A Problem with Translation

            Ronald Dworkin illustrates that a vivid inconsistency in Scalia’s textualism stems from a distinction between two types of intentions. According to Dworkin, semantic intention is “what some officials intended to say in enacting the language they used” whereas expectation intention is “what they intended- or expected or hoped- would be the consequence of their saying it” (116). Through an exclusive focus on the statute’s text and a reasonable interpretation, Dworkin appropriately highlights, as Scalia later points out in his response, that Scalia’s textualism appeals to semantic intention.

 While Scalia argues that “semantic,” more appropriately called “import” intention, restricts a statute’s meaning to prevent inappropriate forms of judicial lawmaking, Dworkin effectively highlights a problematic issue with semantic intention, translation. Dworkin recognizes that semantic intention is natural and perhaps even mandatory since, “Any reader of anything must attend to semantic intention, because the same sounds or even words can be used with the intention of saying different things” (117). He effectively uses the bay example (i.e. horses or bodies of water) to illustrate that people naturally resort to “semantic intention” to simply figure out what someone is saying. If I said I was going to the Bay for spring break, you would have to use semantic intention to figure out that I was referring to the San Francisco area, not to a department store chain in Canada.  In this process, people determine “which clarifying translation of his inscriptions is the best” (117). I agree with Dworkin in finding translation as equally problematic. For instance, when translating between languages, there are some words that English cannot entirely grasp due to the fact that the English language lacks the ability to express these concepts. With translation, the best we get is only an approximation of what they meant to say.

Dworkin suitably reveals that this problem intensifies when we are trying to decipher what an institution says rather than an individual (117). In proposing the use of personification to determine an institution’s semantic intention, Dworkin concedes that, “It is difficult to understand what sense that makes, or what special standards we should use to discover or construct such intentions” (118). While Dworkin does not further delve into this point, I was intrigued by Dworkin’s issue with institutions since we end up translating for institutions all the time. How do we translate for a collective body? Which translation would be the most appropriate?  Who has the authority to decide which translation is the best?