Transfers and Transversals Conference
The Department of Linguistics and Language Practice at the University of the Free State (Bloemfontein, South Africa) invites you to a virtual conference on the semiotics of translation. The programme is uploaded below.
The conference is hybrid (in-person / virtual). The Zoom links (one for each day) are:
Linguistics and Language Practice is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Transfers and Traversals: 1 December
Time: Dec 1, 2022 08:00 AM Harare, Pretoria
Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/94092921635?pwd=MU9WTktCektwaFNXTkxWTHZVdlVFQT09
Meeting ID: 940 9292 1635
Passcode: 214591
Join by SIP
Join by H.323
162.255.37.11 (US West)
162.255.36.11 (US East)
115.114.131.7 (India Mumbai)
115.114.115.7 (India Hyderabad)
213.19.144.110 (Amsterdam Netherlands)
213.244.140.110 (Germany)
103.122.166.55 (Australia Sydney)
103.122.167.55 (Australia Melbourne)
149.137.40.110 (Singapore)
64.211.144.160 (Brazil)
149.137.68.253 (Mexico)
69.174.57.160 (Canada Toronto)
65.39.152.160 (Canada Vancouver)
207.226.132.110 (Japan Tokyo)
149.137.24.110 (Japan Osaka)
Meeting ID: 940 9292 1635
Passcode: 214591
Linguistics and Language Practice is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Transfers and Traversals: 2 December
Time: Dec 2, 2022 08:00 AM Harare, Pretoria
Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/99397044740?pwd=ZkNDS0NFTGcyd2psUGxmczBXdm4yUT09
Meeting ID: 993 9704 4740
Passcode: 053644
Join by SIP
Join by H.323
162.255.37.11 (US West)
162.255.36.11 (US East)
115.114.131.7 (India Mumbai)
115.114.115.7 (India Hyderabad)
213.19.144.110 (Amsterdam Netherlands)
213.244.140.110 (Germany)
103.122.166.55 (Australia Sydney)
103.122.167.55 (Australia Melbourne)
149.137.40.110 (Singapore)
64.211.144.160 (Brazil)
149.137.68.253 (Mexico)
69.174.57.160 (Canada Toronto)
65.39.152.160 (Canada Vancouver)
207.226.132.110 (Japan Tokyo)
149.137.24.110 (Japan Osaka)
Meeting ID: 993 9704 4740
Passcode: 053644
Extracted text from 20221128-Transfers_programme_final_draft_.pdf:
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
An Interdisciplinary Translation Studies Conference 1 – 2 December 2022 CONFERENCE BOOK AND PROGRAMME
Keynote speakers | Susan Petrilli and Augusto Ponzio (University of Bari, Italy), and Keyan G. Tomaselli (University of Johannesburg, South Africa).
Hosted by the Departments of Art History and Image Studies, Communication Science, Fine Arts, Hebrew, Linguistics and Language Practice, and the Odeion School of Music at the University of the Free State, South Africa.
WORD OF WELCOME
2
KEYNOTES
3
PROGRAMME
6
ABSTRACTS
11
CAMPUS MAP
34
EMERGENCY INFORMATION
35
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Table of Contents
1
WORD OF WELCOME The technology that shapes the world we live in seems to be moving in the direction of increased multimodality. While translational processes between different semiotic systems or media cannot be said to be new or limited to technological advances, these changes do create the propensity for multimodal interaction, communication and expression to emerge at larger and larger scales. And, given what we know about technological innovation, it seems reasonable to assume that these innovations may well influence not only cognition but also communication, interpretation and aesthetics. Against this background, we are hosting this interdisciplinary conference to explore how different materialities both enable and constrain a variety of practices across the humanities. The conference will host papers on topics as divergent as drama and theatre art, literary studies, adaptation studies, film studies, music, fine arts, translation studies, pedagogy, media (including photojournalism and advertising) and visual studies (including montage). It even includes work done in collaboration with scholars from the Department of Geography and the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and touches on issues regarding environmentalism, the internet and metaverse. On behalf of the Departments of Art History and Image Studies, Fine Arts, Hebrew, Linguistics and Language Practice and the Odeion School of Music, we would like to welcome you to the conference. And for those who are attending in person, a warm welcome also to the Bloemfontein campus of the University of the Free State. We trust that the event will help you to expand your ideas and explore new ones. In particular, we hope that the event will inspire genuine interdisciplinary debate and collaboration—and foster future vocabularies for transfers and traversals across disciplines.
