This volume outlines a theory of translation, set within the framework of Peircean semiotics, which challenges the linguistic bias in translation studies by proposing a semiotic theory that accounts for all instances of translation, not only interlinguistic translation. In particular, the volume explores cases of translation which does not include language at all. The book begins by examining different conceptualizations of translation to highlight how linguistic bias in translation studies and semiotics has informed these fields and their development. The volume then outlines a complexity theory of translation based on semiotics which incorporates process philosophy, semiotics, and translation theory. It posits that translation is the complex systemic process underlying semiosis, the result of which produces semiotic forms. The book concludes by looking at the implications of this conceptualization of translation on social-cultural emergence theory through an interdisciplinary lens, integrating perspectives from semiotics, social semiotics, and development studies. Paving the way for scholars to analyze translational aspects of all semiotic phenomena, this volume is essential reading for graduate students and researchers in translation studies, semiotics, multimodal studies, cultural studies, and development studies.

This volume outlines a theory of translation, set within the framework of Peircean semiotics, which does not place language at its center, but instead accounts for all instances of translation.

Translation Translation contributes to current debate on the question of translation dealt with in an interdisciplinary perspective, with implications not only of a theoretical order but also of the didactic and the practical orders. In the context of globalization the question of translation is fundamental for education and responds to new community needs with reference to Europe and more extensively to the international world. In its most obvious sense translation concerns verbal texts and their relations among different languages. However, to remain within the sphere of verbal signs, languages consist of a plurality of different languages that also relate to each other through translation processes. Moreover, translation occurs between verbal languages and nonverbal languages and among nonverbal languages without necessarily involving verbal languages. Thus far the allusion is to translation processes within the sphere of anthroposemiosis. But translation occurs among signs and the signs implicated are those of the semiosic sphere in its totality, which are not exclusively signs of the linguistic-verbal order. Beyond anthroposemiosis, translation is a fact of life and invests the entire biosphere or biosemiosphere, as clearly evidenced by research in “biosemiotics”, for where there is life there are signs, and where there are signs or semiosic processes there is translation, indeed semiosic processes are translation processes. According to this approach reflection on translation obviously cannot be restricted to the domain of linguistics but must necessarily involve semiotics, the general science or theory of signs. In this theoretical framework essays have been included not only from major translation experts, but also from researchers working in different areas, in addition to semiotics and linguistics, also philosophy, literary criticism, cultural studies, gender studies, biology, and the medical sciences. All scholars work on problems of translation in the light of their own special competencies and interests.

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.

Based on previous work that linked biosemiotics, semiotics and translation studies, this book further explores a variety of factors that play a role in social-cultural emergence. The volume, which presents a selection of papers read at a conference in 2022 with the same title as the book, engages the systems of matter-energy, biology, and significance from which and in relation to which society-culture emerges. The volume entails an interdisciplinary complex of perspectives, drawing on quantum physics and informatics as well as new materialism and a number of perspectives from semiotics and ecosemiotics in its investigations. Researchers and postgraduate students from fields such as biology, biosemiotics, semiotics, translation studies, cultural studies, new materialist thought and others, who are interested in inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to issues of society-culture, will find this book compelling reading.

Synthesizing the findings from a wide range of disciplines – from biology and anthropology to philosophy and linguistics – the emerging field of Biosemiotics explores the highly complex phenomenon of sign processing in living systems. Seeking to advance a naturalistic understanding of the evolution and development of sign-dependent life processes, contemporary biosemiotic theory offers important new conceptual tools for the scientific understanding of mind and meaning, for the development of artificial intelligence, and for the ongoing research into the rich diversity of non-verbal human, animal and biological communication processes. Donald Favareau’s Essential Readings in Biosemiotics has been designed as a single-source overview of the major works informing this new interdiscipline, and provides scholarly historical and analytical commentary on each of the texts presented. The first of its kind, this book constitutes a valuable resource to both bioscientists and to semioticians interested in this emerging new discipline, and can function as a primary textbook for students in biosemiotics, as well. Moreover, because of its inherently interdisciplinary nature and its focus on the ‘big questions’ of cognition, meaning and evolutionary biology, this volume should be of interest to anyone working in the fields of cognitive science, theoretical biology, philosophy of mind, evolutionary psychology, communication studies or the history and philosophy of science.

This edited volume explores the role of (postcolonial) translation studies in addressing issues of the postcolony. It investigates the retention of the notion of postcolonial translation studies and whether one could reconsider or adapt the assumptions and methodologies of postcolonial translation studies to a new understanding of the postcolony to question the impact of postcolonial translation studies in Africa to address pertinent issues. The book also places the postcolony in historical perspective, and takes a critical look at the failures of postcolonial approaches to translation studies. The book brings together 12 chapters, which are divided into three sections: namely, Africa, the Global South, and the Global North. As such, the volume is able to consider the postcolony (and even conceptualisations beyond the postcolony) in a variety of settings worldwide.