A Socio-semiotic Approach To Meaning In Translation

Ke Ping

To study the status of meaning is to study

the substance and limits of translation.
(George Steiner 1975: 414).

The primary concern of the translator is to transfer the meaning of the source
language message to the target language. Meaning is both the point of departure and
the end product of translation operations. It forms the central problem of translation.
To the extent that translation studies rely upon the study of meaning, however,
traditional studies in semantics seem to be inadequate in that their objects of
investigation were confined to reference. Sense and many other aspects of meaning
which may figure prominently in communication were overlooked. In phatic dis­
course, for instance, the social or interpersonal meaning is far more important than
the literal reference of an expression. In the present paper, I intend to analyse
meaning from the socio-semiotic perspective, with special reference to Chinese-
English translation. My aim would be to construct a model of meaning which would
encompass all the important meanings the translator may possibly encounter, and
which would shed some light on the relative weight of those meanings in different
contexts.

Semiotics and Meaning

Semiotics is the scientific study of the properties of signing systems, whether natural
or artificial. In its oldest sense, it refers to the study within philosophy of sign and
symbol systems in general. The modern use of the word covers the investigation of
patterned human communication in all its modes ( auditory-vocal, visual, tactile,
olfactory and gustatory). The first overall plan for semiotic research was developed
by the American philosopher C S. Peirce (1839-1914), who also adopted the very
term "semiotics". It was the American logician and philosopher Charles Morris,
however, who expounded the notion of the sign and substantially advanced the study
of semiotics. Morris was the sole semiotician before Umberto Eco to present a sound

Babel 42:2 (1996), 74-83. DOI 10.1075/babel.42.2.03pin

ISSN 0521-9744 / E-ISSN 1569-9668 © Federation Internationale des Traducteurs (FIT) Revue Babel
A Socio-semiotic Approach To Meaning In Translation 75

theoretical frame of study for general semiotics (Li 1993: 452). The distinctions he
introduced between the three dimensions of sign relationships have become classic
in semiotic study: the relationship between signs and entities in the world to which
they refer or describe is semantic; that between signs themselves, syntactic; and that
between signs and their users, pragmatic.
Meaning is the attribute of the sign or symbol. De Saussure's terminological
distinction between the signifiant and the signifié implies that what is employed to
mean and what is meant are intrinsically linked to each other. In a general semiotic
sense, meaning can be regarded as the relationship between a sign and something
outside itself (Uspenskij 1977: 171).
A semiotic notion of meaning is one of multiple dimensions. Corresponding to
the three types of semiotic relationships Morris distinguished are three categories of
socio-semiotic meaning. As the semantic relationship in Morris' scheme of sign
relationships is actually limited to the referential, and the sign in the present discus­
sion is none other than the linguistic one (phoneme, grapheme, morpheme, word,
phrase, sentence, up to discourse), we will rechristen the three categories of meaning
as referential meaning (RM), intralingual meaning (IM), ("intralingual" is not to be
identified with the purely linguistic use of the word, which narrowly refers to the
sequential arrangement of syntax; the semiotic use of the word covers all the levels
of linguistic description other than the semantic one) and pragmatic meaning (PM).

Three Categories of Socio-semiotic Meaning

As all good translators know, extralingual factors, or knowledge of our world,

weighs heavily in the correct comprehension and interpretation of the source mes­
sage. Translation is basically a kind of interlingual communication in a different
sociocultural context. Since language, the media in which the translator works, is the
most important as well as the most typical signing system to the human race, and
since the dynamics of all major linguistic relationships (especially pragmatic or
social ones) fall within the domain of semiotic research, a semiotic approach to
translation cannot but be a socio-semiotic one. In this regard, "semiotic" is synony­
mous with "socio-semiotic".
In linguistic communication, as in any other kinds of communication, at least
five essential elements are involved: the Topic (the message transmitted), the Code
(the system of symbols with which the message is processed and sent out), the
Sender (the encoder of the message), the Receiver (the decoder of the message), and
the Channel of Contact (between the Sender and the Receiver). Each of the three
categories of socio-semiotic meaning is related primarily to one or more of these five
elements.
76 Ke Ping

1. Referential Meaning (RM)

RM is chiefly connected with the Topic. Topic here should be understood in its
broadest sense, since human language can be employed to talk about almost any­
thing, universal or unique, real or imaginary. When language is used to describe,
name, analyze, and criticize its own features, it carries what is often termed as
"metalinguistic" meaning.
On most occasions of linguistic communication RM is the core element of a
verbal message. It is also known as "conceptual meaning" or "cognitive meaning".

