LINGUIST List 6.1057

Wed Aug 9 1995

Qs: Textual Criticism, Translation, Hypothesis testing

Editor for this issue: T. Daniel Seely <dseelyemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. Birgit Kellner, Query: literature on textual criticism, translation of philosophical
2. "Tobias Schoofs", automatic hypothesis

 texts

1) I am looking for reference to introductory books on textual criticism,
i.e. manuals which teach the terminology, theoretical background and
practical usage on preparing critical editions of texts. I am working on
critical editions of philosophical Sanskrit texts and feel I need some
firmer grounding in the basic principles of textual criticism. References
should be to English-language publications, because it is English
terminology I have to familiarize myself with (although references to other
European- or esp. Japanese-language publications will also be greatly
appreciated).

2) During my studies in Indian philosophy, I often noticed that both the
scope, purpose and method of translation is, if at all, only fuzzily
systematized. Reflections on what a translation of a Sanskrit philosophical
text can achieve are sparse, and not very well informed by general
translational theories. In my own work, I often came across diverging
opinions, neither of them properly thought through, on rather minute
details, which are nevertheless telling about the lack of a theoretical
background. For instance, the issue of bracketing is a never-ending-dispute
between my several professors and me. One of my professors holds that every
expression in the translation, which has no correspondence in the original
(Sanskrit) text, should be bracketed, with the exception of necessary
syntactical elements, which are implied but not explicitly expressed in
Sanskrit (e.g. copula). Against this I raised the vagueness of the applied
concept of "correspondence", because he seems to presuppose a sort of "pure
semantics". The Sanskrit text is separated into chunks of meaning, each of
which is individually rendered in the target language, and when you find
that something is lacking in order to yield a proper target
language-sentence, you supply it in brackets. Pragmatic or otherwise co- and
contextual criteria are neglected. It is my position that criteria such as
e.g. the argumentative character of a text, its purpose to represent an
imaginary dialogue betweeen different philosophical schools, have to be
involved in the process of translation. Certain functional elements are an
integral part of an argumentative text, although they are not present on the
textual surface.

I know that I am arguing on shaky ground here. Thus, I am looking for
literature on the application of translation theory/theories on
philosophical texts in particular, especially literature which uses elements
of discourse analysis or text-linguistics.

Any help in these two areas will be greatly appreciated,

Birgit Kellner
Institute for Indian Philosophy
University of Hiroshima

I'm looking for literature about automatic hypothesis testing (and generating)
in linguistics. Can anybody help me?

Tobias