Proper Word, Foreign Word

Abstract

What is proper and what is foreign as a source of implicit values in communication and meaning is a Bakhtinian idea retranslated by Lotman from his semiotics of culture and integrated at the same time in the conception of the comprehension mechanism from the point of view of “total translation” which permits us to appreciate the fetishisms of authorship and of the speaking subject, the limits of understanding what the other says, and the margin of incomprehension as a possibility of generating new meanings.

The authorship of the foundational work of Saussure and that of Bakhtin’s “deuterocanonical” texts are put under inspection within this viewpoint. The complexity that the translation of Bakhtin’s texts represents are interpreted within the context of “total translation’’ which is a definitive cultural condition in contemporary times above all.