rethinking translation in the second language classroom

of nonverbal sign systems” (p. 113). The conception of translation as a semiotic
activity is not new. According to Bassnett (2002), semiotics can explain the
process of translation. Therefore, we have to accept that “although translation has
a central core of linguistic activity, it belongs more properly to semiotics, the
science that studies sign systems or structures, sign processes and sign functions”
(Beeby, 1996, p. 37). Then, Hatim and Mason distinguish three dimensions in the
process of translation: communicative, pragmatic (which “regulates
intentionality”), and semiotic (“which regulates the relation of texts to each other
as Signs”) (as cited in Beeby, 1996, p. 37).
According to Hatim and Mason (1990) semiotic translation involves the translator
in four processes:
1. Identification of a semiotic entity in the source text.
2. Information, that is, identification of an informational core in order to find a
denotational equivalent for the cultural sign.
3. Explication. If “the denotational equivalent is not self-sufficient”, an explication is
added through synonymy, expansion, paraphrase …
4. Transformation. It consists of considering any missing connotations in “intentionality
and status of the sign” in the target text (p. 105-106).
Considering that semiotics also involves syntactic, semantic and pragmatic
features of the sign, Hatim and Mason (1990) conceive three types of relations:
a) syntactic, when one sign is related to other signs that belong to the same syntactic
category.
b) semantic, when one sign is related to entities that refer to the real world.
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