The Organising Committee TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
2
KEYNOTES
TRANSLATION IN THE SPHERE OF THE SEMIOSIS OF LIFE AND TRANSLATION IN THE SPHERE OF THE COMMUNICATION OF GLOBALISATION Susan Petrilli
University of Bari, Aldo Moro susan.petrilli@gmail.com
Augusto Ponzio
University of Bari, Aldo Moro augustoponzio@libero.it
Translation is constitutive of life. As Thomas A. Sebeok has amply demonstrated with his “global semiotics”, life consists in the possibility of interpreting and translating signs. It ensues, for example, that a given symptom can be variously interpreted, and it is vital that the perceiver interprets it correctly. The mere fact of being hungry, hence providing for food and making sure it is available when needed, is the condition for survival not only in anthroposemiosis, but generally in the sphere of zoosemiosis; not only one’s own survival, but one’s offspring’s, and hence the species. This type of vital interpretation is clearly also translation. Translation is vital. And, obviously, translation is vital not only in zoosemiosis, but also in the spheres of phytosemiosis and micosemiosis; not only throughout the great life kingdoms, in the macrocosm, but also in the microcosm. If, as Sebeok claims, life and semiosis coincide, then life and translation also converge. The current social production system that goes under the name of globalisation has communication as its basis and, consequently, the role of translation as well is central. In globalisation, the entire production cycle
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Abstract
3
is grounded in communication-translation. Not only is the phase of exchange or circulation, as in all production forms, communication, but production and consumption are also communication. Production today makes use of telematics, teleworking, of work supplied at great distances where costs are more convenient, etc. To this add the demand for communication networks formed by gas and petrol pipelines, etc. Consumption as well is consumption of communication – telephonic, telematic, mass-medial consumption, etc. Therefore, all social planning, whether individual or collective, is communication, communicationtranslation. However, in globalisation all this, as is evident, is inevitably translated into planning by those who control communication. Planning is thus oriented in the interest of profit, for the sake of a few at the cost of many. To discuss translation in the sphere of global semiosis, semiosis that converges with life, we exemplified above referring to hunger. Regrettably, even in globalisation today it is still possible to evoke hunger: hunger in a globalised world which, at once, contrasts with forms of food wastage, and many other conditions involving food such as bulimia and anorexia. In globalised communication-production, translation obviously is not functioning properly, at all, giving rise to a world characterised by inequality, social injustice, and illness. Semiotics of translation is called to account for this type of dysfunction as well. In fact, among the sciences, semiotics is the one most characterised in its capacity to reflect on the use of signs about signs, which charges it above all others with responsibility, responsibility for semiosis, thus for the other, ultimately for life overall. Keywords: translation; semiosis of life; communication; globalisation; global
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
semiotics
4
FIXING TRANSLATION WITH SEMIOTICS: THE CULTURAL STUDIES THIRD WAY Keyan G Tomaselli
Dean’s Office, Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg keyant@uj.ac.za
Abstract Translation studies assumes the idealised construct of the ‘implied reader’. Missing is the audience/reader/interpreter decoding dimension, that is, how ordinary people translate messages in terms of their own ontological frameworks. Where semiology is text-based and dyadic, addressing the implied reader, CS Peirce’s semiotic adds an active interpreter, making his system triadic. Cultural studies later crucially inserted an ontological link between texts and contexts via reception analysis and the circuit of culture. Initially articulated by the encoding/decoding model, the three-tiered schema listed: a) transparent decoding; b) negotiated; and c) rejection of the message. To these can be added: d) aberrant, e) totemistic; d) conspiracy and e) confusion. Cultural studies, thus, is concerned with the chain of translations that occur with regard to actual interpreters as they navigate social, political and economic determinations that construct their subjectivities. This keynote takes delegates on my own historical semiotic journey towards ‘translation studies’ in a post-Truth world that is being stressed by anti-science discourses, social media rage and unremitting identity politics. The presentation ends with a short analysis of how these kinds of discourses are impacting journals and editors.
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Keywords: implied reader; reception; cultural studies; translation studies
5
PROGRAMME
18:00
Time 08:30–09:00
09:00–10:00
10:00–10:30 10:30–11:00
11:00–11:30
11:30–12:00
PROGRAMME: 1 DECEMBER 2022 Speaker Opening Word of welcome: Vice-dean of Humanities: Prof Chitja Twala KEYNOTE 1 Translation in the sphere of the semiosis of life and translation in the sphere of the communication of globalisation Susan Petrilli Augusto Ponzio Tea SESSION 1 Adaptation as translation: The adaptation and reception of The Ballad of Mulan in the Anglophone world Bilin Liu A visualisation of dramatic energy translations of fictional spacetime in narratives Damien Tomaselli Translation as metamorphosis in the animated poetry-film Diek Grobler
Chair
Chair
Kobus Marais (Chair) Marlie van Rooyen (Moderator)
Xany Jansen van Vuuren (Chair) Lana Buys (Moderator) Zandile Nxele (Pager) TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Time 16:00–18:00
PROGRAMME: 30 NOVEMBER 2022 Speaker Registration (Participants arriving late can register the next morning) Welcoming cocktail
6
12:30–13:30 13:30–14:00
14:00–14h30
14:30–15:00
15:00–15:30
15:30–16:00
Screen intervening the translated queer love: A case study of the novel, adapted film and Chinese translations of Call Me by Your Name (2007) Li Hao Lunch SESSION 2 Matildie A study on the image construction of Wium (Chair) a female utopian revolutionary in the Kobus Marais English translation of Peach Blossom (Moderator) Lana Buys Paradise (Pager) Elizabeth Xiangyu Yang Translating digital landscapes: Process, complexity and multimodality in translations for virtual geography field trips Marlie van Rooyen Kobus Marais Elizabeth Rudolph Cameras, phones and drones to convey stones: On digital geosite visualisation as intermedia translation Martin Rossouw Elizabeth Rudolph Martin Clark Borders and boundaries in South Africa: Relations among land art, trauma and translation Adelheid von Maltitz Suzanne Human Tea
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
12:00–12:30
7
16:30–17:00
17:00–17:30
17:30–18:00
18:00
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
16:00–16:30
SESSION 3 Hubert du Plessis’ Three pieces after Adelheid von paintings by Henri Rousseau (1962) as Maltitz (Chair) musical ekphrasis Xany Jansen Matildie Wium van Vuuren Melissa Gerber (Moderator) Martin Approaches to composing music to Rossouw abstract (Pager) visual art using Kandinsky’s theories of abstraction Chesney Palmer ‘Translating’ music: Applying translation theories to the research on musical work Malgorzata Grajter Interweaving graduate attributes across disciplines to create meaningful student learning experiences Corlia Janse van Vuuren Marlie van Rooyen Robin Smith Reception in honour of Prof Jackie Naudé and Prof Cynthia Miller-Naudé
