Translationability in the Paradigm of the Hermeneutic approach

Abstract

The hermeneutic approach to translation has integrated the translator's subjectivity with the ethnic and cultural background. Recent results in cognitive research and applied linguistics have proved the faithfulness of this approach. For instance, the neurophilosopher Hans Lenk has shown that, when we perceive an object, our brain decomposes it before it synthesizes it in order to bring it to our understanding. Some areas of our brain register the size of the object, others the colour, etc. If I see a golden delicious, which is a very common apple in Europe, I register its form, its colour, eventually its smell, its weight, in different areas of my brain, and my brain associates it with the category apple, and saves it in this category. This is a process of categorization. According to John Lakoff, understanding presupposes categorizing (p. 5). Understanding goes hand in hand with interpreting and involuntarily we all act as interpreters. All these problems had been elaborated long before the fundamentals of the theory of translation were first formulated. These ideas had been initiated by H.-G. Gadamer, J. Lakoff, H. Lenk, G. Lyons, Heidegger, Ch. Fillmore, Derrida, Bachelard.