ABSTRACT
Translation exists in the context of form. As soon as the cross is drawn between a name and the rest of the form, the name acquires the status of a side of the newly created form and “each side of the form is the other side for the other side” (Luhmann 1997, 60). Thus, the cross between the sides sets translation in motion. This implies the directionality of the motion. Yet the motion is never an ‘empty-handed’ scurrying to and fro. Rather, it is a sort of shuttling of ‘goods’, an exchange of inputs and outputs—of the throughput (Luhmann 1995, 201)—between the two sides of the form or, in other terms, between the system and its environment.
