The most common difficulty in translation
studies has traditionally been the dilemma between the historical
and synchronic approaches in the analysis and description of
the culture of translation. On the one hand the culture of translation
might be presented as a sum of various kinds of translated texts
(repertoire of culture), on the other hand it might be described
as a hierarchy of various types of translations. The first approach
assumes plenty of languages for such a description, while the
other suggests only one language for the same representation.
A cultural critic faces the same problems. In this perspective
translation reveals certain vital mechanisms of the performance
of culture. First of all it was the semiotic interpretation of
the theory of translation, introduced by a number of scientists
beginning with R. Jakobson and including U. Eco who put together
inter-linguistic, intra-linguistic, and inter-semiotic translations,
that was so crucial for the further understanding of culture.
As a result the general notion of culture might be described
as a process of total translation. A second valuable contribution
to the theory of translation was made by both M. Bakhtin and
Y. Lotman in terms of a synthesis of two traditions in the semiotics
of culture, which resulted in a juxtaposition of such notions
as dialogism and autonomy creolization, polyphony, counterword,
and translation.