2. Intralingual Meaning (IM)

IM is related to the Code. With regard to the level of linguistic description on which
it is realized, IM may be subdivided into the following:
(1) Phonological meaning, which is suggested by the sound of the utterance.
Designated by Peter Newmark as "phonaesthetic meaning" (Picken 1989: 13),
phonological meaning results from the use of alliteration (e.g. "The sun sank
slowly."), assonance (e.g. "Our echoes roll from soul to soul."), consonance
(e.g. "The sp/endor fa//s on cast/e walls."), or end rhymes, e.g. W.J.B. Fletcher's
rendering of the 8th-century Chinese poet Du Fu's famous lines:
Through endless Space with rustling sound
The falling leaves are whirled around.
Beyond my ken a yeasty sea
The Yantsze's waves are rolling free. (Lü 1980: 123)

(2) Graphemic meaning, which may be found across the smallest units or forms of
the writing system of a language. For example, the Chinese proverb Bazi hai meiyou
y i pie ne 'Not even the first stroke of the character ba [eight] is in sight yet' is used to
denote a situation wherein there has not yet been the slightest sign of the beginning
of something referred to, because the Chinese character ba is composed of two
strokes. One has to set on paper the first stroke before the whole character can be
spelled out.
(3) Morphological/lexemic meaning, which may be foregrounded through the de­
liberate use of the relationships between the smallest meaningful units, either a
morpheme or a word (lexeme), in a language. These two sorts of meaning are
regularly discovered in plays on words such as puns (as in a classified ad: "Local
carpenter seeks local dentist for trade of skills. I'll build your bridge, and you'll build
mine"), syllepsis (e.g. "While the Vietnam vet was fighting, and losing limb and
mind, and dying, others stayed behind to pursue education and career"), and proper
A Socio-semiotic Approach To Meaning In Translation 11

names charged with implications or associations. The name "Becky Sharp" in

William Thackeray's Vanity Fair, for instance, is quite suggestive of the character of
the novel's heroine; while the name of the late French president Charles de Gaulle
echoes that of the ancient Celtic-speaking people — the Gauls, and the epithet of the
king of the Holy Roman Empire — "Charles the Great." (Nixon 1982)
(4) Syntactic meaning, which has to do with the arrangement of morphemes and
words into larger units: phrases, clauses, and sentences. The hackneyed example in
journalism about what is news, "A dog bit a man" or "A man bit a dog", illustrates
clearly syntactic meanings as affected by different word order.
Morphological and syntactic meanings are also known collectively as gram­
matical meaning. They are usually the least salient of intralingual meanings because
grammatical forms are in most cases obligatory and hence predictable.
(5) Discoursal meaning (textual meaning), which arises from the way clauses and
sentences are combined to form still larger meaningful units such as paragraphs,
conversations, interviews, etc. The way clauses and sentences are connected to each
other (hypotactic or paratactic), the choice of articles, pronouns, and tenses, which
affects the structure of the discourse (cohesion), the relationships between utterances
in a discourse (coherence), all these and more add up to the discoursal meaning of a
written or spoken passage (see Coulthard 1985).

3. Pragmatic Meaning (PM)

Pragmatics was introduced into the study of meaning in the 1970s. Modern transla­
tion theory has come to recognize the need for pragmatic, as well as referential
(semantic) and intralingual (syntactic) equivalence. Within the pragmatic category,
the adequate rendering of subtle interrelations between saying things on the one
hand, and knowing, believing or doubting them on the other, and of the elements in
linguistic communication that are indicative of the interactions between the speaker
and the receiver, are considered to be one of the objectives of translation
(Tabakowska 1990: 74).
David Crystal defines pragmatics as:
the study of language from the point of view of the users, especially of the
choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social
interaction, and the effects their use of language has on the other participants
in an act of communication. (Crystal 1985: 240).

