Our aim is to show the validity of a certain number of theses which are fundamental in the hermeneutic approach of translation, but which have led to criticism from a number of translatologists, due to their lack of familiarization with the hermeneutical approach. In the conclusion of the first summa which provides a state of the art in translational hermeneutics, Cercel (2013: 354) deplores this lack of understanding and attributes it to a lack of expliciteness which caracterizes the abstract statements [plakative Aussagen] of the representatives of the hermeneutical approach in translation. We meet this challenge by trying to establish the validity of the contested theses – including this statement of Heidegger «Den Bedeutungen wachsen Worte zu» [Words grow into the meanings] – and by illustrating concepts such as the Leibhaftigkeit (Paepcke 1986) [corporeality] of the translator, using a practical example from our corpus of translational hermeneutics. Our method: we use conversational ethnomethodological analysis to study the negotiation of the meaning to be translated. Our aim is to explain the processes that manage the relationship between text and translator based on linguistic theories (in particular, the concept of isotopy) as well as on recent research in the field of cognitive sciences. Our thesis: The meaning that the translator constructs in his brains is the verbum interius as it is conceived by Augustinus.