Community Centres as Sites of Translation: Placemaking in Edinburgh

Min-Hsiu Liao; Katerina Strani; Eilidh Johnstone

doi:10.18778/2083-2931.15.06

Authors

Min-Hsiu Liao Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5348-6281
Katerina Strani Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5791-0465
Eilidh Johnstone Independent Scholar https://orcid.org/0009-0008-4689-2426

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-2931.15.06

Keywords:

translation space, counter-translations, materiality, intersemiotic translation, translation practices

Abstract

This article presents a research project comprising a series of community initiatives in Edinburgh, a city which displays a disproportionately English-heavy linguistic profile, despite the cosmopolitan influences of both migration and tourism. Our case study created sites that can be conceptualised as translation spaces, where the dominant direction of translation is challenged and critiqued, or even temporarily reversed to reclaim urban space. The research team collaborated with local libraries and community centres to establish several sites of translation. This paper focuses on one key site: a series of art workshops led by refugee artists. Drawing upon the concept of translation space from Translation Studies, we explicitly thematised the role of language(s) and language exchange in these microsites, so that language traffic and dynamics could be observed, discussed, and challenged. In this way, this article contributes to the study of translation space in two aspects. Firstly, it demonstrates how contested language spaces can be analysed through translation practices manifested in various material modes, including interpretations (or, oral translations) provided by participants for one another in art workshops, and intersemiotic translation, from feelings through languages to artwork. Secondly, the paper reflects on how creating such microsites of translation can contribute to resisting the dominant direction of translation in the city.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Min-Hsiu Liao, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh

Min-Hsiu Liao is Associate Professor at the Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies, Heriot-Watt University. Her research focuses on multimodal translation within museums, heritage sites, and urban landscapes, emphasising the interaction between verbal, visual, and spatial semiotics.
Katerina Strani, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh

Katerina Strani is Professor at the Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies, Heriot-Watt University. Her background is in languages and politics, and her research interests are intercultural dialogue, racism and hate speech, language and heritage, through the lens of migration.
Eilidh Johnstone, Independent Scholar

Eilidh Johnstone is a researcher and translator. She completed her PhD in Translation Studies at Heriot-Watt University, and has spent time as a visiting scholar at Taipei National University of the Arts. Her research focuses on interlingual communication as an embodied interaction in three-dimensional space.

References

Antonsich, Marco. “Searching for Belonging—An Analytical Framework.” Geography Compass, vol. 4, no. 6, 2010, pp. 644–59. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8198.2009.00317.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8198.2009.00317.x

Blackledge, Adrian, and Angela Creese. “Translanguaging and the Body.” International Journal of Multilingualism, vol. 14, no. 3, 2017, pp. 250–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2017.1315809 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2017.1315809

Blommaert, Jan, Lies Creve, and Evita Willaert. “On Being Declared Illiterate: Language-ideological Disqualification in Dutch Classes for Immigrants in Belgium.” Language and Communication, vol. 26, no. 1, 2006, pp. 34–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2005.03.004 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2005.03.004

Blommaert, Jan, et al., editors. Dangerous Multilingualism. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137283566 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137283566

Bradley, Jessica, et al. “Translanguaging Space and Creative Activity.” Language and Intercultural Communication, vol. 18, no. 1, 2018, pp. 54–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2017.1401120 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2017.1401120

Brice, Sage. “Situating Skill: Contemporary Observational Drawing as a Spatial Method in Geographical Research.” Cultural Geographies, vol. 25, no. 1, 2017, pp. 135–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474017702513 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474017702513

Ciribuco, Andrea. “Translating the Village: Translation as Part of the Everyday Lives of Asylum Seekers in Italy.” Translation Spaces, vol. 9, no. 2, 2020, pp. 179–201. https://doi.org/10.1075/ts.20002.cir DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ts.20002.cir

Collins, James, and Stef Slembrouck. “Multilingualism and Diasporic Populations: Spatializing Practices, Institutional Processes, and Social Hierarchies.” Language and Communication, vol. 25, no. 3, 2005, pp. 189–95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2005.03.006 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2005.03.006

Courage, Cara. “Introduction: What Really Matters: Moving Placemaking into a New Epoch.” The Routledge Handbook of Placemaking, edited by Cara Courage et al., Routledge, 2021, pp. 1–8. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429270482-1 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429270482-1

Cresswell, Tim. Place: An Introduction. Wiley Blackwell, 2015.

Cronin, Michael. Translation and Identity. Routledge, 2006. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203015698 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203015698

Cronin, Michael, and Sherry Simon “Introduction: The City as Translation Zone.” Translation Studies, vol. 7, no. 2, 2014, pp. 119–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/14781700.2014.897641 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14781700.2014.897641

Duff, Cameron. “On the Role of Affect and Practice in the Production of Place.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol. 28, no. 5, 2010, pp. 881–95. https://doi.org/10.1068/d16209 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1068/d16209

Frimberger, Katja. “Towards a Well-being Focused Language Pedagogy: Enabling Arts-based, Multilingual Learning Spaces for Young People with Refugee Backgrounds.” Pedagogy, Culture & Society, vol. 24, no. 2, 2016, pp. 285–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2016.1155639 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2016.1155639

Jaworski, Adam, and Crispin Thurlow, editors. “Introducing Semiotic Landscapes.” Semiotic Landscape: Language, Image, Space, edited by Adam Jaworski and Crispin Thurlow, Bloomsbury, 2010, pp. 1–40.

