Single Idea 6311

[catalogued under 19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / b. Indeterminate translation]

Full Idea

The firmer the direct links of a sentence with non-verbal stimulation, the less drastically its translations can diverge from one another from manual to manual.

Gist of Idea

The firmer the links between sentences and stimuli, the less translations can diverge

Source

Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §07)

Book Reference

Quine,Willard: 'Word and Object' [MIT 1969], p.27


A Reaction

This implies (plausibly) that talk about farming will have fairly determinate translations into foreign languages, but talk of philosophy will not. An interesting case is logic, where we might expect tight translation with little non-verbal stimulation.