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Literary Translation 
as Semiotic Interpretation 

In the Light of 
Philological Hermeneutics 

I t is a commonly accepted point of view nowadaysthat translating does not simply mean  transfering.
As once J.C.Catford stated, “In translation, there is
substitution of TL meanings for SL meanings: not
transference of TL meanings into the SL. In transference
there is an implantation of SL meanings into the TL text.
These two processes must be clearly differentiated in
any theory of translation”.1 Susan Bassnett-McGuire
interpreted this statement, on the one hand, as “a new
stage of the debate on translation”, on the other hand, as
“a restricted one - as it implies a narrow theory of
meaning. Discussion of the key concepts of equivalence
and cultural untranslatability has moved on a long way
since his book first appeared”.2

Every translator should bear in his/her mind: translating fiction accurately
involves substituting not only the semantic layer of this or that language /SL/
vocabulary used in the specific text with the appropriate counterparts existing in the
TL, but also the peculiar aura created by the writer using the language in speech.
Thus, Susan Bassnett-McGuire is absolutely right to conclude that the discipline of
Translation Studies bridges the gap between the vast area of stylistics, literary history,
linguistics, semiotics and aesthetics, but at the same time it is firmly rooted in
practical application.3

It is a well-known fact that language and speech are separated from each other
quite artificially, for the sake of investigation, insofar as language cannot but exist
only in speech, and speech can only be realized on the basis of language and through
language. Language units are considered to belong to both language and speech
spheres. According to the semiotic concept, a linguistic sign consists of two planes:
content and expression. Language is realized in speech as the content has its way of
expression. Language, i.e. the content, is the signifier /signifiant/, speech, i.e. the
expression, is the signified /signifie°/ plane of the sign.

The fact that language itself makes use of both the content and the expression
planes as speech does, gives us grounds to investigate separate language units not
only as belonging to merely language /the content plane/, but also appearing in
speech /the expression plane/. Thus, in this respect language units such as: texts,
word combinations, words, phonemes, phonesthemes, etc., being included into the

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Diana Hambardzumyan



sphere of language-speech dialectical unity, are considered to be a part of a linguistic
sign. Thus, the relationship between linguistics and semiotics is obvious. As far as
texts are concerned, semiotics deals with them as it is a philological study of various
linguistic phenomena functioning in speech. In his book “Structuralism and
Semiotics” T.Hawkes confirms that translation belongs to semiotics as far as the
translation process “involves a whole set of extra-linguistic criteria also”.4

In recent years translation, and specifically literary translation, is comprehended
as “interpretation”. More than four decades ago Roman Jakobson described
translation as an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs in the same
language /intra-lingual translation/, an interpretation of verbal signs by means of
some other language /inter-lingual translation/, an interpretation of verbal signs by
means of signs of nonverbal sign systems /inter-semiotic translation/.5

Thus, widely interpreted, literary translation as a product and process should be
analysed alongside with the original which is also a product and process. It is a two-
sided object of investigation in philological hermeneutics.

According to Nazarova T.B., “discourse-oriented semiotics aims at typological
investigation of narrative and has more to do with narratology, logic, cohesion and
syntax”.6 As far as structure-oriented semiotics is concerned, it “deals with schematic
synopsizing of literary texts and owes its present-day worldwide recognition to the
Russian scholar V. Propp, whose findings were later /in the 50s/ used as the basis of
the structural-semiotic presentation of literary works”.7

As has been mentioned above, the two equally essential components of the
linguistic sign are content and expression, from the point of view of semiotics, the
plot of the original invested in language units /the content/ cannot be investigated
separately, taken out of its structure /the expression/. In addition to this, all the
specific codes created by an author should be comprehended and adequately
interpreted within a national-cultural context, then only decoded and reconstructed in
the TL.   

Contemporary scholars in semiotics believe that language units are inevitably
defined by their extra-lingual relations. In respect of a literary work, its extra-lingual
cultural background includes not only the historical epoch depicted in the work, the
writer’s world-view and his creative peculiarities, but his overall biographical data as
well.

It is in this case that the linguopoetic analysis of a literary work enables the
investigator, among other things, to go deep into the extra-lingual relations of
linguistic signs, to single out those parts of the work and its translation, which are of
literary, moral, ethical and aesthetic value in the work. 

Thus, linguosemiotics is not only closely connected with philology, but is
particularly essential to literary translation, which being quite a separate branch of
investigation, combines the two aspects of philology: literary studies and
linguistics.       

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Translation Studies Armenian Folia Anglistika



References:

1. Catford J.C., A Linguistic Theory of Translation, London, Oxford University
Press, 1965, p.32-37.

2. Susan Bassnett-McGuire, Translation Studies, London, New York, Methuen &
Co, 1980, p.6.

3. Ibid. p.6-7.
4. Hawkes T. Structuralism and Semiotics. Berkeley, 1977. 
5. Jacobson R. On Linguistic Aspects of Translation. In: On Translation ed.by

Brower R.A. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1959, p.232-239. 
6. Íàçàðîâà Ò.Á. Ôèëîëîãèÿ è ñåìèîòèêà: Ñîâðåìåííûé  àíãëèéñêèé

ÿçûê. Ì., Âûñøàÿ øêîëà, 2003, ñ.168.  
7. Ibid. p.168.

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Armenian Folia Anglistika                                                                       Translation Studies