Intersemiotic translation Another terminological problem within Translation Studies
Intersemiotic translation Another terminological problem within Translation Studies

Summary/Abstract: This paper discusses a perceived discrepancy between a widespread ac-ceptance of Roman Jakobson’s [1957] ideas and proposals for intersemiotictranslation as part of his triadic division of three types of translation, onthe one hand, and what he actually wrote, on the other, including his statedaims, approach and contributions. In this paper, I argue that Jakobson aimsto make a contribution within (lexical) semantics, rather than lay the foun-dations for translation studies or have an impact on translation practices,like James Holmes [1988] or Peter Newmark [1980], respectively. Oncethe discrepancy has been established, the point is to use terms like interse-miotic translation, as coherently as possible along with other related terms,such as same-language subtitling, transmedia, multimodality, audiovisualtranslation, and adaptation, and leaning on empirical studies of translationalphenomena. An important dilemma resides in the ambiguity of the term“translation”, for example, if it is used, like Jakobson, to refer to the mu-tual translatability of words and signs, or if it used to refer to sociocultural,professional and textual practices, as understood by authors like Lefevere[1992]. Another necessary distinction is one of words as abstract semanticentities or the condition that they must be “performed” in context, with allthe necessary paralinguistic factors.

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