Is translation an autopoietic system?

Abstract

Translation is analyzed from the standpoint of its systemic properties. Translation is shown to have the capacity to observe itself and its difference from the environment. Observation being a major autopoietic factor, translation may be considered as an autopoietic system. Doubts about this hypothesis arise because of the peculiarities of communicative properties of translation. Translation plays the role of the mediating party in complex translation communication events and its communicative behavior is �defective� in that translation does not act upon source messages because its communicative function is passing messages on to the target party. As a system, translation may be studied against the background of its environment and be compared with other social systems. It may also be viewed as a subsystem within larger social formations. Although, as a mediator by nature, translation thrives on structural couplings and interpenetrations with other systems, thereby manifesting its exceptional interactional openness, it nonetheless constitutes an operational closure with its own first- and second-order observations.