Cambridge Conversations in Translation - 26 May 2017 - Translation and Multimodality - Session One

Session 1 Gunther Kress (UCL)-Translation in a social semiotic multimodal approach: from bottom up, right to left, inside out In my talk I try to imagine and sketch what a social semiotic and multimodal approach to translation might be about, what it might be like, what it might encompass -- and how it might differ from a more traditional approach. As I assume that many in the audience will have no knowledge of what either Social Semiotics or Multimodality are, I will briefly say something about these two topics. Using an entirely conventional definition of 'translation' -- "a carrying across, removal, transporting; transfer of meaning" -- I will explore how the terms in that definition might be thought about in a Social Semiotic / Multimodal approach. One part of my interest is the issue of “naming”: that is, to what extent the existing terms continue to be useful / useable or not -- terms such as language, transcription, representation, transformation. The other part of my interest -- in relation to Multimodality specifically -- is the question of the availability of apt notational resources for the process of “transporting” of meaning. The third point is the very question of “transporting meaning” itself: that of course is not new in discussions of translation, but might be worth looking at from a social semiotic perspective.