Suchergebnisse

Current research finds the label "translation" an apt characterization of diverse communicative practices. This review argues that the term points to a whole family of semiotic processes. Writings on translation share a key insight: Different social worlds—including those of scholars—emerge through forms of communication in which practices, objects, genres, and texts are citable, recontextualizable. This generative process mediates among the domains of knowledge and action that the communications themselves play a role in separating. The connections and differentiations, as framed by metadiscourses, construct relations of power and politics. I seek to highlight a widening, productive conversation about translational practices among studies of science, in medical, legal, and linguistic anthropology, in research on Christianities, and in advocacy. The translation rubric gathers together practices of transduction, (in)commensuration, circulation, enactment of reference, standardizations, and various forms of boundary making. Recent work on semiotics clarifies how such practices achieve their effects.

susan gal is Professor of Anthropology and Linguistics at the University of Chicago. She is presently doing research on the political economy of language, including linguistic nationalism, and especially the rhetorical and symbolic aspects of political transformation in contemporary Eastern Europe. In studying postcommunist societies, her work focuses as well on the construction of gender and discourses of reproduction. Her recent publications include The Politics of Gender after Socialism(Princeton University Press, 2000) co-authored with Gail Kligman,Reproducing Gender: Politics, Publics and Everyday Life after Socialism (Princeton University Press, 2000), which she coedited with Gail Kligman, and Languages and Publics: The Making of Authority (St. Jerome's Press, 2001) coedited with Kathryn Woolard.