8
09:00–10:00
10:00–10:30 10:30–11:00 11:00–11:30
11:30–12:00 12:00–12:30
12:30–13:30
Tea SESSION 4 Intersemiotic variation in semiotic landscape Evangelos Kourdis Intertextuality and intersemiotic translation in coffee ads Elena Lazaridou Artmaking, images ad their media as sites of memorialisation Lyrene Kuhn-Botma Animal photojournalism as knowledge translation: An ecosemiotic approach to visual activism Xany Jansen van Vuuren Lunch
Chair Martin Rossouw (Chair) Marlie van Rooyen (Moderator) Zandile Nxele (Pager) Marlie van Rooyen (Chair) Kobus Marais (Moderator) Lana Buys (Pager)
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Time
PROGRAMME: 2 DECEMBER 2022 Speaker KEYNOTE 2 Fixing translation with semiotics: The cultural studies third way Keyan Tomaselli
9
14:00–14:30 14:30–15:00 15:00–15:30
Xany Jansen van Vuuren (Chair) Matildie Wium Translation in Web3 (Moderator) Jonathan Calzada The metaverse as a metatranslation: A Zandile Nxele (Pager) complex approach Manuel De la Cruz Recio Tea
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
13:30–14:00
SESSION 5 Semiotic dimensions of a montage phenomenon Ana Vittorio
10
ABSTRACTS
ADAPTATION AS TRANSLATION: THE ADAPTATION AND RECEPTION OF THE BALLAD OF MULAN IN THE ANGLOPHONE WORLD Bilin Liu
The University of Hong Kong lbl19970626@126.com
The Ballad of Mulan, a well-known Chinese yuefu (Music Bureau) poem believed to have been composed during the Northern Wei dynasty (386–535 AD), tells a story of the girl Mulan, who took her aged father’s place to join the military campaigns against the nomadic Tartars by disguising herself as a man. As a representative narrative of Chinese women, this poem has attracted literati from English-speaking countries to translate the poem interlingually and intersemiotically into their cultures for more than a century. It is noticeable that the translations, albeit the faithful word-for-word ones, are dominated by adaptations, which feature some high-profile ones, including Maxine H. Kingston’s novel The Woman Warrior (1976) and Walt Disney’s animation Mulan (1998). So far, The Ballad of Mulan is reported to have been adapted mainly as English dramas, novels, picture books and games, each of which play an irreplaceable role in disseminating the story of Mulan and simultaneously introducing Chinese culture to the anglophone communities. To learn more about the spread of The Ballad of Mulan beyond China, this paper intends to investigate the poem’s adaptations and their reception in the English world. Specifically speaking, first, this research reviews the publication history of the four adaptation genres in a chronological order; then, recognising adaptation as a kind of translation, the study evaluates the features of Mulan adaptations with Nord’s concept of “preservation and adaptation in translation” (1991), and defines different kinds of adaptations by borrowing Vinay and Darbelnet’s idea of treating adaptation as “equivalence” (1995); finally, the paper examines the acceptance of four adaptation types from five dimensions (including library holdings, online ratings, book sales rankings, news reporting and awards winning), primarily on the basis of the statistics from several authoritative websites (such as OCLC WorldCat, Amazon and Rotten Tomatoes) and American mainstream media (such as The New York Times). Keywords: The Ballad of Mulan; adaptation; translation; reception; anglophone world
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Abstract
11
A VISUALISATION OF DRAMATIC ENERGY TRANSLATIONS OF FICTIONAL SPACETIME IN NARRATIVES Damien Tomaselli
University of Johannesburg dtomaselli@uj.ac.za
Abstract
In narrative every directional decision must index every element of dimensionality within the same narrative. For example, in the case of a film, if a long shot reveals a large area of spatial coverage, then concurrently other aesthetic decisions must follow suit in shifting change. The colours must change. So too much the intently and dispersion of light. Sound and music may be extended if they do not actually change but the fact that they are extended in time is change in itself. Characters must shift as must emotional states. All the former examples can be characterised as dispersions and translations of aesthetic conjectures of energy, mass, time and space. Furthermore, the transition of one concept to the other, such as for example the translation of space to energy, demonstrates the flow of energy which most often tends to resemble the portrayal of dramatic architecture of the narratives from which they are derived. I will demonstrate that the logic of Einstein’s notion of general relativity yields a high metaphorical affinity to the translation of energies between energy, matter and space and time in the soft sciences of ethic narratology as it does in the hard sciences of physics. I will illustrate the method of visualising the implementation of the above energy structures and demonstrate some of the synergistic relational patterns which emphasise the dimensionality itself, in the
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
In this presentation, I will demonstrate how a visual mapping process of the translation of dramatic movement of aesthetic meaning may be articulated through rhetorical temporalities. This may be done through sampling aesthetic information which is bound to the dimensionality of a particular narrative. That same information may be reinterpreted into an energy scale and interpolated as a metaphorical energy line which can then run syntactically concurrent with the fictional timeline to which it is narratively bound. Samples include but are not necessarily limited to discretely sampled narrative information such as colour, movement, and coverage of space as well as through subjectively interpreted energy such as physicality of character, emotional states, as well as thematic implementation of canonical spaces unique to individual particular narratives. All of which are an interdisciplinary exercise in meaning generation.
12
samplings various narratives based in film, gaming, navigational digital comics and virtual reality. The demonstration would be highly visual and as such I shall show a sample of some of the energy translations of particular narratives.
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Keywords: translation; aesthetic information; dimensionality; energy translation
13
TRANSLATION AS METAMORPHOSIS IN THE ANIMATED POETRY-FILM Diek Grobler
Fopspeen Animation Playgroup fopspeenmovingpix@gmail.com
Abstract Poetry-film refers to variants of film concerned with poetry, including poetic text within the filmic artifact, either as part of the soundtrack or as visual element of text on screen. Semiotics pioneer, Christian Metz, viewed cinematic sense-making and linguistic sense-making as possessing similar features, adjusted to fit each medium’s primary mode of address (Metz in Yacavone, 2018). In the poetry-film both semiotic systems are present, functioning simultaneously and influencing each other. Whether the poem was pre-existent or written specifically for the film, a process of translation/adaptation needs to occur in order for the linguistic artwork to find its cinematic form. This particular process of intermedial translation is a highly personal one, dependent on the individual interpretation of the text by the filmmaker, finding form in the formal aspects of the resulting film. Because this translation is personal and individual, it is also inaccurate as an infinite number of translations are possible.
