Trajectories of Translation
This book builds on Marais’s innovative A (Bio)Semiotic Theory of Translation to explore the implications of this conceptualization of translation as the semiotic work from which social-cultural reality emerges and chart the way forward for applications in empirical research.
The volume brings together some of the latest developments in biosemiotics, social semiotics and Peircean semiotics with emergent work in translation studies towards better understanding the emergence of trajectories in society-culture through semiotic processes. The book further develops lines of thinking around thermodynamics in the work of Terrence Deacon to consider the ways in which ideas emerge from matter, creating meaning, and its opposites, namely the ways in which ideas constrain matter. Marais links these theoretical strands to empirical case studies in the final three chapters towards operationalizing these concepts for further empirical work.
This book is aimed at academics in the fields of translation studies, semiotics, multimodal/multimedial studies, cultural studies and development studies. It will also be applicable to postgraduate students in these fields.
Kobus Marais is Professor of Translation Studies at the University of the Free State. His publications include A (Bio)Semiotic Theory of Translation (2019), Translation beyond Translation Studies (2023), Complexity Thinking in Translation Studies: Methodological Considerations (2019, co-edited with Reine Meylaerts) and Exploring the Implications of Complexity Thinking for Translation Studies (2022, co-edited with Reine Meylaerts). He is founding editor of the Journal for Translation Studies in Africa.