Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 2, 2023

Cultural Context, Barriers to Interpretation and Validity of Interpretation

(Abstract)

Chen Kaiju

A literary text contains two types of meaning: its basic meaning and the author’s intention. The reader grasps the basic meaning through semantic analysis of the text, while the author’s intention (termed implicature in pragmatics) is implied in the text. Our understanding of the implicature requires a process of non-demonstrative inference on the part of the reader: the linguistic information provided by the author activates the optimal relevant contextual factors that allow the reader to infer the author’s intention. The key factor in the process of inference is the cultural context of the author when creating the text. With special reference to translation, the most typical form of cross-cultural communication, we elaborate in this essay the barriers to interpretation that arise in translating the author’s intentions due to the inevitable asymmetry of the cultural contexts of the author and the interpreter. We also briefly review the schools of translation studies from koyi to transknowletology to show the general evolution of the fundamental issues of barriers to interpretation, validity of interpretation and standard of translation in both theory and practice.