiotic translations, and on the other hand, as a complex of linguistic, cultural, economic, and ideological activity. Translators work at the boundaries of languages, cultures, and societies. They position themselves between the poles of specificity and adaptation in accordance with the strategies of their translational behaviour. They either preserve the otherness of the other or they transform the other into self. By the same token, they cease to be simple mediators, because in a semiotic sense they are capable of generating new languages for the description of a foreign language, text, or culture, and of renewing a culture or of having an influence on the dialogic capacity of a culture with other cultures as well as with itself. In this way, translators work not only with natural languages but also with metalanguages, languages of description. One of the missions of the translator is to increase the receptivity and dialogic capability of a culture, and through these also the internal variety of that culture. As mediators between languages, translators are important creators of new metalanguages. The status of translation and the translator have changed from one historical era to the next, and at the beginning of the 21st century we are confronting the need for a complex understanding of them both. At the core of this complex understanding is the universality of translation. The universality of translation comes from its connections with thought processes. As Yurii Lotman affirms, "the elementary act of thinking is translation" (Lotman 2000:143). And he stresses in the same place that "the elementary mechanism of translating is dialogue" (Lotman 2000:143). The irreducibility of dialogue to mere communication in a language common to the dialogue's participants is very important. For Lotman everything begins with the need for dialogue: "... the need for dialogue, the dialogic situation, precedes both real dialogue and even the existence of a language in which to conduct it" (Lotman 2000:143-144). The need for dialogue can be viewed either at the level of a comprehensive theoretical understanding or at the level of the deep-seated mechanism of individual behavior. The need for dialogue is tied in a complementary way both to the needs of an audience, which can be studied in the theory of mass communication (McQuail 2000), and to various personal needs (self-understanding, enjoyment, escapism) and social needs (knowledge about the world, self-confidence, stability, self-esteem, the strengthening of connections with family and friends) in the theory of communication (Fiske 2000:20). Any form of identity also depends on the need for dialogue. At the core of personal, national, or social identity is recognition of the boundary between self and other. The boundary not only divides but also unites and thus participates in dialogic processes. To a large extent dialogue within the boundaries depends on dialogue at the boundaries. Translators work at the boundaries of languages, cultures, and societies. They position themselves between the poles of specificity and adaptation in accordance with the strategies of their translational behaviour. They either preserve the otherness of the other or they transform the other into self. By the same token, they cease to be simple mediators, because in a semiotic sense they are capable of generating new languages for the description of a foreign language, text, or culture, and of renewing a culture or of having an influence on the dialogic capacity of a culture with other cultures as well as with itself. In this way, translators work not only with natural languages but also with metalanguages, languages of description. …

Translation as Communication and Auto-Communication

Translation activity in culture cannot take place in isolation from experience of culture and technological environment. Underlying the diversity of communication processes is the progression from printed media towards hypermedia and new media. In this new situation, the peculiarity of translation activity consists in the actualization of intralingual and intersemiotic translation alongside interlingual translation: first, in synthetic form, combining all three types of translation (thus also interlinguistic translation can be regarded as comprising intralingual and intersemiotic translation as well); and second, in analytic form, that is, as three autonomous types of translation producing diverse types of texts. The widening of the boundaries of translation process results in the intensified search for appropriate methodologies. One indication of this is the repeated reconceptualization or further elaboration of Jakobson's typology of intralingual, interlingual, and intersemiotic translation at the intersection of semiotics, translation studies, analysis of culture, and communication. At the same time, translation studies show signs of methodological innovation, accompanied by semiotic steps. Semiotics, on the other hand, is at the same time undergoing an actualization of translation issues, and the concept of semiotranslation refers now to the possibilities of methodological synthesis between translation studies and semiotics.

Processual boundaries of translation: Semiotics and translation studies

Historically, the semiotics of translation is a part of both translation studies and semiotics. In the history of translation semiotics important positions have been taken by specific connections between semiotics (especially cultural semiotics) and translation studies, which have created premises to connect the application of semiotics in translation studies and prerequisites of interpreting translation activity in semiotics into a more homogeneous disciplinary whole. It is still too early to talk about an extensive interdisciplinary synthesis, but one can already notice a movement described by J. Lambert as paradoxical:

Towards the semiotics of translation

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