Cover not available
Article published In:
Translation Spaces
Vol. 9:2 (2020) ► pp.179–201

Translating the village

Translation as part of the everyday lives of asylum seekers in Italy

ORCID logo | National University of Ireland Galway
This article explores translation in the lives of asylum seekers from various African countries living in state-provided accommodation in the region of Umbria, Italy. While (semi) professional translators and interpreters play a crucial part in interactions between institutions and asylum seekers, translation invests the totality of the asylum experience. Translation is a vital skill for asylum seekers, and their interactions with the landscape of Italian villages involve the transfer of meaning across different languages and semiotic systems (such as body language, social norms, and cultural practices). Building on recent semiotic and spatial approaches to translation, this article examines the experience of translation that emerged from conversations with asylum seekers, providing an overview of a complex ecosystem of translation and shedding light on the everyday reality of refugee integration.
Keywords: translation, asylum, integration, Italy, intersemiotic translation
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Towards a semiotic understanding of Translation
  • 1.Context and methodology
  • 2.Multilingual asylum seekers
  • 3.Interlingual translation: Teachers and smartphones
  • 4.Street encounters as kinetic translation
  • 5.A never-ending chain of translation: The case of football
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 27 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ts.20002.cir
References (32)
References
Baker, Mona. 2019. Translation and Conflict. A Narrative Account. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Baynham, Mike, and Tong King Lee. 2019. Translation and Translanguaging. Oxford: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blommaert, Jan. 2010. The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Busch, Brigitta. 2017. “Expanding the Notion of the Linguistic Repertoire: On the Concept of Spracherleben – The Lived Experience of Language.” Applied Linguistics 38 (3): 340–58.Google Scholar
Ciribuco, Andrea. 2020. “How Do You Say Kélén-Kélén in Italian? Migration, Landscape and Untranslatable Food.” Translation Studies 13 (1): 99–115. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Creese, Angela, Adrian Blackledge, and Rachel Hu. 2018. “Translanguaging and Translation: The Construction of Social Difference across City Spaces.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 21 (7): 841–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cronin, Michael. 2017. Eco-Translation. Translation and Ecology in the Age of Anthropocene. Oxford: Routledge. Kindle Edition. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
García, Ofelia, and Wei Li. 2014. Translanguaging. Language, Bilingualism and Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Garcia, Ignacio, and María Isabel Pena. 2011. “Machine Translation-Assisted Language Learning: Writing for Beginners.” Computer Assisted Language Learning 24 (5): 471–87. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Inghilleri, Moira. 2005. “Mediating Zones of Uncertainty: Interpreter Agency, the Interpreting Habitus and Political Asylum Adjudication.” The Translator 11 (1): 69–85. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2017. Translation and Migration. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman. 1959. “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation.” In On Translation, edited by R. A. Brower, 232–39. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Jiménez-Ivars, Amparo, and Ruth León-Pinilla. 2018. “Interpreting in Refugee Contexts. A Descriptive and Qualitative Study.” Language and Communication 601: 28–43. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kaufmann, Katja. 2018. “Navigating a New Life: Syrian Refugees and Their Smartphones in Vienna.” Information Communication and Society 21 (6): 882–98. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Killman, Jeffrey. 2020. “Interpreting for Asylum Seekers and Their Attorneys : The Challenge of Agency.” Perspectives 28 (1): 1–17. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Littau, Karin. 2016. “Translation and the Materialities of Communication.” Translation Studies 9 (1): 82–96. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Makoni, Sinfree, and Alastair Pennycook. 2005. “Disinventing and (Re) Constituting Languages.” Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 2 (3): 137–56. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marais, Kobus. 2014. Translation Theory and Development Studies. A Complexity Theory Approach. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2019. A (Bio) Semiotic Theory of Translation. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ministero dell’Interno. 2018. Rapporto Annuale SPRAR/SIPROIMI 2018.Google Scholar
Nekvapil, Jirí. 2003. “Language Biographies and the Analysis of Language Situations: On the Life of the German Community in the Czech Republic.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 1621: 63–83.Google Scholar
Pennycook, Alastair, and Emi Otsuji. 2015. Metrolingualism. Language in the City. Oxford: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pratt, Mary Louise. 1991. “Arts of the Contact Zone.” Profession: 33–40.Google Scholar
Simon, Sherry. 2012. Cities in Translation. Intersections of Language and Memory. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
. 2019. Translation Sites. A Field Guide. Oxford: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stevenson, Patrick. 2017. Language and Migration in a Multilingual Metropolis: Berlin Lives. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tyulenev, Sergey. 2018. Translation in the Public Sphere. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vertovec, Steven. 2007. “Super-Diversity and Its Implications.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (6): 1024–54. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Villa, Matteo, Valeria Emmi, and Elena Corradi. 2018. “Migranti: La sfida dell’integrazione.” Milano: ISPI/CESVI.Google Scholar
Vollmer, Stefan. 2018. “Syrian Newcomers and their Digital Literacy Practices.” Language Issues 28 (2): 66–72.Google Scholar
Wolf, Michaela. 2011. “Mapping the Field: Sociological Perspectives on Translation.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2071: 1–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yamada, Masaru. 2019. “Language Learners and Non-Professional Translators as Users.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Technology, edited by Minako O’Hagan. Abingdon: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Rozmysłowicz, Tomasz
2024. The politics of machine translation. Reprogramming translation studies. Perspectives 32:3 ► pp. 493 ff. DOI logo
Guerberof-Arenas, Ana & Joss Moorkens
2023. Ethics and Machine Translation: The End User Perspective. In Towards Responsible Machine Translation [Machine Translation: Technologies and Applications, 4], ► pp. 113 ff. DOI logo
Ciribuco, Andrea & Anne O’Connor
2022. Translating the object, objects in translation. Translation and Interpreting Studies 17:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Piccoli, Vanessa
2022. Plurilingualism, multimodality and machine translation in medical consultations. Translation and Interpreting Studies 17:1 ► pp. 42 ff. DOI logo
Todorova, Marija
2022. Translating refugee culinary cultures. Translation and Interpreting Studies 17:1 ► pp. 88 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 september 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.