Semiosic Translation: A Semiotic Theory of Translation and Translating: Semiosic Translation, #1

By Sergio Torres-Martínez

Semiosic Translation can be defined as an inclusive, all-encompassing project Although Semiosic Translation is to a large extent inspired by Peirce's semiotics and Wittgenstein's philosophy, it greatly deviates from both frameworks. This is perhaps seen nowhere so clearly as in its rejection of any fixed taxonomy conferring an absolute status to any type of trichotomous mindset, for example, the notion of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness, as determinants of a hierarchical and derivative sign relations to itself (Sign-Object-Interpretant) and to semiosis in general. In this vein, Semiosic Translation defines these categories as semiosic elements not necessarily issued from or confined to a given "irreversible" semiosis. A relevant consideration here is that, although translation is a conscious act embedded in the broader process of interpretation, semiotically, it is a sensory-driven process of sign transformation engendered in pre-Firstness. This is the hallmark of Semiosic Translation.  Uniquely, the translative process in Semiosic Translation is defined as a transformative, borderless interplay of interlocking sign systems and not as a bestiary of sign species struggling to yield up meaning in a containerized semiotic Umwelt.
Fittingly, Semiosic Translation is construed as a purposeful, socially-driven activity (which stresses the social character of our concepts) progressing away from the action of specialized translation agents (intention and not expertise distinguishes translation and interpretation). This minor detail assumes critical significance. On the one hand, the target culture is no longer perceived as a recipient onto which the translation is projected, since many translation users are increasingly involved in the translation process themselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sergio Torres-Martínez
• Release date: Jan 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393907374

Sergio Torres-Martínez

Sergio Torres–Martínez is professor of cognitive linguistics, semiotics and translation semiotics. Among his main interests are Agentive Cognitive Construction Grammar, Cognitive Semantics, embodiment theory, phenomenology, Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language, Peircean semiotics and the cognitive applications of construction grammar (Applied Cognitive Construction Grammar). Current research projects include the conceptualization of construction grammar as an interdisciplinary field of endeavor connecting embodiment theory, neuroscience semiotics and philosophy for the construction of a comprehensive and systematic description of constructional attachment patterns across languages. Central to this research is the need to provide linguistics with a model of the mind that complements linguistic description. 

Book preview

Semiosic Translation

A Semiotic Theory of Translation and Translating

Sergio Torres-Martínez

2021

Copyright © 2021

by Sergio Torres-Martínez

ISBN (eBook): 9781393907374

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted, translated or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior permission in writing of the author.

Epub formatting and artwork by Sergio Torres-Martínez

Cover Illustration by and © Sergio Torres-Martínez 2021

Medellín, Colombia

Dedication

To my mother Nelly and my sister Jeannette for their patience and love.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Contents

Preface

i. Wittgenstein and Peirce: The theoretical fundamentals of semiosic translation

ii. Translation is hypothesis not fact

iii. The structure of this book

Chapter I

1 Introduction

1.2 Wittgenstein’s method

1.3 Toward a Wittgenstein’s semiotics

1.3.1 The notion of complex in the Philosophical Grammar

1.4 Complexes as semiotic cells

1.4.2 Complexes as extended representations

1.5 Conclusion

References

Chapter II

2.1 Introduction

2.2. Peirce and Wittgenstein: The fundamentals of semiosic translation

2.2.1 Rule-following

2.3. Holocaust as anti-semiosis

2.4. Semiotic continuity in Celan’s early and late poetry

2.4.1 Translating Celan’s later poetry

References

Chapter III

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Peirce and Wittgenstein: the fundamentals of semiosic translation