Metamorphosis as a fundamental principle of animation (Wells, 1998; 2002:136) has the effect of creating “an illusion of sentience, intent, movement, and existence” (Buchan, 2013:523). Its function of meaning-making in the animated poetry film will be demonstrated through selected examples of poetry-films. Keywords: animated poetry-film; intermedial translation; metamorphosis; kineikonic; adaptation
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Kentaro Kawashima (2019:5) proposes that the creation of a film based on a literary work — like poetry-film — should be viewed as an instance of metamorphosis, rather than an act of adaptation, as adaptation implies mediation between various existences. For Kawashima the poem becomes a film rather than the film being a representation of the poem. In agreement with Kawashima, this paper will explore the notion of intermedial translation as a process of metamorphosis during which the literary work transforms into a hybrid in which both linguistic and cinematic semiotic systems function.
14
SCREEN INTERVENING THE TRANSLATED QUEER LOVE: A CASE STUDY OF THE NOVEL, ADAPTED FILM, AND CHINESE TRANSLATIONS OF CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (2007) Li Hao
Freelancer zczlhl8@ucl.ac.uk
This paper investigates the intertextual relationship between the filmic adaption of the English novel Call Me by Your Name (2007) by American Novelist Andre Acimen and its two Chinese translations of the English novel. The first edition of Chinese novel translation was published in 2012 by Chinese Friendship Publishing House and had a very limited readership. After the popularity and dissemination of the English film in social media, the Chinese translation was republished by the well-known Beijing Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press after a repacking of the original translation to attract more readers from film fan base. The publication gained great success and garnered a much broader readership than before. Different from some studies that take the original novel as starting point of “text” to examine its impact on its following reproductions, my paper reverses the trajectory and applies a film to novel approach to study how the film representation changes the evaluations of the translated novel, which can be understood from a comparative analysis of the book reviews for the two Chinese translations (2012; 2018). This research finds that prior to the release of the film, most readers perceive the 2008 translation of the original novel as a complete story featuring unrequited romance between the bisexual protagonists, while readers’ comments turned to criticise the disorganised and low quality of the translation (2018) against the coherent and delicately rehearsed film narrative. The backlash of a highly praised film on the translation appraisal is exposed when the reader prefers an organised, omniscient point of view and linear love narrative than a disorganised, fragmentary and monologue representation reflected from the reframed translation. This case study of “adverse effect” of derivative audio-visual reproduction on its original textual transfer, therefore, provides new insight into translation criticism: the translation appraisal of general reader can and will be affected by its screen representation, especially on the level of narrative. Keywords: Call Me by Your Name; readership; narrative; reviews; film
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Abstract
15
A STUDY ON THE IMAGE CONSTRUCTION OF A FEMALE UTOPIAN REVOLUTIONARY IN THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF PEACH BLOSSOM PARADISE Elizabeth Xiangyu Yang
Sun Yat-sen University yangxy327@mail.sysu.edu.cn
Abstract From an imagological perspective, this study conducts a comparative analysis between the source text and the target text of Peach Blossom Paradise with regard to the image of Xiumi, a female utopian revolutionary in China between the late 19th century and early 20th century. Besides, the study further explores how Canaan Morse’s translation strategies were influenced by the socio-cultural background of the target language and the translator’s own ideas. The text analysis uncovers that Canaan Morse almost highlighted the main features of Xiumi’s image at each stage of her life in the target text, which include: her shyness and curiosity when she was a young girl; her aloofness, indifference, and confusion after she became a utopian revolutionary; her inner peace and tranquillity after the revolution failed. Morse chose to construct the image of Xiumi in the English-speaking world due to the fact that anti-utopian literature has gained huge popularity among the target readership with a sound market base. In addition, under the influence of his translation concept “cocreation”, Morse adopted those target language expressions that were richer in meaning than the expressions in the source text, in order to highlight and strengthen the features of Xiumi’s image in the target text. This study aims to enhance the understanding of the process and function of literary translation in constructing the female hetero-image. Meanwhile, the study is also an attempt to expand descriptive translation studies from an imagological perspective.
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Keywords: imagological perspective; utopia; female revolutionary; Peach Blossom Paradise; Canaan Morse
16
TRANSLATING DIGITAL LANDSCAPES: PROCESS, COMPLEXITY AND MULTIMODALITY IN TRANSLATIONS FOR VIRTUAL GEOGRAPHY FIELD TRIPS Marlie van Rooyen
University of the Free State vanRooyenM1@ufs.ac.za
Kobus Marais
University of the Free State Jmarais@ufs.ac.za
Elizabeth Rudolph
University of the Free State RudolphEM@ufs.ac.za
Abstract
The translations also need to be prepared for two distinct media, namely written and oral communication. In addition, the translations need to be prepared in a multimodal way to be aligned with two different sets of visual media, namely a continuous video and a modular video. As the project is complicated, each translation (sub)-process had to be conceptualised in terms of the medium (written or spoken) and its relation to the rest of the multimodal text. The key points here would be turning the written text into an oral text and then aligning the oral text to the material constraints in the resultant multimodal text, i.e., the audience-specific translations of the information on geosites should be aligned with the visual material that accompanies the written/verbal information. The assumption is that the translation process might differ for each of these sites with a number of intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotic translation processes. In this paper, we aim to describe the complexity to plan for such a multimodal translation process. In particular, we explore data in terms of the notion that
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
The aim of this paper is to describe the complex translation process where different semiotic resources are required in the production of multimodal texts. The texts are being created to facilitate virtual field trips of three different geosites in South Africa. Researchers in Geography at the University of the Free State consulted with a translation team in the Department of Linguistics and Language Practice to prepare translations for two distinct audiences, namely the students in geography and tourists to the relevant geosites.
17
intersemiotic translation implies negentropic semiotic work (Marais, 2019). The paper aims, as a secondary aim, to refine some of the concepts in Marais’ biosemiotic theoretical framework to make them useful for empirical research.
