What is translation? What is a sign? This book answers these questions and gives a critical review of how the West has been theorizing translation, in terms of theorizing the sign, a ‘unit’ of our communication.

From the promotion of servitude to the craving for creativity, the suspicious conceit of ‘equivalence’ to the new-fangled notion of ‘untranslatability’, the concept of translation as a one-off, specialized process that takes place between human languages to one of translation as a ceaseless happening which goes beyond languages and humans. This book dives into these popular discourses on translation, one by one, and unveils the underlying assumptions about the sign – what should a sign mean? Does the sign stand in for something in reality, something in our mind, or does it not stand for anything at all? How do we identify and share the same form of signs? How do we communicate via signs? These are the questions everyone has to answer, whether they know it or not, when they conceptualize translation. This book also proffers a refreshing take on translation, stemming from the integrational theory of the sign, as founded by Roy Harris.

This book provides a theory of translation based on a theory of the personal, integrational sign that will illuminate readers' own experience with translation and with sign-making. A must-read for students of linguistics, semiotics and translation.