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Part of
The Complexity of Social-Cultural Emergence: Biosemiotics, semiotics and translation studies
Edited by Kobus Marais, Reine Meylaerts and Maud Gonne
[Benjamins Translation Library 164] 2024
► pp. 128–156

Chapter 6
The bee and the flower

Locating semiotic hospitality in biotranslation

| Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Government College

This chapter is an attempt to understand human translation of cultural texts generated through human agency as a structural continuation of biotranslation prevalent in the natural world. It begins by analysing bee communication and orchid mimicry as examples of biotranslation located within the tripartite biosemiotic model of Carlo Brentari, following Jakob von Uexküll, and finally arrives at a method in translation studies that prioritises cooperative engagements through an inclusive theory of semiotic hospitality. For this, the model of the Samavasarana from Jain philosophy is applied, both because of its ecological expanse, and its structural affinity to Brentari’s biosemiotic model. Concluding Kierkegaard’s temporal realm of human concerns to be the reason for functional cleavage between the semiosphere from the biosphere, resetting that connection is the purpose of this article.

Keywords: Umwelt, semioshpere, biotranslation, transversal subjectivity, Lotman, semiotic hospitality, Jain philosophy, Samavasarana, Kierkegaard
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Part I
    • Translation as semiotic mediation
    • Translation as biosemiotic mediation
  • The bee and the flower
  • Kalevi Kull, Peeter Torop and Kobus Marais: Setting up categories of biotranslation and eutranslation
  • Part II
  • The structure of the Samavasarana: The refuge of all beings
  • References
Published online: 3 May 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.164.06cha
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