Tamara Barakat

Intersemiotic translation and the remediation of cultural memory: Palestinian oral folktales as a case study 

This paper explores the role of intersemiotic translation processes in the remediation and reconstruction of Palestinian cultural memory and (non)material heritage. Traditional logocentric understandings of the translation process conceptualize it as a finite set of actions that are undertaken by the translator to move from one point (source text) to another (target text). This conceptualization becomes problematic when applied to intersemiotic translation, which, as this paper argues, is a subjective, experiential, embodied, situated and collaborative process in which translators are visible and the source-target text binary is not necessarily relevant. 

Recognizing that verbal signs are only but one form of communication through which memory work takes place, I draw on Marais’ (2019) conceptualization of translation.  I argue that the study of intersemiotic translation demands a methodological approach that does not impose an artificial separation between texts, processes, and agents of translation, but views them as entangled in one multimodal whole. To illustrate these arguments, I examine the translation processes underlying the creation of a children’s illustrated collection of Palestinian folktales, Speak, Bird, Speak Again (Muhawi and Kanaana, 2010), in which female tellers, folklorists, and artists work collaboratively to transform the orally transmitted tales into a material publication. 

Can the multimodal performance of the tales in the teller’s homes, the recording of these performances on audio cassettes, the transcription of the recordings into written texts, the transformation of the folktales into illustrations and collages, and the design of the publication be considered translation processes? What are the implications of this line of thinking on how we theorize and practice translation? What personal and research journeys do these processes take the artist-translators on? What insights does this approach bring to our understanding of the transformations cultural memory undergoes via translation? By considering these questions, this paper aims to contribute to the emerging debates on multimodality, translation, and memory in the arts. 

Keywords: translation process, intersemiotic translation, multimodality, cultural memory, folktales

References:

Marais, K. (2019) A (Bio)Semiotic Theory of Translation: The Emergence of Social-Cultural Reality. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. 

Muhawi, I. and Kanaana, S. (2010) Speak, Bird, Speak Again: Children Tales from the Palestinian Popular Heritage. Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies.

Bio:

Tamara Barakat is a lecturer in Translation Studies at the University of Strathclyde. She holds a PhD in Translation Studies from Durham University. Her research explores the role of translation in the remediation of Palestinian cultural memory and oral history across media, languages, generations, and cultures.