In the previous unit, we have seen that Lotman imagines the whole
of reciprocally interacting texts and languages as a system, and calls
this system "semiosphere". One of the main qualities of this system is
its delimitedness. The semiosphere is confined by the space which
surrounds it; it can be extrasemiotic (a space where signification
processes do not occur, like a natural space) or heterosemiotic
(i.e. belonging to another semiotic system, for example, a musical
text versus a pictorial text)
1 .
As it happens in the geographic world, it is the notion
of "border" to recall the concept of "translation". Where there are no
borders, there is no need for translations:
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[...] the semiotic border is the sum of the bilingual translation
"filters" passing through which the text is translated into another
language (or other languages) that are outside a given semiosphere.
The "closedness" of a semiosphere manifests itself in the fact that
this can get in touch neither with heterosemiotic texts nor with
non-texts. In order for these texts to appear real in the eyes of a
given semiosphere, it has to translate them into one of the languages
within its inner space, i.e. to semiotize the facts. For this reason
the border points of the semiosphere can be considered similar
to the sensorial receptors translating outer stimuli into the language
of our nervous system, or to blocks of translation that adapt to a
given semiotic sphere, a world that is foreign to it
2.
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The semiosphere, that can be thought of as larger or smaller
according to the definition of its inner and outer boundaries, is a
huge translation organism. Translation is at the basis of the
existence of sense, of culture:
The function of any border or film - from the living cell membrane to
the biosphere as a film (according to Vernadskij) covering our planet
and to the semiosphere border - consists in the limitation of
penetration, in filtering, and in the adaptive reprocessing of the
external into the internal. At different levels, this invariant
function occurs in different ways. At the semiosphere level, it means
a distinction between its own from the others', a filtering of the
outer communications and their translation into its own language, as
well as transforming the outer non-communications into communications,
i.e. semioticizing what comes from outside and its transformation into
information.
From this point of view, all the translation mechanisms serving the
outer contacts belong to the semiosphere structure
3.
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According to Lotman's theory, there is a complex
hierarchy of systems composing the semiosphere and shaping (cultural)
life of the universe causing continuous reciprocal interactions and
influences, from the minimal level of the right hemisphere/left
hemisphere dialectics within a subject's brain (see the units on
JAkobsón), up through the maximum level of the entire universe, thanks
to their differences.
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The information translation across these boundaries, the interplay
between different structures and substructures, the direct
uninterrupted semiotic "trespassings" of one or other structure into
the "other's territory" shape the generation of meaning, the
production of new information
4.
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In other words, translation is the basis of sense generation.
What is inside a system (a fact, a phenomenon, an event), until the
moment when it remains what it is without being described, is outside
the semiosphere, it remains in the extrasemiotic world. This argument
is closely connected to what we have said in the first part of this
course about the relation between thought (mental material) and its
verbalization (translation into verbal material).
As a thought, without any verbal description, remains
an extrasemiotic fact, it does not become meaningful for any system
outside the individual psyche if not translated into words, so an
outer, extrapsychic phenomenon, (for example the presence of an oak
tree in a meadow) remains a fact that does not exist in the
semiosphere until when it is translated into some kind of code. From a
semiotic point of view, it remains 'other' until that moment when
the semiosis world incorporates it.
If in every meadow an oak grew, if all the world were
made of meadows and so on, if, in other words, in the semiosphere the
level of entropy were zero, in the semiosphere there would be no life,
the semiotic world would be dead.
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The structural heterogeneity of semiotic space creates reservoirs of
dynamic processes and is one of the mechanism through which new
information is elaborated within the sphere
5.
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From this point of view, the concept of translatability
acquires a new light. The difference between systems is no longer the
problem par excellence of translators. On the contrary, the presence
of this difference is necessary to the life of the cultural world.
Translation loss is no longer viewed as a cumbersome burden the
managing of which is a problem to translators. The fact that it is
never possible to translate everything guarantees the preservation of
differences and the preservation of cultural life.
The translator, in a broad sense, as intended in the
total translation view, is thus the tool of life in the semiosphere.
Translatability is a relative concept, but a minimum level of
translatability is guaranteed by the contiguity of many systems - many
semiospheres - within the universe.
In the next unit, we will examine the translatability
concept with the aid of the thought of one of the founders of
semiotics, Charles S. Peirce.
Bibliographical references
LOTMAN JU. Izbrannye stat´i v trëh tomah. vol. 1. Stat´i po semiotike i tipologii kul´tury
p. 11-24. Tallinn, Aleksandra, 1992. ISBN 5-450-01551-8.
1 Lotman 1992, p. 13.
2 Lotman 1992, p. 13. My emphasis.
3 Lotman 1992, p. 14. My emphasis.
4 Lotman 1992, p. 17.
5 Lotman 1992, p. 16.
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