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Keywords: semiotic resources; multimodal texts; negentropic semiotic work; empirical research
18
CAMERAS, PHONES, AND DRONES TO CONVEY STONES: ON DIGITAL GEOSITE VISUALISATION AS INTERMEDIA TRANSLATION Martin Rossouw
University of the Free State RossouwMP@ufs.ac.za
Elizabeth Rudolph
University of the Free State RudolphEM@ufs.ac.za
Martin Clark
University of the Free State ClarkMD@ufs.ac.za
Abstract
The various practical applications of our virtualised geosites demand that we also take stock of significant image and media-theoretical questions raised by these translated landscapes. The purpose of this paper is therefore to formulate such key issues across several theoretical levels, drawing on our data from the Barberton Makhonjwa Geotrail as a case study. First, at the level of image, we consider the importance in this context of distinguishing ‘images’ from their realisation in concrete ‘pictures’ and visual media. Next, at the level of visualisation we draw on theorists like J.J. Gibson and Rudolph Arnheim to reflect on the kinds of visual-formal exchanges that occur between geosites and their virtual reconstructions. At the level of mediation, we raise
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Does the direct embodied perception of a particular landscape translate across a distance through a visual medium? And, if so, what then is lost in translation — and what might unintentionally or intentionally be gained? This paper addresses digital visualisations of geosites (i.e., geologically and socio-culturally significant landforms or features on the earth’s surface) with the claim that to call these visualisations ‘translations’ is, far from a mere convenient metaphor, a decisive touchstone for thinking about the nature and affordances of such digital mediations. Our reflections here are born from ‘Digital Landscapes’ (2021–2023), an interdisciplinary project funded by the University of the Free State in which we experiment with conventional ground-based and airborne (drone) cameras, along with off-the-shelf 360° photo and video capture technologies, for the visualisation and digital conservation of prominent geosites in South Africa. The project explores how the collected videos, 3D photospheres and photogrammetric reconstructions can be used to construct digital twin landscapes for educational or research-oriented virtual field trips.
19
the question of the varying affordances of compression, scale, movement, montage, immersion, and interaction that different digital technologies foreground, usually in concert as a ‘media ecology’, in relation to the natural ecologies that they remediate. And, lastly, at the level of narrativisation, we conclude by asking how narrative, voiceover, text, and interface may augment our experience of these digitally visualised geosites — and in return inevitably augment the very physical sites from which they were collected.
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Keywords: intermedia translation; geosites; airborne cameras; images; virtual reconstructions; narrativization
20
BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES IN SOUTH AFRICA: RELATIONS AMONG LAND ART, TRAUMA AND TRANSLATION Suzanne Human
University of the Free State humane@ufs.ac.za
Adelheid von Maltitz
University of the Free State VonMaltitzAC@ufs.ac.za
Abstract The paper investigates the movement of objects, materials, and inner images (stored in human bodies) across a variety of abstract and concrete thresholds or edges. The term translation, which derives from “trans-latio”, “to carry across”', or “bringing across”', is more broadly regarded by Paul Ricoeur as an “art of negotiating and mediating”. Our question is if, in post-apartheid South Africa, the human body as a site of transitory images (in the light of Hans Belting and Gottfried Boehm’s work in image studies), and which also enables the artistic transfer of meaningful materials across thresholds — among significant artistic sites and sites of loss — may promote aesthetic experiences of healing. Nuanced concepts of threshold, boundary, border and line are crucial in such processes of transferal or translation at various levels, and this is garnered from Edward Casey’s very subtle philosophical differentiations.
By pairing theoretical and practical knowledge-making, an artist and an art historian, we investigate how, when meaningful materials are transferred between funerary or artistic sites, or across the thresholds of art galleries, the production and translation of transitory images within the body, may allow a bereaved person (who has experienced loss of land or lives), artist, art viewer or gallery visitor to engage with trauma and loss through what are essentially image experiences, which may promote healing. Keywords: translation; transitory images; land art; funerary practices; image experiences
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
In historical and contemporary funerary practices, it is very common to “transfer” either a corpse or cremated remains to a significant place, which relates to the word “ferry” deriving from Greek mythology where Charon the ferryman carried the souls of the dead across the River Styx. We argue that this opens up wider possibilities for artistic exploitation of land art about sensitive land issues in South Africa, which has not been addressed as land art before.
21
HUBERT DU PLESSIS’ THREE PIECES AFTER PAINTINGS BY HENRI ROUSSEAU (1962) AS MUSICAL EKPHRASIS Matildie Wium
University of the Free State WiumMJ@ufs.ac.za
Melissa Gerber
University of Johannesburg melissa.gerber.venter@gmail.com
Abstract
We shall aim to explain how Du Plessis created narrative interpretations of Rousseau’s three paintings and sought to render these narratives musically, while attempting to effect an affinity between his own and Rousseau’s creative techniques (centering on the idea of intricate, detailed work in each medium). Finally, we shall situate the composition within the cultural context of contemporary Afrikaner nationalism and Du Plessis’ musical efforts in support thereof. Keywords: musical ekphrasis; musical analysis; visual analysis; narrative interpretation
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
In this paper, we propose a reading of South African composer Hubert du Plessis’ Three pieces after paintings by Henri Rousseau (Op. 24) (1962) as musical ekphrasis, following Siglind Bruhn’s conceptualisation of that process. Drawing on musical analysis, visual analysis, and a study of the composer’s programme notes and description of the work’s genesis, we endeavour to locate Du Plessis’ musical interaction with Rousseau’s three paintings — Un soir de carnaval (1885), Pour fèter de bébé (1903), and Le Rêve (1910) — within Bruhn’s categorisation of five ekphrastic “stances” (following Gisbert Kranz), i.e. (1) transposition (which transmedialises “not only the content of the primary work of art but also, and significantly, pertinent aspects of its form or its arrangement of details”), (2) supplementation (where the transmedialisation “adds to the visual representation any of the innumerable nonspatial dimensions that a painter or sculptor may imply but cannot realise directly”), (3) association (where the ekphrasis “does not render exactly what the eyes see [...] but, inspired by the primary work of art, spins off new thoughts or familiar mental or emotional connections”), (4) interpretation (in which “the transmedializing artist uses not associations of a personal nature, but rather implications known to and shared by all three parties: the creator of the original work, the responding artist, and the community of appreciators”) and (5) playfulness (a humorous response to the original work).
