Interpreting, Communication and Animal Welfare: An Ecosemiotic Analysis of Interspecies Translation

Animal welfare work is, arguably, the key locus of interspecific communication and offers a most valuable opportunity to understand what is involved in intersemiotic transmutations. As such, this book introduces the reader to an in-depth understanding of such transmutations by supplementing relevant semiotic and translation theory with data obtained from equine-focused animal welfare outreach events in South Africa. By acknowledging the influence of biosemiotics and ecosemiotics on translation and interpreting studies, this book, in a non-anthropocentric manner, explores the social and cultural construction of living beings and the impact of this construction on their treatment by a particular society. As a result, it sheds light on instances of not only interlingual, intralingual and intersemiotic translation, but also interspecies translation, organisms’ agency, and translational aids that allow for translation to take place.

Xany Jansen van Vuuren, University of the Free State Bloemfontein, South Africa.