Henri Meschonnic famously gives specific usage to a repertoire of terms such as
subjectivity, continuous,
rhythm, historicity, recitative and
enunciation. Behind them, there is a project to overcome what he
calls the “chain of dualisms” (1988), or the tendency toward dichotomy in theoretical thinking, represented in the language fields by the
separations between signifier and signified, oral and written, form and content, and others. Following
Philip Wilson’s (2012) initiative of applying Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concepts of
language
games and
forms of life to translation studies, we seek to draw an analogy between the
Wittgensteinian leap from analytics to pragmatics and the Meschonnician leap from sign to discourse, with the aim of investigating
the viability of a synthesis of the two authors’ ideas as a theoretical and methodological proposition for Translation Studies.
Meschonnic proposes that the sign (enunciate) be overcome in favor of discourse (enunciation), which he views as a relationship
between language and body. We argue that the linguistic experience, in that light, is akin to a performance and that Wittgenstein,
by focusing on the
use of language, also favors this idea, which may be a possible key for a theoretical practice
of translation.