Human communicative abilities and translation

This book applies insights into the capabilities that enable humans to communicate with each other to the task of successfully communicating what someone intended to communicate in another language and culture. The insights into how human communication in general works are based on the theory of ostensive communication (more popularly known as 'relevance theory'). The results of the application are then used to critically review the practice and theory of 'translation' – one of the main concepts traditionally used for dealing with tasks of communicating across boundaries of language and culture. The outcome of the research indicates the need for significant changes regarding communication in general as well as regarding 'translation'. Regarding the general ability of human beings to communicate on the basis of innate faculties, it appears that the primary goal of ostensive communication is not information acquisition but thought sharing arising from the human need for metacognitive acquaintance. Thus the central characteristic of ostensive communication is a communicative intention, intending the addressee to recognise the thoughts the communicator intends to share. (This abilility of thought sharing can be used for wider purposes; for example, communicators can use it to pass on factual information, to influence the beliefs of others about the world, their emotions, their behaviour. Addressees can, for example, use it to acquire information about the world.) The success of such thought sharing, that is, comprehension, is subject to constraints that arise from the faculties with which human beings are equipped for this task. Two general constraints have been identified: the stimulus constraint and the congruence constraint. With regard to the more specific task of communicating what someone intended to communicate in another language and culture, two additional constraints have been found: the code-sharing constraint and the interpretive resemblance constraint. Regarding the realm of 'translation' and 'translation studies', the changes needed are of a larger scale. The root cause is that the thoughts and activities in this realm stem from what is called here 'default conceptualisation' which rests on the description and categorisation of phenomena on the basis of observable properties. While this mode of conceptualisation is useful for many purposes, it is not well equipped to deal with tasks that involve cause-effect processes as human communication does. In the practice of translation this handicap has led to much dissatisfaction and in translation studies it has seriously hindered efforts of explanation and prediction. The second part of the book outlines and illustrates a cause-effect based approach for communicating across boundaries of language and culture what someone intended to communicate in a different setting. Insights from traditional studies of translation seem to better fit with ethnoscientific concerns.