22
APPROACHES TO COMPOSING MUSIC TO ABSTRACT VISUAL ART USING KANDINSKY’S THEORIES OF ABSTRACTION Chesney Palmer
University of the Free State chesneypalmer1996@gmail.com
Abstract The proposed presentation aims creatively to explore the relationship between sound and colour, and concomitantly between music and visual art, through the lens of synesthesia. This kind of intersemiotic translation has been particularly topical in artistic movements of the early and mid-twentieth century. For example, Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) undertook translations of Arnold Schoenberg’s (1874–1951) compositional methods into painting, by painting impressions of what he heard during Schoenberg’s concerts in 1911 (Weiss, 1997). In her reading of composer Erik Satie’s Sports et Divertissements (1914–1922), a set of piano pieces composed to accompany etchings by Charles Martin, Helen-Julia Minors warns that, since “music cannot translate the exact sense of an original object”, it would be misguided to “seek the same content in the media” (2013:113) when interpreting an intersemiotic translation, or to look for “imitation” (2013:114). She argues that the focus should instead be on “the adaptation, transposition, transmutation or transfer of content and method” (2013:114). Consequently, for this presentation, I intend to explain the compositional procedures underpinning my proposed musical translation of Kandinsky’s artwork Composition VII. Composition VII is not one of the works directly inspired by Schoenberg’s methods of composition, however, was a result of being exposed to his music. Conceptually, I aim to draw on Kandinsky’s own theorisations regarding geometric forms and colour (Kandinsky, 1977).
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Keywords: music; synesthesia; intersemiotic translation; musical translation
23
‘TRANSLATING’ MUSIC: APPLYING TRANSLATION THEORIES TO RESEARCH ON MUSICAL WORK Małgorzata Grajter
University of Łódź malgorzata.grajter@gmail.com
Abstract This paper summarises in short, the book project of the same title, which aims at applying the methodology taken from translation studies to the research on a musical work. Despite so many potential points of contact, the border between musicology and translation studies still remains an underexplored area. As the Turkish-British researcher Şebnem Susam-Sarajeva points out, this might be due to the limited competence of translators in the field of music on the one hand. Musicologists, on the other hand, are inhibited by their lack of knowledge of translation theories, which traditionally belong to the territory of philologists, philosophers, semioticians, literary scholars and linguists. Meanwhile, the wealth of methodologies offered by translation studies may prove to become an invaluable support in research on a musical work. My experience with this topic to date has led to the formulation of the term musical translation, roughly defined as a reproduction (replica) of the work as a whole, created in order to disseminate the work, taking into account changes and transformations resulting from the medium, time, place and purpose, by analogy with literary translation. In semiotic terms, musical translation is then to be viewed as a sign (representamen) which stands for the original work in the eyes of a certain group of recipients. Technically, this umbrella term encompasses such phenomena as musical arrangement, transcription, reduction, orchestration or cover version. As a consequence of this line of thought, I attempted to apply several concepts, methodologies and typologisations used for literary translation, in reference to the new renditions of already existing musical works.
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Keywords: music; translation theories; research; musical work; semiotic
24
INTERWEAVING GRADUATE ATTRIBUTES ACROSS DISCIPLINES TO CREATE MEANINGFUL STUDENT LEARNING EXPERIENCES Corlia Janse van Vuuren
University of the Free State JanseVanVuurenEC@ufs.ac.za
Robyn Smith
University of the Free State SmithRobyn@ufs.ac.za
Marlie van Rooyen
University of the Free State vanRooyenM1@ufs.ac.za
Nowadays healthcare environments are characterised by their multi-cultural and multi-linguistic nature. To support the delivery of high-quality care, healthcare interpreting and the effective use thereof by healthcare professionals is inevitable. In South Africa, undergraduate healthcare students are rarely exposed to working with and developing effective collaborations with healthcare interpreters, whilst students in interpreting hardly get the opportunity to gain real-world experience in healthcare settings. To address the gap in training of both healthcare and interpreting students, an interdisciplinary, community-based project was implemented in several urban and rural Early Childhood Development centres (ECDs) in the Mangaung and Xhariep Districts in the Free State province. Interdisciplinary healthcare student groups from the University of the Free State (UFS) (including physiotherapy, occupational therapy, dietetics, biokinetics, optometry, and nursing students) conducted semi-structured interviews with caregivers of children regularly attending the respective ECDs as well as interviews with the ECD facilitators. Interpreting students (also from the UFS) facilitated the communication process and assisted to bridge the possible cultural divide between interviewees and healthcare students. Evidence has found that the collaboration between healthcare interpreters and healthcare professionals can significantly improve healthcare outcomes. For the purposes of this presentation, data will include the ethnographic observations of the interpreting practices during the ECD visits and reflections from students on their experiences of collaborative meaning-making during the implementation of the project. Thematic analysis of the findings was conducted, and the findings will be used to enhance the next cycle of the project and the skills development of healthcare and interpreting students. This
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Abstract
25
project may be one of the first community-based projects exploring the experiences of interdisciplinary healthcare students collaborating with students training to be community health interpreters, which could provide guidance on how such collaborations could interweave graduate attributes across disciplines and create meaningful student learning experiences.
