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Introduction published In:
Museums as Spaces of Cultural Translation and Transfer
Edited by Sophie Decroupet and Irmak Mertens
[Babel 70:5] 2024
► pp. 593–614
Introductory article

Conceptualizing museum translation

Cultural translation, interlingual processes and other perspectives

| KU Leuven | University of Tartu
| Ghent University
The scholarly debate in translation studies and related fields has extensively addressed the definition, scope, and limitations of translation. We contend that museum translation, which encompasses both the traditional “translation proper” as well as the non-verbal and multimodal aspects of translation, is central to this debate. Museum translation covers an extensive spectrum of perspectives, which contribute to the expansion of the concept of translation and the field of translation studies. It capitalizes on the intrinsic interdisciplinarity of museum studies and translation studies, fostering a profound exchange of disciplines and serving as an ideal foundation for discussing the boundaries of translation. It has a dynamic nature that can contract or expand to suit the researcher’s perspective and disciplinary concentration. A comprehensive examination of the intricate procedures encompassed by museum translation is, therefore, timely. In this article, we examine and compare different applications of this concept and provide an overview of how various disciplines and research foci have approached this area of study. We aim to contribute to the ongoing development of the concept of museum translation and its position in translation studies, a call further addressed by each author in this special issue titled “Museums as Spaces of Cultural Translation and Transfer.”
Keywords: museum translation, cultural translation, conceptualization, semiosphere, museum studies
Article outline
  • 1.Museums: From contact zones to translation zones
  • 2.Museum translation
  • 3.Translating the “other”
  • 4.Museum and translation studies: Convergences
  • 5.Verbal aspects of museum translation: Central or auxiliary?
  • 6.Museums as spaces of cultural translation and transfer
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 29 April 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00396.mer
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