We said in the previous units that reading is a sort of
translation from verbal language into mental material or, if
we prefer, from outer verbal language into inner nonverbal
language. The individual reads, and perceives what he
reads, drawing interpretations and inferences about the
possible intentions of the author of the message. (In a
different part of the course, we will define our concept of
"author".) We talked about cognitive types as entities
helping the individual to categorize past experiences in order to organize present and future perception.
If what is perceived is not made of words, the
perception need not necessarily pass through the
verbalization process: the individual is able to perceive
and to categorize his sensations even without translating
them into words. This fact does not preclude his
recognizing the perceived object in case of
reoccurrence.
| The first and most important feature of inner language
is its very peculiar syntax. [...] This peculiarity is shown in
the apparent fragmentation, discontinuity, and
contraction of the inner language as compared to the
outer one
1.
|
| |
| [There is] a definitely peculiar tendency to reduce
sentences and phrases; the predicate and the parts of the
sentence linked to it are preserved, while the subject and
the words linked to it are omitted. Such prevalence of
predicates in the inner language syntax becomes apparent
[...] with strict consistency [...] so that in the end,
resorting to the interpolation method, we should suppose
that the main syntactic form of the inner language is pure
and absolute prevalence of predicates
2.
|
"Putting into words" ' translation into an outer code,
common to other speakers ' is uniquely crucial to the
social life of the individual, in order to share the content of
one's cognitive and perceptive acts.
We said also that the signifier/signified relation
is an arbitrary one. This fact is proved by the differences
among natural languages: between the perception of an
object-horse and the production of either the sound
"horse" or the graphic characters h o r s e there is no
necessary relation. For a Frenchman the same object is
"cheval", for an Italian "cavallo" and so on.
We also stressed that a signifier's semantic
field is not the same for two individuals, because everyone
links 'consciously or unconsciously 'definite subjective
experiences to each signifier. For this reason, a signifier
evokes different memories, feelings, and images in every
individual. It is therefore all the more unlikely that the
semantic field of "horse" completely matches the semantic
field of "cheval", "cavallo" etc.
In other words, every natural language (and
every idiolect, i.e. the use of language peculiar to every
"individual, his language or personal 'style', disregarding
the group or community where the individual belongs»3)
categorizes human knowledge in a different way.
Language is, therefore, not only a means to communicate
with other members of our species; it is also a system to
categorize perceptions, ideas, images, and emotions.
In our minds, two parallel, overlapping
categorizing systems seem to be at work, one
independent from the other. The cognitive type system,
acting only at a personal and inner level; and the verbal
categorizing system, also useful for outer communication,
although in a partial and imperfect way.
Let us take dreams as an example. Freud, in
The Interpretation of Dreams, has analyzed the main
features of the mechanisms leading to the formation of
dreams
4. Dreams are not made of words;
they emerge from a nonverbal space within us.
| Thought processes and affects are represented in
dreams in a visual and (less frequently) auditory form.
Other modes of sensory experience ' touch, smell, taste,
and kinesthetic sensation ' also appear in dreams. [...]
Two other elements of the dream work are plastic and
symbolic representation, that is, the transformation of
thoughts into sensory symbols and images; and
secondary elaboration, the linking together of the separate images and elements of the dream into a relatively
coherent story or action. Sometimes secondary
elaboration or revision does not occur and the dream is
recalled as a disjointed, incoherent, or bizarre series of
images or phrases.
5
|
When we recall a dream soon after awaking, such
memories, regardless of their vividness, are made of
nonverbal material. If such material is stored as it is (in
nonverbal form), it follows the same fate as every other
memory: it is eroded with time more or less rapidly,
depending on the circumstances.
We get a completely different result if we try to
write down the content of the dream or to describe it to
somebody: a genuine translation is required. Images,
sounds, and other feelings have to be translated into
words. When we put a dream into words, we are
frequently unsatisfied with our translation. The text we can
produce omits some feelings and images that are not
describable in words and mental facts that, if verbalized,
lose expressiveness.
A dream can sometimes leave us such strong
feelings, that for many hours we cannot shake its
influence, even if with our rational mind we are aware that
what we dreamed has not happened in the outer world,
just inside us, in our mental imaginary world. Very seldom
we can share the strength of such feelings. It is easier for
individuals who can express themselves through nonverbal
languages, such as representational arts, music, body
expression, or even through poetry, in which words and
sounds are equally expressive.
