Translation as a communicative unit in language

The practice of translation is even more complex, andthe behaviour of the translator and the quality of his work do notdepend solely on his linguistic or literary abilities. The translator issimultaneously a mediator, creator, producer, manager, critic, andsometimes ideologue. All of these roles make up various aspects ofcultural behaviour and can be correlated to the entire textual corpus ofa culture. An actualization of the various cultural and social roles ofthe translator reflects the general effort of analysts toward a complexunderstanding of the phenomenon of translation in the processes of culture.

From the point of view of culture, translation and translationstudies are two sides of same phenomenon. Each culture develops inits own way, has its own technological environment and its owntraditions of analyzing culture texts. A culture’s capacity for analysisreflects its ability to describe and to understand itself. In the process ofdescription and understanding, an important role is played by themultiplicity of texts, by the interrelatedness of communication with metacomunication.

From the point of view of culture, translation and translationstudies are two sides of same phenomenon. Each culture develops inits own way, has its own technological environment and its owntraditions of analyzing culture texts. A culture’s capacity for analysisreflects its ability to describe and to understand itself. In the process ofdescription and understanding, an important role is played by themultiplicity of texts, by the interrelatedness of communication with metacomunication.

The multiplicity of texts makes it possible toview communication processes as translation processes. But besidesimmediate textual transformations, the analysis of these trans-formations — that is, their translation into various metalanguages —has a strong significance in culture. Both in the case of textualtransformations and their translations into metalanguages, an impor-tant role is performed by the addressees, their ability to recognize thenature of the text at hand, and their readiness to communicate. Just asin translation culture, there is also an infinite retranslation and varia-tion taking place in translation studies.