What is it about?
An ideal strongly rooted in the field of translation is that of 'translating without additions or modifications'. However, as images are involved in many translation contexts, the extent to which a translator (e.g. an audio-describer) conveys interpretations of the source text may raise questions. The aim of this article is to better delineate the interpretive threshold between the global meaning that a still image can convey in and of itself, on the one hand, and the more personal interpretations that this image can evoke in its recipient (including the translator), on the other. In practice, any projection of external meaning coming from the translator-interpreter himself would have to be treated with caution in the translation process, since it would amount to recontextualising the original visual message by colouring it with a particular meaning, in other words modifying it with added meanings.
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Why is it important?
A better understanding of visual meaning has become crucial in today's multimodal world, perhaps especially for translators, and this article addresses that issue.
Perspectives
I hope that this article can give new ideas to people dealing with image reception, reading visual documents and picture description. A picture might tell a thousand words, but not just any words...
Olli Philippe Lautenbacher
University of Helsinki
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Translating what the image conveys or what it arouses?, Babel Revue internationale de la traduction / International Journal of Translation / Revista Internacional de Traducción, January 2024, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/babel.00381.lau.
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