In accordance with the three focal areas of pragmatic study proposed by Crystal, PM
may be divided into four subsets, i.e. expressive meaning and identificational mean­
ing, associative meaning, social meaning, and imperative meaning.
78 Ke Ping

Expressive meaning and identificational meaning are primarily related to the

Sender. Associative meaning is linked to both the Sender and the Receiver. Expres­
sive meaning refers to the emotional content of an expression and any identity the
expression might have in terms of the personality or individual creativity of the user.
The term overlaps with "affective meaning" (the attitudinal element in an expression
or the expression of attitude or "affect" in intonation), "connotative meaning" (the
emotional associations and other notions or ideas suggested by, or being part of the
meaning of, a linguistic unit), and "emotive meaning" (the emotional effect of an
expression on the Receiver). Peter Newmark notes three characteristically expres­
sive text-types: (a) serious imaginative literature (e.g. lyrical poetry); (b) authorita­
tive statements (political speeches and documents, statutes and legal documents,
philosophical and academic works by acknowledged authorities); (c) autobiography,
essays, personal correspondence (when these are personal effusions) (Newmark
1988: 39-40).
Associative meaning (another name for connotative meaning) refers to the
associations, impressions, and reflections which linguistic signs elicit in the minds of
the speakers of a language.
What is of particular relevance to expressive meaning and associative meaning
is the figurative uses of language such as metaphors ("All the world's a stage."),
similes ("As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country."),
metonymy ("White House" for "the American Presidency"), and synecdoche ("sail"
for "yacht"). All these figures of speech are characterized by the substitution of one
object or idea (usually concrete) for another, or the substitution of part of an object or
idea for the whole. They have as their core the associative meaning of the expression;
and the process is usually expressive because descriptive expressions or images are
utilized either to recreate sensory experiences so that an idea or picture comes into
focus most clearly (e.g. "They are now between the devil and the deep blue sea."), or
to pass emotional evaluations (e.g. "He is a fox."), or both (as in the famous couplet
by Ezra Pound, "The apparition of these faces in the crowd; / petals on a wet, black
bough."). So far as the source language and the target language are concerned,
expressions with the same RM may well have quite different expressive and/or
associative meanings. For example, the ox is associated with "strong" or "stubborn"
in Chinese. In English, however, these two associations are usually connected with
the horse and the mule respectively. Hence, Ta zhuangshi de xiang tou niu (literally:
He is as strong as an ox) is put into English as "He is as strong as a horse"; while
Ta jiang de xiang tou niu (literally: He is as stubborn as an ox) is rendered as "He is
as stubborn as a mule".
Identificational meaning refers to any element in an utterance in token of the
regional, historical, and/or class background of the Sender (dialectal variations), as
A Socio-semiotic Approach To Meaning In Translation 79

well as his/her sex, age, how he/she bears himself/ herself in relation to the commu­
nication (friendly, aloof, haughty, or humble) etc. The phrase "thus saith the lord",
for example, is not just equivalent to "the lord says," but carries with it the connota­
tions of King James language and suggests ecclesiastical intonations (Nida and
Taber 1982: 94), And if a speaker of English consistently omits in speech such
elements as diphthongs, the past forms of regular verbs ("He walk home."), or the
word "is" ("He running to the store," "She in the third floor, " and "He president of
the club."), we can safely say that he has a lower-class background and is most
probably black.
Social meaning (sometimes used interchangeably with "interpersonal meaning"
or "situational meaning") depends specifically on the Channel of Contact. It refers to
that aspect of meaning which is related to the establishment and maintenance of
social relations. It occurs with phatic forms of discourse ("Nice day, isn't it?"); forms
of address, which plays an important role in determining the relative degree of power
and solidarity between the participants in a communicative act (e.g. the vous/tu
contrast in French); and register, that is, the "vertical" level of formality of an
expression or a discourse (frozen, formal, consultative, casual, or intimate ? Cf.
"police/cop/bobby"; "Please, come in."/ "Come in."/ "Come in, will you?"/ "Get the
hell in here!").
Imperative meaning, which is oriented towards the Receiver, refers to the
Sender's intention to alter the behaviour or mental state of the Receiver and is
typically communicated in connection with efforts such as ordering, urging, per­
suading, and begging. "It's hot in here", therefore, may mean "Could you turn on the
air-conditioning?" A cinema patron saying 'T can't see the screen" to the person
seated in front of him, for example, is not merely stating something objectively, but
is requesting that person to take off his hat or sit lower in his seat.
The above discussion about different types of socio-semiotic meaning may be
summarized in the diagram on p. 80 (Figure 1):

