What Does Philosophical Translation Need? Mapping the Translational Trajectory of Equivalence in Terminology
What Does Philosophical Translation Need? Mapping the Translational Trajectory of Equivalence in Terminology

Summary/Abstract: The paper zooms in on the problem of equivalence with regard to translating philosophical texts which have so far been marginalized in translation theory. Drawing on Nida’s equivalence theory, the author of this paper prioritizes formal equivalence over dynamic one, basing this approach on the specific nature of philosophical discourse. To this end, pertinent extracts from David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature with a special focus on philosophical terminology have been compared with their published Slovak, Czech and German translations. The paper provides an account of how and why the form is bound up with the meaning in the ambit of philosophy. The comparative analysis suggests that the form and function of philosophical discourse is connected to such a degree that the form even constitutes a part of the text’s function.

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