Cognitive Linguistics meets Translation Studies: the case of intralingual rewording

Since Holmes’ appeal (1972) to develop theoretical paradigms linked to translators’ actual practice, the disciplinary field of Translation Studies (TS) has been often framed within a bi-polar and product-oriented opposition, whose main goal is the comparison between textual samples written in two different languages. TS scholars’ metalinguistic apparatus, even in recent studies, still seems to date back to the days of Translation Machine projects, thus increasing the split between academic theories of translation and the daily practice and expertise of professional translators. In this sense, over the last two decades, Translation Studies have greatly benefited from cognitive approaches to language, which allow scholars and practitioners to integrate their perspectives into a holistic and process-based framework. The cognitive focus on translators’ decision-making and problem–solving processes, actually underlying any hermeneutic activity, is currently helping bridge the gap between scholars and professional translators/interpreters. From a cognitive perspective, intralingual reformulation is not neglected and dismissed as 'not proper' translation (Jakobson 1959) but is reconsidered as a necessary step in any process of interpretation. By exploiting and extending the cognitive notion of ‘profiling’ and its symbolic scope, we can shed a different light on the mediated transformation performed by translators and achieve an integration between theory and practice that stems from translators’ actual work.