Chapter 7
Translation and biosemiotics
The Soviet context
The emergence of biosemiotics in Soviet translatology and related fields has a unique history, which is related to
the adoption and adaptation of Saussurean linguistics to various fields, beginning with literature. This chapter traces this
trajectory in two distinct periods. The first period covers the initial adoption of formalist concepts by translation
scholars, such as Dmitrii Usov and Andrei Fodorov, in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The second period relates to the
rediscovery of Russian formalism in the post-World War II period, and its role in the evolution of the concept of translation
among the scholars of the Moscow-Tartu Semiotic School, focusing on the writings of Juri Lotman.
Article outline
- Translation and/as science
- The Russian formalists: From mechanistic to organicist models
- Organic metaphors in Soviet translation studies
- Biosemiotics in the Moscow-Tartu school
- Conclusion: The future of translation and biosemiotics
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Notes
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References