TRANSLATIONAL HERMENEUTICS AS A BASIS OF NOVEL METHOD FOR TEXT ANALYSIS

Abstract

Translational hermeneutics has opened up new vistas for a modern research method and has been the centre of attention of foreign scholars. However, in today’s Ukrainian context, the productive characteristics of this method concerning text analysis are not sufficiently studied. The proposed paper is an attempt to fill this lacune. The article is devoted to reviewing theoretical materials about translational hermeneutics as an overt, but structured methodological basis for understanding and interpreting the meaning in the original and translated texts. Interconnection of the interpretive theory of translation and cognitive hermeneutics is summarized; the contours of their mutual integration to translation hermeneutics are clarified, firstly, in explaining the text within a cognitive approach. Attention is paid to defining the subject matter of translational hermeneutics; two main orientations of cognitive hermeneutics are highlighted: a holistic vision of the translator and an understanding of the text as a self-sufficient artefact; the concept of «hermeneutical helix» of cognizing the original text and «enhanced understanding» as a strategic process of translation are considered. The conditions of the author’s realm are: the concept of the text, the literary program, and the system of beliefs. The principles of translational hermeneutics are: subjectivity, historicity, phenomenology, process character, holistic nature, and reflection. Text understanding components include: the situational background, the discourse field, the meaning dimension, the predicative mode. The criteria for implementing the translation strategy from the perspective of text production are highlighted; i.e., genre, coherence, stylistics and function of the target text. Thus, translation is a form of enhanced understanding, and translating is not a prerogative of language but rather an issue of meaning and communication through this meaning.