Cover not available

In:Field Research on Translation and Interpreting
Edited by Regina Rogl, Daniela Schlager and Hanna Risku
[Benjamins Translation Library 165] 2025
► pp. 338–361

Get fulltext
PDF logo with download linkDownload Chapter PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Chapter EPUB

Chapter 15
Exploring interspecies translation and interpreting through multispecies ethnography

ORCiD logo with link | University of the Free StateBloemfontein
Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 15 May 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.165.15jan
Abstract
Against the background of the recent enlarging of translation studies to include the more-than-professional (Tymoczko 2007), more-than-verbal (Petrilli 2016) and more-than-human (Cronin 2017; Marais 2019), this chapter explores the opportunities that accompany multispecies translational research by focusing on multispecies ethnography as a research design. It will provide examples from a recent multispecies translation and interpreting project that involved the application of such a design in an animal welfare context.
By taking an ecosemiotic approach to conceptualising the process of translation and interpreting, this chapter assumes that all forms of semiosis are, in essence, translational processes (Petrilli 2016) that are “shaped by available conditions, encumbered by their history, yet at the same time … partly autonomous and independent” (Maran 2020: 1).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Exploring human/non-human relationships in the Animal Turn
  • 3.Semiotics, ecosemiotics and the non-human animal in translation studies
  • 4.First steps towards multispecies ethnography: From paradigm and approach to design for interspecies translational research
  • 5.Description of the research context and its participants
  • 6.Researcher positionality as photographer participant observer
  • 7.Analysing data and ‘finding’ findings with multispecies ethnography
  • 8.Identification of the theme: Agency of meaning makers
  • 9.Findings: Moving away from linguistic and anthropocentric biases
  • 10.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (63)
References
Adams, Carol J. 2010. The Sexual Politics of Meat. New York & Hove: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Andersson Cederholm, Erika, Amelie Björck, Kristina Jennbert, and Ann-Sofie Lönngren. 2014. “Introduction.” In Exploring the Animal Turn: Human-Animal Relations in Science, Society and Culture, ed. by Erika Andersson Cederholm, Amelie Björck, Kristina Jennbert, and Ann-Sofie Lönngren, 5–11. Lund: The Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Arluke, Arnold, and Clinton R. Sanders. 1996. Regarding Animals. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Babbie, Earl R., and Johan Mouton. 2001. The Practice of Social Research. Cape Town: Oxford University Press South Africa.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. 1964. “Rhetorique de l’image.” Communications 4 (4): 40–51. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bernard, H. Russel. 2006. Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blattner, Charlotte, Sue Donaldson, and Ryan Wilcox. 2020. “Animal Agency in Community: A Political Multispecies Ethnography of VINE Sanctuary.” Politics and Animals 6: 1–22.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Buckingham, Susan. 2004. “Ecofeminism in the Twenty-First Century.” The Geographical Journal 170 (2): 146–154. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cook, Guy. 2015. “‘A Pig Is a Person’ or ‘You Can Love a Fox and Hunt It’: Innovation and Tradition in the Discursive Representation of Animals.” Discourse & Society 26 (5): 587–607. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cronin, Michael. 2017. Eco-Translation: Translation and Ecology in the Age of the Anthropocene. Oxon: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crutzen, Paul J., and Eugene F. Stoermer. 2013. “The ‘Anthropocene’.” In The Future of Nature, ed. by Libby Robin, Sverker Sörlin, and Paul Warde, 479–490. New Haven: Yale University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Danesi, Marcel. 1994. “Introduction.” In An Introduction to Semiotics, auth. Thomas A. Sebeok, xi–xvii. London: University of Toronto Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. Messages, Signs, and Meanings: A Basic Textbook in Semiotics and Communication Theory. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Waal, Cornelis. 2013. Peirce: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DeMunck, Victor C., and Elisa J. Sobo. 1998. Using Methods in the Field: A Practical Introduction and Casebook. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drenthen, Martin. 2016. “Understanding the Meaning of Wolf Resurgence, Ecosemiotics and Landscape Hermeneutics.” In Thinking about Animals in the Age of the Anthropocene, ed. by in Morten Tønnessen, Kristin Armstrong Oma, and Silver Rattasepp, 109–126. Lanham: Lexington Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eadie, Edward N. 2012. Understanding Animal Welfare: An Integrated Approach. Heidelberg: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garrard, Greg. 2012. Ecocriticism. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goitsemodimo, Relopile G. 2015. Socio-cultural Dynamics of a Rainwater Harvesting Project in Rural Thaba Nchu. Unpublished MA dissertation. Bloemfontein: University of the Free State.
Hammersley, Martin, and Paul Atkinson. 2019. Ethnography: Principles in Practice. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holm, Gunilla. 2014. “Photography as a Research Method.” In The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research, ed. by Patricia Leavy, 380–402. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jansen van Vuuren, Xany. 2022. “Non-professional Interpreting in Animal Welfare: Towards an Ecosemiotic Understanding of Interaction.” Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of the Free State.