The Socio-semiotic Model of Meaning and Translation

The socio-semiotic model of meaning formulated above is particularly appropriate

for translation in that it incorporates the maximum number of meanings the translator
may possibly have to deal with. Under it may be subsumed comparatively more
homogeneous meanings such as connotative meaning (=associative meaning), situ­
ational meaning (=social meaning) and metalinguistic meaning, and such more
complicated meanings as aesthetic meaning or poetic meaning (which may be
broken down into expressive meaning, intralingual meaning, and often imperative
meaning as well). The model even takes account of style in its broadest sense
(features of situationally distinctive uses of language, that is, the variations of
80 Ke Ping

TOPIC
RM

interpersonal meaning

SENDER CHANNEL OF CONTACT RECEIVER

expressive meaning social meaning imperative meaning
identificational meaning

PM

CODE

discoursal meaning
syntactic meaning
morphological/lexemic meaning
graphemic meaning
phonological meaning

IM

Figure 1.  Socio-semiotic Model of Meaning

regional, social, and historical dialects; or even such intralingual peculiarities as

plays on words, acrostic poems, and rhythmic units), as well as in the strictly
linguistic sense (relations among the participants in a language activity, chiefly level
of formality). It reduces this somewhat elusive notion to identificational, social, and
intralingual meanings for transference. The descriptive and explanatory power of the
model for translational research is indisputable.
A few lines here may be in order to illustrate the relative weight of different
meanings of a linguistic sign in specific contexts. RM, PM, and IM are all parts of an
organic whole. They combine to make up the total meaning of an expression or a
discourse.
All linguistic items have IM since by definition linguistic signs function within
the structure of interrelated units of a language. Almost all expressions also have
RM. And quite frequently words, phrases, sentences, etc. are charged with PM,
because people comment as well as state and use language to do things as well as to
communicate information. On the other hand, the three categories of socio-semiotic
meaning differ in their relative degree of prominence in different contexts. In
technical contexts (typically, science and academic writings), RM is almost totally
predominant. In general or "institutional" contexts (Newmark 1988: 207) (typically,
A Socio-semiotic Approach To Meaning In Translation 81

news reports, publicity material, official guides, handbooks, instruction manuals,

etc.), PM may be important. And in literary contexts, a high degree of foregrounded
PM and IM may be encountered. If the translator succeeds in transferring to the
target audience all the overt and covert meanings of an expression or a discourse,
then complete equivalence between the source and target texts is achieved. However,
such an ideal situation does not occur very often, since the spectrum of socio-
semiotic meanings connected with a sign in one language rarely has one-to-one
correspondence with that of a comparable sign in another language. Difficulties with
translation result precisely from such lack of congruence in meaning between source
and target forms. The translator is constantly obliged to make decisions as to which
aspect(s) of the meaning borne by a sign should unconditionally and unequivocally
be put across to the receiver, and which aspect(s) may be given secondary attention.
Apparently, while striving to communicate the maximum number of meanings an
expression or discourse carries in a given context, the translator should give priority
to the most prominent or important one(s) among them, ensuring its/their correct
transference in whatsoever circumstances and, if no other alternative is available, at
the expense of the other meanings of the sign. Without this prerequisite, "faithful­
ness" in translation is out of the question.
The notion of context is important here. In fact, it is the final criterion according
to which the "most prominent or important" meaning(s) of a linguistic sign is/are
determined. For example, the Chinese unit of linear measure  (one tenth of a
Chinese yard) equals approximately 3.3 centimetres. Its English counterpart "inch",
however, is only 2.54 centimetres. Suppose what is being translated is a tailor's
book,  can never be put into English as "inch"; otherwise the clothes made by the
tailor will have little chance of fitting the customer. In this context (a tailor's book),
the most important meaning of the word  is its RM. The preciseness of the
concept in the target text is of paramount importance. In the Chinese proverb Yi 
guangyin yi  jin (literally: A cun of time is a cun of gold.), however, the most
salient meaning of the word cun is its PM since in this context the word is used as a
figure to suggest smallness in quantity, and, as we mentioned earlier, the figure has
as its basis the expressive and/or associative meaning(s) it carries. The referential
correctness of the symbol cun is by no means significant in this case. Hence the
translator may justifiably replace it with the PM-equivalent and readily understood
English term "inch" in his translation. In the resulting version "An inch of time is an
inch of gold.", the source item's PM is adequately transferred and in a lucid and
idiomatic way at that.
The analysis made above suggests that meaning is heterogeneous instead of
homogeneous. Equivalence in translation is to be sought at all the three levels of
meaning. The concept of meaning is a socio-semiotic one, so should the notion of
translational equivalence.
82 Ke Ping

