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In:The Complexity of Social-Cultural Emergence: Biosemiotics, semiotics and translation studies
Edited by Kobus Marais, Reine Meylaerts and Maud Gonne
[Benjamins Translation Library 164] 2024
► pp. 32–58

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Chapter 2
Infoautopoiesis and translation

 | University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Published online: 3 May 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.164.02car
Abstract
A biosemiotic perspective of translation entails the study of signs and meaning in living organisms, an infoautopoietic process existing since the origin of life. Infoautopoiesis makes the external environment meaningful to the organism, so it can mould it in its own image to satisfy its needs, and be moulded in turn. Self-created internalised semantic information results from interpreting environmental sensory signals as “differences which make a difference”. The content of individuated, inaccessible internalised semantic information may be translated into externalised syntactic expressions that comprise outward artificial expressions that lack semantic content. Yet, despite our ability for creation of sophisticated syntactic information, we are unable to make them produce semantic information. In short, infoautopoiesis is fundamental to translation at any level.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • What is information?
    • The fundamental problem of information
  • Infoautopoiesis
    • The organism-in-its-environment
    • Self-creation, processing and transmission of information
    • Personal-subjective-relative information
    • Impersonal-objective-absolute information
    • Shannon-distilled information
    • Sensorial signals and infoautopoiesis
    • Flow of information
    • Peircean typology of signs
    • Interpretation and translation
  • Interactions of infoautopoietic organisms
    • Interactions between infoautopoietic organisms
    • Interactions between an infoautopoietic organism and objects
  • Summary and discussion
  • Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (46)
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