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Translation and Conceptualization: Seminar 2
Translation and Conceptualization: Seminar 2
Thus, translation can and should be regarded as a flexible and dynamic sign
system interacting with other sign systems.
The theory of meaning may either attempt to explain what it is to have the
concepts expressible in a particular language (full‐blooded theory), or merely to
associate concepts with words in that particular language (modest theory). A
theory of meaning suggested by Davidson, according to which knowing the
meaning of a sentence consists in the ability to produce a T‐schema for that
sentence, is a modest theory. But such a theory will be either a translation
manual (in which case it does not explain the knowledge of language), or will
have to be construed holistically (in which case a systematic account of the
mastery of language is impossible).
Any three-part representation of relations within the sign, shown as a triangle.
In a generic form, left to right on the base, the points include the sign vehicle as
the first element and the sense as the second, with the referent at the
apex as the third. Genuine triads involve mediation: here the referent
is related to the sign vehicle via the mediation of the sense;
consequently the baseline is usually represented as a dotted line. In
the version produced in 1923 by Richards and the philosopher
Charles Ogden (1889–1957), the terms are: symbol, thought or
reference, and referent.
The triangle represents one person, whereas communication takes
place between two entities; the latter can be represented by two
triangles. When the two entities understand each other, the content
that the triangles represent are aligned.