ON THINKING MATHEMATICS IN TRANSLATION

This article is part of a research into understanding and interpretation of a source text to be translated. The author analyzes some mistakes made by translation students and thinks of a path the students might have followed to get there. He argues that any translation-relevant transformations performed disregarding the extra-linguistic context behind the source text merely modify its surface level instead of making it possible for the addressee to understand the ideas of the text. The article is neither purely semantic, nor is it purely translatological. Rather, it proposes that the framework of General Semiotics be applied to treating of translation quality and translator training.