Towards The Operational Mechanisms Of Meaning In Translation: A Cognitive Approach

The past two decades have witnessed the boom of translation studies, which is taking on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary features. However, current approaches to translation are excessively hermeneutic and descriptive as well. The central status of meaning in translation, therefore, has been seriously challenged. For one thing, traditional semantics mechanically treats meaning as compositional. For another, linguistic philosophy lays much emphasis on the indeterminacy of meaning and even the existence of the meaning of a source text is denied. A case in point is the theory of deconstruction, which questions the status of the original meaning.The problem with current approaches to translation proceeds from a distorted understanding of the nature of meaning and meaning construction. The explanation of meaning has been stuck in two extremities: objectivism and subjectivism. What is the way out? According to Jakendoff (1983: 3), "To study semantics of natural language is to study...