COGNITIVE OPPOSITIONS IN TRANSLATION: FIGURATIVENESS – PRAGMATICS – REFERENCE

Abstract

The article represents an effort to develop the method of cognitive analysis in translation and on this basis to identify inherent mechanisms and forms of equivalence in translation. The author looks into translation from the semiotic point of view taking the semiotics of sign in speech (the verbal sign seen as a speech act) as a basis of subsequent scientific scrutiny. In the structure of the verbal sign, sense and reference are opposed to each other. The reference accounts for the identification of the designated object in sign, while the sense needs to be reflected in interpretation. In terms of the sense of the verbal sign the author singles out: 1) elements of sense capable of determining the sign referential meaning, and 2) elements of sense which are not capable of doing it. According to this differentiation, equivalents in translation are analyzed. The author concludes that the interpretative relation in translation evolves in an inverse order: not from reference to sense, but from sense to reference. The reference is a variable aspect of translation and accounts for transformation, and the sense is an invariable aspect and the basis of translation. In order to preserve the sense, a translator introduces changes into the reference. Some examples of English-Russian translation are analyzed as cases of transition from figurativeness to pragmatics and to reference. The article may arouse interest of specialists in the theory of translation, semiotics and the theory of communication.