Abstract

As its title indicates, this dissertation seeks both to determine the scope and nature of theory of translation, and to provide a basis for future attempts to produce such a theory. Its general strategy is to clear the ground for an analysis of the nature of the equivalence obtaining between a translation and its original, by grounding it in an adequate theory of language. Thus, its primary focus is on existing theories of meaning and of truth, particularly as enunciated by contemporary representatives of the analytic tradition of philosophy. ;It is divided into three chapters. Chapter I centers about the problem of indeterminacy of translation, as introduced by Quine, and serves mainly as a prospectus of current philosophic discussion involving the notion of translation. It attempts both to enunciate the major problems and to review and criticize various significant viewpoints concerning them. Since theory of translation is shown to involve theory of meaning, Chapter II attempts to adumbrate a theory of meaning adequate to the needs and practices of translation. Such a theory, in turn, is shown to involve the notion of truth in relation to human practice, and hence Chapter III is devoted to theory of truth. In a short Postscript, the results of these discussions are refocused on the problem of translational equivalence, in the endeavor to provide an heuristic for subsequent analysis. ;Although it cannot presume to have provided an adequate theory of translation, this dissertation claims to have sketched the basis for such a theory, by virtue of having provided an account of the workings of inter-linguistic exchanges, and language in general, from the perspective of the actual practice of translation, rather than from the typical "armchair linguistics" of most philosophic theory. In the process, it has provided a perspective on the ancient problems of meaning and truth, which, if correct, would necessitate a thorough revamping of most of the traditional approaches to those problems. Although centered about the notion of translation, owing to the ramifications of this notion, it could perhaps as easily be seen as a prolegomenon to theory of knowledge