This article suggests that the discomfort with translation theory felt by some translation scholars arises from the fact that translation theory has tended to undermine itself, and hence translation studies as such, by questioning the existence of its own subject matter. An attempt is made to ease the discomfort by defending Davidson's (1973; 1974) reply to the indeterminacy thesis proposed by Quine (1960). Finally, the article draws on Davidson's later theory of linguistic interaction (1986) in presenting a model of translation which highlights features which translation does not share with other types of linguistic interaction, and which may, consequently, merit particular attention in translation theory.
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Nord, Christiane. 1992. “Text Analysis in Translator Training”. Cay Dollerup and Anne Loddegaard, eds. Teaching Translation and Interpreting: Training, Talent and Experience. Papers from the First Language International Conference, Elsinore, Denmark, 31 May—2 June 1991. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1992. 39–48.
Quine, Willard van Orman. 1960. Word and Object. Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press.
Sperber, Dan and Deirdre Wilson. 1986. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Toury, Gideon. 1980. “Translated Literature: System, Norm, Performance. Toward a TT-oriented Approach to Literary Translation”. In Search of a Theory of Translation. Tel Aviv: The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, Tel Aviv University, 1980. 35–50.
Vienne, Jean. 1993. “Toward a Pedagogy of Translation in Situation”. Paper Presented at the Second Language International Conference, Elsinore, Denmark, 4-6 June 1993.
2005. TRANSLATION AND LINGUISTICS. Perspectives 13:1 ► pp. 5 ff.
Ervas, Francesca
2008. Davidson’s Notions of Translation Equivalence. Journal of Universal Language 9:2 ► pp. 7 ff.
Ervas, Francesca
2013. The Definition of Translation in Davidson’s Philosophy: Semantic Equivalence versus Functional Equivalence. TTR 25:1 ► pp. 243 ff.
Ervas, Francesca
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Heltai, Pál
2003. Message Adjustment in Translation. Across Languages and Cultures 4:2 ► pp. 145 ff.
Tack, Lieven
2002. Translation and the Dialectics of Difference and Equivalence: Some Theoretical Propositions for a Redefinition of the Source-Target Text Relation. Meta 45:2 ► pp. 210 ff.
ARROJO, Rosemary
1998. Os ‘estudos da tradução’ como área de pesquisa independente: dilemas e ilusões de uma disciplina em (des)construção. DELTA: Documentação de Estudos em Lingüística Teórica e Aplicada 14:2 ► pp. 423 ff.
Ruuskanen, Deborah D.K.
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