Traduzione come conoscenza e rienunciazione

This article is divided in two parts. It first presents a philosophical conception of translation. From a philosophical standpoint, translation may be considered in a broad sense as a process of symbolic transformation endowed with a cognitive value. Translation establishes multi-level relationships. At the semantic level, translation deals with relationships between meanings; at the epistemological level, it deals with relationships between concepts and theories; at the philosophical and ontological level, it brings into play relationships between subjects and cultures. The second part of the article contrasts a semantic conception of translation as recoding of messages with a conception of translation as a re-enunciation of texts. When translating an essayistic text, attention must be paid not to a simple message, but to the conditions of enunciation, to the reference established by the text, to the speech acts realized in statements, to the co-textual and con-textual circumstances.