Kearns, Robin, et al. “Drawing and Graffiti-based Approaches.” Creative Methods for Human Geographers, edited by Nadia Von Benzon et al., Sage, 2021, pp. 113–25. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529739152.n9 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529739152.n9

Lewicka, Maria. “On the Varieties of People’s Relationships with Places: Hummon’s Typology Revisited.” Environment and Behavior, vol. 43, no. 5, 2011, pp. 676–709. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916510364917 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916510364917

Marasligil, Canan. “Reclaiming Urban Spaces through Translation: A Practitioner’s Account.” The Routledge Handbook of Translation and the City, edited by Tong King Lee, Routledge, 2021, pp. 77–94. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429436468-7 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429436468-7

Miller, Elisabeth R. “Agency, Language Learning, and Multilingual Spaces.” Multilingua, vol. 31, no. 4, 2012, pp. 441–68. https://doi.org/10.1515/mult-2012-0020 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/mult-2012-0020

Nic Craith, Mairéad. Narratives of Place, Belonging and Language: An Intercultural Perspective. Palgrave, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230355514 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230355514

O’Halloran, Kay L., Sabine Tan, and Peter Wignell. “Intersemiotic Translation as Resemiotisation: A Multimodal Perspective.” Signata, vol. 7, 2016, pp. 199–229. https://doi.org/10.4000/signata.1223 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/signata.1223

O’Rourke, Bernadette, and Joan Pujolar. “From Native Speakers to ‘New Speakers’—Problematizing Nativeness in Language Revitalization Contexts.” Histoire Épistémologie Langage, vol. 35, no. 2, 2013, pp. 47–67.

Pennycook, Alastair. Language as a Local Practice. Routledge, 2010. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203846223 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203846223

Pennycook, Alastair, and Emi Otsuji. Metrolingualism: Language in the City. Routledge, 2015. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315724225 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315724225

Pierce, Joseph, Deborah G. Martin, and James T. Murphy. “Relational Place‐making: The Networked Politics of Place.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 36, no. 1, 2011, pp. 54–70. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2010.00411.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2010.00411.x

Piller, Ingrid. “Multilingualism and Social Exclusion.” The Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism, edited by Marilyn Martin-Jones, Adrian Blackledge, and Angela Creese, Routledge, 2012, pp. 281–96.

Ralph, David, and Lynn A. Staeheli. “Home and Migration: Mobilities, Belongings and Identities.” Geography Compass, vol. 5, no. 7, 2011, pp. 517–30. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8198.2011.00434.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8198.2011.00434.x

Shohamy, Elana Goldberg, Eliezer Ben Rafael, and Monica Barni, editors. Linguistic Landscape in the City. Multilingual Matters, 2010. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781847692993 DOI: https://doi.org/10.21832/9781847692993

Simon, Sherry. “Space.” The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Culture, edited by Sue-Ann Harding and Ovidi Carbonell Cortés, Routledge, 2018, pp. 97–111. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315670898-6 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315670898-6

Simon, Sherry. “The Translational City.” The Routledge Handbook of Translation and the City, edited by Tong King Lee, Routledge, 2021, pp. 15–25. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429436468-3 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429436468-3

Simon, Sherry. Translation Sites: A Field Guide. Routledge. 2019. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315311098 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315311098

Strani, Katerina. “Multilingualism in/and Politics Revisited: The State of the Art.” Multilingualism and Politics: Revisiting Multilingual Citizenship, edited by Katerina Strani, Palgrave, 2020, pp. 17–45. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40701-8_2 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40701-8_2

Todorova, Marija. “Translating Refugee Culinary Cultures: Hong Kong’s Narratives of Integration.” Translation and Interpreting Studies, vol. 17, no. 1, 2022, pp. 88–110. https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.21019.tod DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.21019.tod

Tuan, Yi-Fu. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Arnold. 1977.

Van Parijs, Philippe. “Linguistic Justice and the Territorial Imperative.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, vol. 13, no. 1, 2010, 181–202. https://doi.org/10.1080/13698230903326323 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13698230903326323

Yoon-Ramirez, Injeong. “Inter-weave: Creating a Translanguaging Space through Community Art.” Multicultural Perspectives, vol. 23, no. 1, 2021, 23–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/15210960.2021.1877544 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15210960.2021.1877544

Zhu, Hua, Wei Li, and Daria Jankowicz-Pytel. “Translanguaging and Embodied Teaching and Learning: Lessons from a Multilingual Karate Club in London.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, vol. 23, no. 1, 2019, pp. 65–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2019.1599811 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2019.1599811