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Keywords: multi-cultural; multi-linguistic; healthcare interpreting; interdisciplinary; cultural divide
26
INTERSEMIOTIC VARIATION IN SEMIOTIC LANDSCAPE Evangelos Kourdis
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki ekourdis@frl.auth.gr
Abstract Variety does not characterise only the semiotic system of language but also the phenomenon of intersemiosis and more precisely the intersemiotic translations of a linguistic message into an iconic one, as this type of intersemiosis was originally defined by Roman Jakobson (1959). The present proposal examines cases from the Greek and the international market where the same linguistic messages of commercial signs — that are verbo-cultural palimpsests — are translated intersemiotically with different iconic messages. The first aim is to interpret these choices and examine if there is a semiotic pattern that characterises the selection of the target cultural texts. This semiotic practice also highlights the imagination and creativity of commercial signs’ designers and the openness of the cultural system they are addressing, since a verbo-cultural palimpsest is a hidden (distorted) expression that evokes common memories and at the same time promotes everyday communication (Galisson, 1994). The use of verbo-cultural palimpsests is a wellestablished strategy in the commercial communication but not widely studied in the research field of linguistic and semiotic landscape (Papadima & Kourdis, 2018). Another research challenge is that these intersemiotic translations are trying to correspond not only to the verbo-cultural palimpsest of the shop sign but also to the original fixed cultural expression which they try to evoke intertextually. Thus, thanks to their playful nature they can become a part of a marketing strategy to approach customers, a privileged strategy that is based on common cultural knowledge to promote the commercial product. intersemiosis;
verbo-cultural
palimpsest;
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Keywords: intersemiotic translation; semiotic pattern; cultural expression
27
INTERTEXTUALITY AND INTERSEMIOTIC TRANSLATION IN COFFEE ADS Eleni Lazaridou
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki elenlaza@yahoo.gr
Abstract Scenes from works of art are usually observed and identified in advertisements. This identification is done either, according to Kristeva, piecemeal through the assimilation and transcription of another text (Kristeva, 1986) or, according to Eco, through adaptation or transmutation (Lazaratos, 2007). According to Jakobson’s tripartite division of translation (intralingual, interlingual, and intersemiotic), intersemiotic translation or transmutation is the interpretation of linguistic signs through nonlinguistic signs, such as translation of written texts into paintings. In addition, several semioticians suggest that semiotic translation can be realised between nonlinguistic semiotic systems, hence the term intericonicity (Kourdis, 2020:52). As far as nutrition is concerned, it can be considered a kind of language, a text of behaviours. Nutrition is not exactly synonymous with language, but there is a code of communication in nutrition that is often transmitted in a more flexible way than a language code (Varvounis, Tsigaras & Voglis, 2017). According to Martellotti, the study of food language, whose drinkable part is coffee, cannot be overlooked and at the same time food, which is produced, cooked, eaten, shared, exchanged, named, etc., should be considered an organised language according to codes capable of communicating differently from the language itself (Guerci, 1999). According to Guidère (2000) advertising and translation are excellent examples of contact between languages and culture, a contact that is part of the globalisation of advertising (Kourdis, 2015).
The ads that will be analysed come from the coffee company Lavazza’s advertising campaign and will be analysed according to Roland Barthes’ model of semiotic analysis, at the level of denotation and connotation, and Kress and Van Leeuwen’s multimodal communication model for the analysis of audiovisual advertising. Keywords: intertextuality; intersemiotic translation; coffee; advertising; art
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
The purpose of this study is to analyse the intertextual and intersemiotic references of works of art through the semiotic analysis of printed and audiovisual coffee advertisements and how they are redefined and given meaning in their new environment.
28
ARTMAKING, IMAGES AND THEIR MEDIA AS SITES OF MEMORIALISATION Lyrene Kühn-Botma
University of the Free State KuhnL@ufs.ac.za
Abstract
To support this, I will be discussing David Hockney’s photographic collage Gregory watching Snow Fall, Kyoto, Feb 21, 1983 (1983). The transitive quality of the hotel room unfolds as the metaphor of the transitive characteristic of a site triggered by memorialisation, be it physical or digital. In my own art I extract, pause, extrapolate, and translate online experiences of loss and virtual sites of mourning. Photographs are also used and contribute to the visual translation of the experience of such sites. In discussing the example by Hockney, and my own art, I hypothesise that all platforms used to potentially express grief and loss, such as the melancholy object (Gibson, 2004), device, photograph, video game world, (web)sites, places of commemoration, or engagement with art dealing with this topic, mediate experiences of memorialisation. Thus, artworks and photographs, be it on devices or physical, becomes a conduit or transferal to commemorate. Keywords: memorialisation; contemporary terms; transitive quality; transitive characteristic; photograph
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
There is a need to commemorate or acknowledge the precise area where a person ceased to breathe, where a presumed spirit has left the world. We attach meaning to sites of commemoration, memorialisation, loss, or trauma. Particularly in the case of a site that reminds, acknowledges, or contains loss. What then is to be discerned of digital and virtual spaces to mourn? In this paper, I argue that in contemporary terms, places used to commemorate the deceased have traversed to digital and virtual sites. Places to commemorate are not only located in traditional and formal sites, such as the cemetery or wall of remembrance, but also at the specific locations where acts, activities or the death of the deceased took place. I ask how a place may be imaginatively translated by grief for certain individuals. Moreover, could this same translation take place on digital and virtual platforms or environments? These questions are investigated in the process of art making in the medium of digital drawings. I surmise that handheld technological devices, computers, and virtual environments are also sites that can be accessed in commemoration.
29
ANIMAL PHOTOJOURNALISM AS KNOWLEDGE TRANSLATION: AN ECOSEMIOTIC APPROACH TO VISUAL ACTIVISM Xany Jansen van Vuuren
University of the Free State JansenVanVuurenX@ufs.ac.za
Abstract The gradual expanding of translation studies to include the non-verbal and nonhuman as part of the translational process (Tymoczko, 2007; Petrilli, 2016; Marais, 2019; 2021) has allowed for the broadening of translation studies to explore interdisciplinary fields such as translation and ecology (Cronin, 2017), a biosemiotic theory of translation (Marais, 2019) and animals as translators (Grandin & Johnson, 2005; Magnus, 2016). It is therefore useful to expand the definition of the translational process as a “multifaceted, context-dependent and mutable phenomenon which inevitably dissipates and alters during the translation process, losing some layers and gaining others, and occasionally transmuting into something altogether different” (Bennett, 2019:1).