. 2023. “Translation Between Non-Humans and Humans.” In Translation Beyond Translation Studies, ed. by Kobus Marais, 219–230. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kasperbauer, Tyler J. 2018. Subhuman: The Moral Psychology of Human Attitudes to Animals. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kirksey, S. Eben, and Stefan Helmreich. 2010. “The Emergence of Multispecies Ethnography.” Cultural Anthropology 25 (4): 545–576. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lawrence, Elizabeth. 1994. “Conflicting Ideologies: Views of Animal Rights Advocates and their Opponents.” Society and Animals 2 (2): 175–190. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lestel, Dominique. 2014. “Hybrid Communities.” Angelaki 19 (3): 61–73. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lindström, Kati, Kalevi Kull, and Hannes Palang. 2011. “Semiotic Study of Landscapes: An Overview from Semiology to Ecosemiotics.” Sign Systems Studies 39 (2/4): 12–36. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mäekivi, Nelly, and Timo Maran. 2016. “Semiotic Dimensions of Human Attitudes Towards Other Animals: A Case of Zoological Gardens.” Sign Systems Studies 44 (1/2): 209–230. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Magnus, Rinn, and Tiit Remm. 2018. “Urban Ecosemiotics of Trees: Why the Ecological Alien Species Paradigm Has Not Gained Ground in Cities?” Sign Systems Studies 46 (2): 319–342. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marais, Kobus. 2019. A (Bio)Semiotic Theory of Translation: The Emergence of Social Cultural Reality. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2021. “Tom, Dick and Harry as well as Fido and Puss in Boots Are Translators: The Implications of Biosemiotics for Translation Studies.” In Translating Asymmetry — Rewriting Power, ed. by Ovidi Carbonell i Cortés, and Esther Monzó-Nebot, 101–121. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maran, Timo. 2014. “Place and Sign. Locality as Foundational Concept for Ecosemiotics.” In Re-Imagining Nature: Environmental Humanities and Ecosemiotics, ed. by Alfred K. Siewers, 79–89. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. Ecosemiotics: The Study of Signs in Changing Ecologies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maran, Timo, and Kalevi Kull. 2014. “Ecosemiotics: Main Principles and Current Developments.” Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 96 (1): 41–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maran, Timo, Morten Tønnessen, Riin Magnus, Nelly Mäekivi, Silver Rattasepp, and Kadri Tüür. 2016. “Introducing Zoosemiotics: Philosophy and Historical Background.” In Animal Umwelten in a Changing World: Zoosemiotic Perspectives, ed. by Timo Maran, Morten Tønnessen, and Silver Rattasepp, 10–28. Tartu: University of Tartu Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McFarland, Sarah E., and Ryan Hediger (eds). 2009. Animals and Agency: An Interdisciplinary Exploration. Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Parham, John, and Louise Westling (eds). 2016. A Global History of Literature and the Environment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pedersen, Helena. 2014. “Knowledge Production in the ‘Animal Turn’: Multiplying the Image of Thought, Empathy, and Justice.” In Exploring the Animal Turn: Human-Animal Relations in Science, Society and Culture, ed. by Erika Andersson Cederholm, Amelie Björck, Kristina Jennbert, and Ann-Sofie Lönngren, 13–18. Lund: The Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peirce, Charles S. 1935a. The Collected Papers of Charles S. Peirce (Vol 2). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1935b. The Collected Papers of Charles S. Peirce (Vol 3). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Petrilli, Susan. 2016. “Translation Everywhere.” Signata 7: 23–56. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Robin, Libby, Sverker Sörlin, and Paul Warde (eds). 2013. The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change. New Haven: Yale University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sandiford, Peter J. 2015. “Participant Observation as Ethnography or Ethnography as Participant Observation in Organizational Research.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Research Design in Business and Management, ed. by Kenneth D. Strang, 411–443. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schmuck, Richard. 1997. Practical Action Research for Change. Thousand Oaks: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schwartz, Dona. 1989. “Visual Ethnography: Using Photography in Qualitative Research.” Qualitative Sociology 12: 119–154. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sebeok, Thomas A. 1991. A Sign is Just a Sign. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simmons, Laurence, and Philip Armstrong. 2007. Knowing Animals. Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Singer, Merrill. 2014. “Zoonotic Ecosyndemics and Multispecies Ethnography.” Anthropological Quarterly 87 (4): 1279–1309. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Singer, Peter. 1990. Animal Liberation. New York: New York Review.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spradley, James P. 1980. Participant Observation. New York: Holt, Rinehard & Winston.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Statistics South Africa. 2011. “Census 2011: Key Statistics Thabanchu.” [URL]
Stibbe, Arran. 2001. “Language, Power and the Social Construction of Animals.” Society & Animals 9 (2): 145–161. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. Ecolinguistics: Language, Ecology and the Stories We Live By. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tønnessen, Morten. 2011. “Umwelt Transition and Uexküllian Phenomenology: An Ecosemiotic Analysis of Norwegian Wolf Management.” Doctoral dissertation, University of Tartu.
Tønnessen, Morten and Kristin Armstrong Oma. 2016. “Introduction: Once upon a Time in the Anthropocene.” In Thinking about Animals in the Age of the Anthropocene, ed. by Morten Tønnessen, Kirstin Armstrong Oma, and Silver Rattasepp, vii–xix. Lanham: Lexington Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Torop, Peeter. 2003. “Intersemiosis and Intersemiotic Translation.” In Translation, Translation, ed. by Susan Petrilli. Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tymoczko, Maria. 2007. Enlarging Translation, Empowering Translators. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wels, Harry. 2020. “Multi-species Ethnography: Methodological Training in the Field in South Africa.” Journal of Organizational Ethnography 9 (3): 343–363. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wheeler, Wendy, and Linda Williams. 2012. “The Animals Turn.” New Formations 76: 5–7. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Willis, Jerry. 2007. Foundations of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
World Population Review. 2020. “Thaba Nchu Population 2024.” [URL]
Wright, Hazel R. 2009. “Trusting the Process: Using an Emergent Design to Study Adult Education.” Educate~: 62–73.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue