Towards an anthropology of translation

This article investigates the anthropological assumptions underlying contemporary theories of translation. It argues that a large part of Translation Studies implicitly relies on what may be called an anthropology of interpretation, according to which interpretation constitutes the fundamental activity of human thought and therefore the basis of translation. After reviewing the increasingly generalised uses of the concept, two main versions of interpretive anthropology are reconstructed: one that identifies interpretation with reformulation (as in Jakobson and Peirce), and another that conceives interpretation as the extralinguistic basis of meaning. Drawing on arguments from Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, this paradigm is subjected to critical scrutiny. In the final section, some preliminary suggestions are advanced for a philosophy of translation inspired by Wittgenstein’s view of language as a rule-governed practice embedded in forms of life. From this perspective, translation appears not primarily as interpretation, but as a situated activity rooted in shared linguistic practices.