Let the meta-discussion begin, James Holmes urged in 1972. Coming almost forty years later years filled with fascinating and often unexpected developments in the interdiscipline of Translation Studies this volume offers the reader a multiplicity of meta-perspectives, while also moving the discussion forward. Indeed, the (re)production and (re)use of metalinguistic metaphors frame and partly determine our views on research, so such a discussion is vital -as it is in any scholarly discipline. Among other questions, the eleven contributors draw the reader s attention to the often puzzling variations of usage and conceptualization in both the theory and the practice of translation. First published as a special issue of Target 19:2 (2007), the volume runs the gamut of metalinguistic topics, ranging from terminology, localization and epistemological questions, through the Chinese perspective, to the conceptual mapping of the online Translation Studies Bibliography."

This edited volume covers the development and application of metalanguages for concretely describing and communicating translation processes in practice. In a modern setting of project-based translation, it is crucial to bridge the gaps between various actors involved in the translation process, especially among clients, translation service providers (TSPs), translators, and technology developers. However, we have been confronted with the lack of common understanding among them about the notion and detailed mechanisms of translation. Against this backdrop, we are developing systematic, fine-grained metalanguages that are designed to describe and analyse translation processes in concrete terms. Underpinned by the rich accumulation of theoretical findings in translation studies and established standards of practical translation services, such as ISO 17100, our metalanguages extensively cover the core processes in translation projects, namely project management, source document analysis, translation, and revision. Gathering authors with diverse backgrounds and expertise, this book proffers the fruits of the contributors’ collaborative endeavour; it not only provides practicable metalanguages, but also reports on wide-ranging case studies on the application of metalanguages in practical and pedagogical scenarios. This book supplies concrete guidance for those who are involved in the translation practices and translation training/education. In addition to being of practical use, the metalanguages reflect explication of the translation process. As such, this book provides essential insights for researchers and students in the field of translation studies. The up-to-date versions of the metalanguages, related materials, and the corrigendum for the book content are available on our project website: https://tntc-project.github.io

Dr Keith Allan presents a coherent, consistent and comprehensive account of linguistic meaning, centred around an informally presented theory of meaning. It is intended for graduate and undergraduate students of linguistics, or any linguist curious about what a theory of meaning should seek to accomplish and the way to achieve that aim. The work assumes that the primary task of a theory of linguistic meaning is to describe the meaning of speech acts. This in turn presupposes a theory of semantics and a theory of prosodic meaning, as well as a proper treatment of the co-operative principle, context and background information. These matters are dealt with in detail. The second task of a theory of linguistic meaning is to identify what meaning is, to explain the relationships between sense and denotation, and to explicate the nature of meaningful properties and meaning relations. These matters are fully covered, and the work concludes with a summary of the principle arguments presented.

Translation is a rapidly developing subject of study, especially in China, Australia, Europe and the USA. This Handbook offers an accessible and authoritative account of the many facets of this buoyant discipline, intended for students, teachers and scholars of translation studies, modern languages, linguistics, social studies and literary studies.

Translation entails transfer of meaning, even if the exact sense of the word "meaning" is vague. The same applies to the term "translation equivalence". Illustrated by numerous examples, this book is an attempt to cope with this and many other conceptual, terminological and practical difficulties resulting from this nebula of issues.

This book discusses the ideas of Donald Davidson, on the nature of understanding and meaning, and the nature of truth and knowledge, providing an account of Davidson's holistic and hermeneutical conception of linguistic interpretation, and, more generally, of the mind.

The answer to the question "How can we understand and use a definition?" provides new constraints on natural language and on the internal language in which meaning is mentally represented. Most syntax takes the sentence as the basic unit for well-formedness, but definitions force us to focus on words and phrases, and hence to focus on compositional syntax in parallel with compositional semantics. This study examines both dictionary definitions and definitions from textbooks, from the points of view of their syntax, semantics, and use for learning word meaning. The tools used throughout are Principles and Parameters syntax, Relevance theoretic pragmatics, Model theoretic semantics, and the formal theory of definitions. The analyses argue that because phrases can be understood in isolation, some standard syntactic analyses must be modified. 'NP movement' has to be reanalysed as transmission of theta roles. These ideas are then applied to a variety of adjectives which take propositional complements. The final chapter argues that for definitions to be understood, the syntax of the Language of Thought must be close to that of Natural Language in specifiable way.