Intramental translation. How culture shapes the mind, or why Columbus did not discover America

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Abstract

Roman Jakobson famously suggested three kinds of translation: intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotic translations. The present paper seeks to propose a fourth kind of translation which might be called «intramental translation». Before becoming a linguistic or semiotic act, translation is a mental process. The human mind is involved in a permanent process of relating what it perceives to certain conceptions of what this might mean (Wexler, Brain and Culture; Hanenberg, Intersecting “Nature” and “Culture”). This relation of perception and conception is crucial to our worldmaking. The process in which perception demands conception and conception builds upon perception might be seen as a process of intramental translation: receiving information and transforming it into meaning. Our mind depends on this permanent process of receiving information and conceiving it as meaning, based on cultural models (Shore, Culture in Mind). In this sense, culture shapes the mind by providing the models through which meaning is conceived. This paper develops this argument based on a semiotic approach to culture and cognition and illustrates the thesis by drawing on Columbus’ difficulty to recognize the land he discovered as a new continent.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationLa circolazione del saperi in Occidente
Subtitle of host publicationteoria e prassi della traduzione letteraria
EditorsFabio Scotto , Marina Bianchi
Place of PublicationMilano
PublisherCisalpino
Pages1-26
Number of pages26
Edition1
ISBN (Print)9788820511135
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 28 Mar 2018

Keywords

  • Cognitive culture studies

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