References

Coulthard, M. 1985. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis. 2nd ed. London: Longman. 212pp.
Crystal, David. 1985. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
xi+340pp.
Li, Youzhen. 1993. Lilun Fuhaoxue (An Introduction to Theoretical Semiotics). Beijing: China
Social Sciences Publishing House. vii+719pp.
Lii, Shuxiang. 1980. Zhongshi Yingyi Bilu (Chinese Poetry into English: A Comparative Study).
Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education. 214pp.
Morris, Charles. 1938. Foundations of the Theory of Signs. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Newmark, Peter. 1988.  Textbook of Translation. London: Prentice Hall. xii+292pp.
Nida, Eugene and Taber, Charles. 1982. The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden: Brill.
viii+218pp.
Nixon, Richard. 1982. Leaders. New York: Warner Communications. 370pp.
Pieken, Catriona (ed.) 1989. The Translator's Handbook. 2nd ed. London: Aslib, The Association
for Information Management. (1st ed. 1983, vi + 270 pp.)
Steiner, George. 1975. After Babel. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 570pp.
Tabakowska, Elzbieta. 1990. "Linguistic Polyphony as A Problem in Translation." in Translation
History and Culture, eds. Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere. London: Pinter.
Uspenskij, B. 1977. "Semiotics of Art", in Soviet Semiotics, ed. & trans. Daniel Lucid. Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins University Press.

About the Author

Ke Ping was born in Nanjing, China in 1957 and was educated at Nanjing University, where he
read English Language and Literature and obtained his M. A. in 1987. From 1987 to 1990 he was
Assistant Lecturer and then Lecturer in English and English-Chinese Translation at Beijing
(Peking) University. Since 1990 he has been teaching and doing research at Nanjing University.
In 1993-94 he studied linguistics at the University of Cambridge as a Visiting Scholar. He has
published about 20 papers in the fields of English literature, linguistics and translation theory. His
book A Textbook of English-Chinese and Chinese-English Translation (Beijing: Beijing Univer­
sity Press. 1991, 1993.), which adopts a socio-semiotic approach to translation and represents a
major effort toward systematizing translation studies, has been well received in his country. He is
now Associate Professor of English and Linguistics at Nanjing University.
Address: Nanjing University, Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, 22 Hankou Rd.,
Nanjing 210093 P.R. of China

Abstract

This paper deals with meaning in the context of a socio-semiotic approach to translation. In the
light of Charles Morris' categorization of the semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic dimensions of the
sign, three groups of socio-semiotic meanings (referential, intralingual, and pragmatic) are
distinguished and explained. These three headings cover all significant meanings the translator
may need to transfer, including those which are usually referred to as style or formal features but
which can ultimately be reduced to intralingual and pragmatic meanings. Each of these socio-
A Socio-semiotic Approach To Meaning In Translation 83

semiotic meanings may figure prominently in a specific discourse or communication event. As

comparable source and target expressions rarely form a one-to-one correspondence in the distri­
bution of the various sorts of meanings they may carry, the translator is therefore obliged to give
precedence to the most salient or important meaning(s) in a given context, while endeavouring to
transfer the maximum number of meanings of the source message. The notion of equivalence in
translation should therefore be a socio-semiotic one.

Résumé

Le présent article à pour objet d'étudier le traitement sémantique dans la traduction par une
approche socio-sémiologique. Selon la théorie de Charles Morris qui établit trois niveaux de
signes (niveau sémantique, niveau de relations de signes et niveau pragmatique), l'auteur cherche
à distinguer trois groupes de significations: signification référentielle, signification inter­
langagière et signification pragmatique. Ces trois groupes de significations englobent toutes les
significations importantes à transmettre dans la traduction, y compris les valeurs de style ou les
caractéristiques pertinentes de forme (l'auteur soutient que ces valeurs peuvent être classées
comme significations interlangagière et pragmatique).
Dans le discours et l'acte concret de la communication, chaque signification socio-
sémiologique peut être pertinente. Par manque de correspondance d'unités de langue dans la
distribution sémantique entre la langue de départ et la langue d'arrivée, le traducteur droit donner
la priorité à la reproduction de la signification la plus importante ou la plus pertinente dans le
contexte, tout en s'efforçant de transmettre les diverses significations du texte d'origine.
L'équivalence dans la traduction doit être une notion sur le plan socio-sémiologique.

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