What is more, our diurnal, rational mind cannot
understand the logic of some passages in dreams. If I was
on a mountaintop, how is it possible that, without any
journey, I eventually found myself lying on my carpet at
home? For this reason, when we use "secondary
elaboration", our role as chroniclers forces us '
unconsciously sometimes ' to adjust, modify, and/or
review our verbal version of the dream so as to give the
story cohesion, a plot, which can be completely remote
from the original dream material.
| [[...] inner language, due to its psychological nature, is
a particular formation, a particular kind of verbal activity,
with extremely specific features; it has a very complex relationship with
other kinds of verbal activity. [...] Inner
language is a process or transformation of thought [mysl´]
into words; it is their materialization and objectification
6.
|
If, on one hand, such materialization is incomplete
and produces a loss, on the other hand it can be a
precious tool to increase control over our mind. From
Freud on, many therapies for the treatment of different
kinds of neuroses are based on the use of words: the
patient tries to translate into words feelings, anxieties,
dreams, mental associations, and the therapist encourages
such objectifying process, such materializing process for
its liberating values. Before verbalization, many inner links
among different thoughts, images, and feelings appear to
be inexistent ' like temporarily inactivated hypertextual
links. After verbalization they become apparent, and, in
some cases, their acknowledgment can untie inner knots,
release tensions, resolve mental short circuits that can be
the basis of neurotic symptoms, giving the patient a sense
of release and providing him, at the same time, an increased insight.
Writing ' translation of inner nonverbal
language into outer verbal language ' is an activity that,
being a phase of the same translation process involved in
professional interlingual transfer, has moreover much in
common with intersemiotic translation. The presence, as a
replacement for an original text, of what Vygotsky calls
"inner language" and Eco calls "cognitive types", and the
fact that outer verbal language is not only a means of
expression but also a tool to categorize experience has
many implications. Such implications relate to the writer's
mind, the reason behind the writing, and the projective
receiver of the written text which may be a real person (in
the case of correspondence) or a hypothetic, implied
receiver, a model of reader (as in the case of
books).
We can also take into consideration the case of
writing as an attempt at self-therapy, of solitary
meditation, without any postulated receiver. For some,
this, only, is authentic writing. Anna Maria Ortese wrote:
| Writing is looking for tranquility, and sometimes to
find it. It is to go back home. The same goes for reading.
People that truly write or read ' i.e. just for themselves '
go back home; they feel good. People who never write or
read, or do so just to obey an order, for practical reasons,
are always out of their home, even if they have many a
home. They are poor, and they make life poorer
7.
|
Gianni Celati, referring to a short story by Marco Belpoliti, La linea evapora nel piano
[The line evaporates into the plane], admires the geometric metaphor of writing as a linear
activity whose product can proliferate acquiring a further dimension.
| ['] the idea of the line that evaporates sublimating
into the plane, letting people think at geometry in a more
creative way, moreover makes people think that writing is
exactly a line producing a plane. Here we see the
daydreaming of the intellect expand (their master being
Italo Calvino)
8.
|
In the following units, we will examine the
repercussions on the translation process of all these ways
of intending "writing".
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES:
AMERICAN PSYCHOANALYTIC ASSOCIATION Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts, ed. B. E. Moore and
B. D. Fine, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-300-04701-0.
CELATI G., ed., Narratori delle riserve. Milano, Feltrinelli, 1992. ISBN 88-07-01439-4.
FREUD S. Die Traumdeutung. Leipzig, Franz Deuticke, 1900.
FREUD S. The Interpretation of Dreams, in Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of
Sigmund Freud, ed. J. Strachey, London, Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis,
1953-1974, vol. 4 and 5.
LAING R. D. Knots. New York, Pantheon Books, 1970. ISBN 0-394-43211-8.
MARCHESE, A. Dizionario di retorica e di stilistica. Milano, Mondadori, 1991. ISBN 88-04-14664-8.
VYGOTSKY L. S. Myshlenie i rech´. Psihologicheskie issledovanija. Moskvà-Leningrad,
Gosudarstvennoe social´no-èkonomicheskoe izdatel´stvo, 1934. English translation: Thought and Language;
translated from the Russian and edited by Alex Kozulin, Cambridge (Massachusetts), MIT Press, 1986.
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