Keywords: intersemiotic translation; knowledge translation; activism; photography; photojournalism; translation
Domestication is defined as a process in which “humans deliberately and with forethought assume control over the domesticate’s movement, feeding, protection, distribution, and, above all, its breeding” (Zeder, 2012:162). This implies that all animals in captivity can be regarded as domesticated animals. 1
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Against this background, this paper explores the ways in which photojournalism (specifically animal activist photography of domesticated animals) 1 functions as translation, and in particular knowledge translation. Referring broadly to the synthesis, exchange, and application of knowledge produced during research processes, knowledge translation actively bridges the chasm between the acquisition of knowledge and application of knowledge (Graham et al., 2007; Straus et al., 2009). By providing visual information that verbal communication would otherwise not be able to convey, animal activist photography is not only a translational process of the knowledge of the activist/photographer behind the lens, but also the plight of the animal in front of the lens. Furthermore, by approaching this study within ecosemiotics, a branch of semiotics that explores the “human relationships to nature which have a semiosic basis” (Kull, 1998: 351), this paper critically explores the human/non-human relations that are represented by animal activist photojournalism, as well as those that form as a result of the translation of knowledge by means of animal activist photography.
30
SEMIOTIC DIMENSIONS OF A MONTAGE PHENOMENON Ana Vitorio
University of the Free State anissima.vitorio@gmail.com
Abstract Montage is a creative artifact through which a variety of communication processes occur. Although known as a cinematographic practice, it is observed operating throughout the history of art, in a diversity of media products – from drawing and painting to theatre, including literature, sculpture, architecture, music, installation, graphic novels, and so on. Photographic books are examples of intermedial phenomena in which montage works as a meaning-generative principle. They usually emerge from a variety of juxtaposition processes involving their parts — photographic image, verbal text, painting, design, book materiality, etc. This work focuses on describing the semiotic aspect of montage in photobooks. By analysing two paradigmatic and well-known photographic books — The Americans by Robert Frank (1958), and Amazonia by Claudia Andujar and George Love (1978) — we observe montage acting as a relational process that constrains the parts of a work to refer to objects developed by the relationships between them. The montage constrains the related entities to function as signs of objects that until then they did not designate and that they started to designate because of the juxtapositions in which they now participate. Therefore, the creative potential of montage is based on its capability of developing new objects for already given entities — in the case of photobooks, these are photographic images, verbal text, painting, drawing, etc. — constraining them to work as signs in new semiotic processes.
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Keywords: intermediality; translation; photobook; photograph; Eisenstein
31
TRANSLATION IN WEB3 Jonathan Calzada
University of California (UCLA) jcboom@ucla.edu
Abstract As the role of digital technology continues to evolve and permeate the minds of 21st century publics, we find ourselves amidst a peculiar metamorphosis. This predominantly unconscious transformation has enabled us to master the copy+paste method, a conceptual technique that denies the possibility of translation and reifies the illusion of literal information transfer. Consequently, we no longer care for translation as theory of the unknowable, but as method of reifying the known. What is at stake is our subtle transition into a state of tautology where replication becomes the dominant form of production and difference is repressively controlled. For instance, the promised emancipatory potentiality of Web3 —based on blockchain’s ideals of decentralisation, democracy, and creativity — is often undermined by the allure of efficiency and the low cost of repetition. Specifically, within the crypto art space, much of the art creation and distribution is centralised around marketplaces. Additionally, democracy is the luxury of those that can afford to buy in, and the recent flood of derivative art production has diminished creativity.
Keywords: translation; copy+paste culture
Web3;
digital
technology;
emancipatory
potentiality;
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
In this paper, I aim to accomplish three interconnected objectives. First, I introduce the concept of a copy+paste culture, which is aptly exemplified in the technical practice of crypto art production. I discuss how this culture can be transgressive as well as a counter-hegemonic translation practice. Second, I argue that information transfer does not exist. Instead, biological and technological information is in a constant state of translation, meaning that transmitted information is always interpreted, processed, and reconstructed. Third, I discuss how conceiving of translation as a method to palpate the unknowable can be a critical approach toward breaking with the illusion of information transfer as conveyance of the real. Lastly, I apply these arguments to suggest how translation can be useful in studying emerging Web3 cultures.
32
THE METAVERSE AS A METATRANSLATION: A COMPLEX APPROACH Manuel De la Cruz Recio
University of Salamanca manueldelacruzrecio@usal.es
Abstract This paper explores the role of the application of translation theory to the information technology ubiquity issue. The application of information and communication technologies to translation is widespread. The use of translation theory to understand how these technologies will affect our perception of reality marked the beginning of the complexation of the phenomena (Marais & Meylaerts, 2019; Petrilli, 2003). (1) We will start from a complex trans-semiotic communicative model (De-la-Cruz-Recio, 2019) and apply an analysis of the four dimensions that define the translational process: subjective, intersubjective, objective, interobjective. (2) We will try to show how artificial languages and information technologies fit into this multidimensional model. Furthermore, (3) we will complexify the process of understanding the relationships and interactions between artificial languages and natural languages that operate on two different levels: digital and analogue. (4) We will try to show that information-based digital design is a particular translation that creates universes, shapes digital identities, societies, cultures and transforms realities (Colón Rodríguez, 2019). Hence, we raise the question to what extent metatranslation should be an open source and transparent process. The data are translated into different artificial languages so that they can operate. In this contribution we will argue that translation is a process of creating universes involving living organisms. Furthermore, translation is, in the case of minds — or mental property — a world-creating process. In this creative process there is a relationship between the mental and the meaning (Deacon, 2013; Görnitz, 2016). So, a metaverse is ordered information that obeys a conceptual design. Finally, we will affirm that metatranslation is a kind of transmedial translation, a translation of translation that structures minds that has implications at the biological level.
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Keywords: metatranslation; information; metaverse; complexity; digital ubiquity
33
CAMPUS MAP
Venue | Modlec Building, Room A2
For directions to the Transfers 2022 Venue (Modlec
For directions to the SASOL Library parking area, click here. If you are lost and in need of directions, please call: 082 410 1936
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
Building, Room A2), click here.
34
EMERGENCY INFORMATION
ER24 – 084 124
Mediclinic – 051 404 6666 Mediclinic Emergency – 051 404 6225 Campus security – 051 401 2634 ICT Assistance – Please contact conference organizers. Printing – Limited printing facilities are available in the venue. Please
TRANSFERS AND TRAVERSALS
contact conference organizers.
35
0 comments
Sign in to join the conversation.