3.2.1 The Peircean sign

3.2.2. The concept of abduction

3.2.2.1 Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox and abduction

3.2.2.2 Complex-fact and abductive rule-following

3.3 Wittgenstein’s semiotic system

3.3.1 A revised view of sign

3.3.1.1 The key term Bild

3.3.1.2 Mapping-pictures as qualia

3.3.2 Shifting psychological emphases

3.4 A semiosic translation of the Tractatus: Preliminary considerations

3.4.1 The tree structure of the Tractatus

3.5 Translating the Tractatus

3.5.1 Remark 5.633

3.5.2 Remark 3.42

3.5.3 Remark 4.063

3.6 Concluding remarks

References

Chapter IV

4.1 The origins of semiosic translation

4.2 Translation is not a special, human-driven case of semiosis

4.3 Semiospheric translation is hegemonic

4.4 Conclusion

References

Chapter V

5.1 Introduction

5.2 The semiotic underpinnings of translation: Semiosic or semiotic translation?

5.3 What are the limits of semiosic translation?

5.4 Signal-driven translation: Bayesian inference and take-the-best heuristics in the construction of semiosic translations

5.4.1 Bayesian inference

5.4.2 Heuristic inference

5.5 Conclusion

References

Chapter VI

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Implicit and explicit essentialism in translation

6.3 On concepts and essences

6.4 Embodied essentialism

6.5 The emergence of concepts in translation or why Greek statues were not white

References

About the author

Preface

Although only half of this book is explicitly devoted to the connection of Peircean semiotics and the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the main thesis of the monograph is that the works of Wittgenstein represent, to a large extent, a search for meaning through signs. This semiotic approach to the works of the Austrian genius, therefore, permeates all the semiotic edifice of the type of semiotic translation pursued. As a result, I claim that Wittgenstein’s semiotic quest is susceptible to being connected with the Peircean doctrine of signs. This has led me to construct a semiotic program based on some of the tenets of both rationales that I term Semiosic Translation. Semiosic translation draws on a mixed conceptualization of signs and signification which are summarized in the following tenets:

Semiosic translation hinges on the notion of abductive rule-following.

Semiosis and intention are interwoven as a single entity.

Translation is intentional, whereas interpretation is determined by an unintentional substratum.

Semiosis is non-linear, and hence, reversible.

A translation is a spatial complex, not a fact.

A translation is a proposition embedded in a hypothesis.

As we will see in the rest of the book, the conceptual basis of semiosic translation is provided by Wittgenstein’s interest for the disambiguation of meaning. This is evident  in the Tractatus in which the philosopher set out to determine the character of the structural relation obtaining between propositions and states of affairs: the way language must picture the world (Stern 2019: 2), and his late exploration of language as use in the Philosophical Investigations, where he equated propositional thought—science and mathematics not excepted—with conventionally constituted moves in language games embedded in distinctively human forms of life (Waxman 2019: 130). This points to two striking assertions. First, that Wittgenstein was both a semiotician and a philosopher. Second, that many concepts used by Wittgenstein can be used to solve semiotic problems in general and disentangle a number of vices of reasoning that prevent us from understanding reality. It should be noted, however, that my semiotic reading of Wittgenstein does not preclude a philosophical position toward his works. For example, my reading of the Tractatus is in line with view that this work should be read a s a hypertext rather than an elucidatory ladder, as is has been the case thus far among many Wittgenstein scholars. Moreover, I hope to show that there is a real theoretical continuity in the two major works of Wittgenstein that can be defined in terms of a distinct sign system.

Inevitably, this has consequences for the semiotic interpretation of this work pursued in this book.

i. Wittgenstein and Peirce: The theoretical fundamentals of semiosic translation

The Peircean doctrine of signs is defined in terms of three logical categories (Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness), organizing three relations of the sign to itself (monadic, dyadic, triadic). Moreover, sign action (semiosis) is conceived of as a triadic interaction between three elements Sign-Object-Interpretant (S-O-I). This triadic relation is crucial for the comprehension of all types of sign relations across sign systems. Notwithstanding, for the purposes of this book, these sign relations are not hierarchical, nor is the sign-object-Interpretant relation a fixed, derivative (and hence irreducible) process. Rather, semiosis is described as a process, whereby signs become sign-rules, i.e. signs bestowed of rule-making properties which do not condition their future behavior. This conceptualization is based on Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox, i.e. the idea that the application of a rule does not condition further correct applications of it. In other words, our understanding of a rule does not necessarily trigger a derivative representation thereof. According to Wittgenstein, how a sign (a word, for example) is used does not determine its use, since the word itself is dead. Only in use does it become alive in a specific context. Thus, it is not possible to assert that understanding a proposition through a rule is a present condition upon which new and better knowledge can be built:

