TRANSLATION AND SEMIOTIC PHENOMENOLOGY: THE CASE FOR GILLES DELEUZE

In this article I draw attention to semiotic phenomenology as a method to advance translation studies. I recover this method first in the works of Ferdinand de Saussure and Edmund Husserl and then present it in two theories of translation: by linguist Roman Jakobson and by philosopher Jacques Derrida. These theories are examined to assert that Jakobson and Derrida share the semiotic phenomenological focus and thus should be considered co-contributors to the semiotic phenomenological method. I also show this method at work in some of the writings by Gilles Deleuze, who makes an explicit contribution to translation theory with his concepts of 'faciality', 'simulacrum', and 'trans-semiotics' as well as his insistence on the pragmatic aspect of translation. The latter perspective is considered to be particularly fruitful for those studies of translation that presume its significance at different levels of sociality.