Une application correcte ou une série quelconque d’applications correctes constituent tout au plus une manifestation ou une conséquence de la compréhension, et non la compréhension elle-même.

[A correct application, or a series of correct applications, amount to a manifestation or a consequence of the understanding and does not constitute the understanding itself. My translation.]

(Bouveresse 2001: 493; emphasis in original).

Importantly, sign-rules are organized by forms of abductive reasoning (inference), i.e. the proclivity to recognize, serendipitously, sequences of related, hyperlinked events in which two objects have a strong resemblance, and infer that they resemble one another strongly in other respects (CP 2.629). The rule-following paradox arises as a manifestation of our cognition, propelled by the unexpectedness of abduction to yield a picture of a unified objective world. This, of course, presupposes a non-linear causality of informed guesses, that is, a linkage of iconic and indexical nature whereby an idea may suggest another like it, or it may suggest another which has been connected with it in experience (CP 7.451).

We can therefore unify the Wittgensteinian concept of rule-following and the Peircean notion of abduction, by pointing out that abduction is the substrate to forms of Wittgensteinian inference. This enables us to postulate translational practices in which an unlimited number of interpretive leaps are posited by way of specific rules (grasped abductively) that are in turn applied to infer novel rules. These rules are not in themselves a tool for novel applications of the rule itself, but a network of discrete nodes emerging from the rule as a natural result of a context-bound abductive act. The crux of the matter is that, once we become acquainted with a proposition enabling us to postulate a series of rules derived therefrom, we can only be sure that those sign-rules contained in our conclusions encapsulate other sign-rules. Thus, in operating with the concept of abductive rule-following as a whole, semiosis and intention become essential. As Wittgenstein points out no sign can live without a use (PI: 431). This determines the rule and the power of signs to organize human experience. Abductive reasoning, in turn, draws a wedge between semiosis and theory building. Ultimately, the consistency of theories depends on their capacity to trace non-hierarchical semiotic trajectories rather than on the fixation of rules from whence other rules can be drawn. Crucially, rules are accomplished once an intention attached thereto is accomplished. This is what I call abductive rule-following, i.e. the abductive leap of sign-rules (as a manifestation of understanding) providing a ground of experience for the surfacing of other sign-rules. One of the consequences of the above account is that, for semiosic translation, intention is purpose: Nur das intendierte Bild reicht als Maßstaab  an die Wirklichkeit  heran. Von außen betrachtet steht es gleich tot und isoliert da. [Only the intended painting can be compared with reality. Seen from the outside, it hangs death and isolated there. My translation.] (PG: 284). Hence, a semiosic translator never wavers at all in asserting that signs mean because we give them a meaning (BB: 52). Inevitably therefore signs become alive through use:

Wenn wir jedoch irgendetwas das das Leben des Zeichnens  ausmacht benennen sollten, so würden wir sagen müssen, daß es sein Gebrauch ist. 

[If we were to determine what the life of a sign amounts to, we would have to say that a sign lives in its use. My translation.] (BB: 20)

This is facilitated by the iconic character of reasoning [which] consists, in the observation that where certain relations subsist certain others are found, and it accordingly requires the exhibition of the relations reasoned within an icon (CP 3.363).

ii. Translation is hypothesis not fact

One of the consequences of the above account is that all translations must be viewed as hypotheses, since they cannot be corroborated. We cannot say this is the final, best possible rendering of a translation. However, translation (propositions) can be part of a hypothesis in which case a potential translation becomes a section of that hypothesis. In this case, the proposition acts as the substratum for other potential propositions. Fittingly, any proposition is a section of an inward hypothesis (not supported by an outward reality). This proposition becomes, in turn, a law to a further translation: Eine Hypothese ist ein Gesetz zur Bildung von Sätzen [A hypothesis is a law for the construction of propositions. My translation] (PG: 428). On the other hand, any translation is a spatial complex in relation to its parts: 

Ein Komplex besteht aus seinem Teilen, den gleichartigen Dingen, die ihn  bilden.

[A complex is composed of its intrinsic constituents.

My translation.] (PG: 390). Therefore, a translation is not a fact, its existence is:

Komplex ist nicht gleich Tatsache. Denn von einem Komplex sage ich, z.B., er bewege sich  von einem Ort zu andern, aber nicht von einer Tatsache. Daß aber dieser Komplex sich jetzt dort befindet, ist eine Tatsache

[A complex is not a fact. Thus, I can say of a complex, but not of a fact, that it can move from a place to another. That this complex exists, that’s a fact.] (PG: 388).

iii. The structure of this book

The organization of the chapters in this book does not necessarily reflect the evolution of my ideas about semiosic translation since its inception in 2014. Nevertheless, the organization of the chapters reflect a need to consolidate a theoretical framework by which the ideas of both Peirce and Wittgenstein at put at the service of an all-encompassing theory of translation. In this sense, the initial chapters explain complex semiotic processes that are further applied in specific translations in the middle of the book. Gradually, however, the reader will experience a paradigmatic shift in Semiosic translation that includes insights from cognitive sciences and phenomenology. The relevance of this effort is made explicit in a response chapter in which I explain why Semiosic translation also implies a revision of the role of semiotics in translation and translating through an emphasis on process rather than sign types.

STM

August 2019, Medellín, Colombia

Chapter I

Complexes, rule-following, and language games: The philosophical method of Ludwig Wittgenstein and its relevance for semiotics

Abstract

This chapter forges links between early analytic philosophy and the posits of semiotics. I show that there are some striking and potentially quite important, but perhaps unrecognized, connections between three key concepts in Wittgenstein’s middle and later philosophy, namely complex (Philosophical Grammar), rule-following (Philosophical Investigations), and language games (Philosophical Investigations). This points to the existence of a conceptual continuity between Wittgenstein’s early and later philosophy that can be applied to the analysis of the iterability of representation in computer-generated images. Methodologically, this chapter clarifies to at least some degree, the nature, progress and promise of an approach to doing philosophy and semiotics from a modally modest perspective that sees in the intellectual products of humanities, and not in unreflective empiricism, the future of scientific development. This hybrid, non-reductionist approach shows, among other things, that semiotic processes are encoded by specific types of complexes in computer-generated images that display iterability in time and space.

Keywords: Complexes, language games, rule-following, Wittgenstein, semiotic processes, semiotic iterability, embeddedness, embodiment

1 Introduction

In der Philosophie muß man immer fragen: „Wie muß man dieses Problem ansehen, daß es lösbar wird?"

[In doing philosophy, we must always ask: From which perspective should we see this problem so that we can solve it?

Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue Book]

Semiotics strives for a description of the works of signs and how these are constantly created and used by sign-makers. In this sense, semiotics entails the project of ‘cutting’ minute portions of [semiosis] and actualizing them as signs for observation, formal study, analysis, and synthesis (Queiroz and Merrell 2006: 39). Although this may strike as a too general and by far incomplete characterization of what semiotics can do (or of what has been done in semiotics thus far to help us understand representation and action), it offers a good vantage point from which to compare the goals of our discipline with, for example, those of analytic philosophy embodied by the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). To make this transparent, let me introduce a point of clarification. Wittgenstein’s project of writing a book with Bertrand Russell (one of the fathers, along with Frege and Ramsey, of what we now call analytic philosophy) was abandoned by the latter (in June 1913) after Wittgenstein expressed some serious criticisms about Russell’s multiple-relation theory of judgment. In particular, Frege’s influence on Wittgenstein’s philosophy (at the expense of Russell’s ideas) marked a turn in his philosophy in terms of a conspicuous conceptual adherence to the former’s philosophical logic. To an extent, the Wittgenstein-Frege philosophical synergies should be considered as the conceptual basis for the present analysis of the potential contribution of analytic philosophy to semiotics. The reason is simple. Although Wittgenstein abandons many of his early views about thought and language, many of the concepts of his later philosophy are already present in the Tractatus. Therefore, although the logicist view in the Tractatus does not attempt to give relevance to the workings of ordinary language [and] the social contexts of history and culture [are deemed to be] philosophically insignificant (Lawn 2004:65), the realization of these shortcomings provides the basis for the innovations introduced in his middle and later philosophy.

The morals of this brief introduction to analytic philosophy are two-fold. First, that the relevance of analytic philosophy to the present analysis is defined in terms of the contribution of Wittgenstein’s method announced in the Tractatus and further developed in his middle and later periods (whereby a single philosophy is assumed). And second, that the role of philosophy (and semiotics) should be construed as that of a reflective source discipline, not an empirical field of endeavor. In this regard, it is important to mention that one of Wittgenstein’s major criticisms of the philosophy of his time (which, unfortunately, is still current) was the undue aspiration of many philosophers to explain the unknown:

Quite obviously, Wittgenstein’s view of how philosophy ought to be practised, and is being practised by himself, diverges radically from how philosophers traditionally conceived of their own work. For, whether or not they actually managed to explain anything, philosophers through the ages certainly thought there was something for them to explain, and frequently tried to meet this felt need. In doing so, they were regularly most interested in what is not ‘open to view’ and hardly ever contented themselves with ‘simply putting everything before us’ or ‘assembling reminders’. Rather, they saw themselves as advancing, if not establishing, theses that gave rise to the liveliest debates. (Ammereller and Fisher 2004:x)

In this sense, "the business of philosophy, according to Wittgenstein, is not explanation but description, because philosophical questions are not the expression of genuine ignorance at all but of an unclarity about something we do already, in some sense, know and of which we (only) need to remind ourselves (Ammereller 2004:128-129). Central to this approach to philosophy is the idea that what needs to be clarified is right there, in plain view, and not the response to a question in the traditional sense. In other words,

[Wittgenstein] does not draw his boundary across the field of human knowledge as a barrier between humanistic and natural sciences, but behind the entire field as a line dividing all that is in any way utterable from the unutterable. Indeed, his effort is directed against philosophy's undertaking to protect the unutterable by uttering it. (Engelmann 1999: 36).

Think, for example, of the (experimental) philosopher pretending to expand philosophy through empirical validation, and, at the same time, to inform science through philosophical intuition. While philosophy can do without with some flights of fancy, it is clear that such "modally immodest philosophical views" should not be transplanted into science, since the boundaries of modal knowledge in science, that is knowledge about what is necessary and possible (Machery 2017: 2) are not defined by philosophical intuition: the sciences themselves are really the primary disciplines, and the contributions of philosophers consist either in the interpretation of the implications of these or else in criticism of their blind spots and shortcomings (Horst 2007: 3). Alternatively put, sciences do not need to wait for (experimental) philosophy to validate the premises of its arguments. Therefore, a modally modest claim here is that semiotics cannot explain anything as sciences do, but surely can provide context to science in the quest for truth. In this context, it is not difficult to see why semiotic branches seeking to bridge the gap between life sciences and the humanities, e.g. biosemiotics, have remained marginal: their development is conditional upon precisely the existence of biological signs, which, for obvious reasons, is far from being a testable hypothesis. This dislocation is accomplished by the