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The role of “intersensoriality” in the process of poetic translation from Italian into Italian Sign Language (LIS) and vice versa

ORCiD logo with link | University of Catania
Published online: 18 November 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.24005.ran
Abstract
The recognition of sign languages’ literary potential is relatively recent. A movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s, starting with literary translation and expanding to original works (see Sutton-Spence, Rachel. 2005. Analysing sign language poetry. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), established the concept of deaf literature. Jakobson, Roman. 1959. On linguistic aspects of translation. In Reuben Arthur Brower (ed.), On translation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar identified three translation types: intralinguistic, interlinguistic, and intersemiotic. Scholars have examined translations involving sign languages, highlighting interlinguistic, intersemiotic (Buonomo, Valeria. 2009. Su alcuni aspetti dell’interpretariato LIS: intersemioticità e transculturalità. In Caterina Bagnara, Sabina Fontana, Elena Tomasuolo & Amir Zuccalà (eds.), I segni raccontano. La Lingua dei Segni Italiana tra esperienze, strumenti e metodologie, 94–101. Milan: Franco Angeli.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Buonomo, Valeria & Pietro Celo. 2010. L’interprete di lingua dei segni italiana: problemi linguistici, aspetti emotivi, formazione professionale. Milan: Hoepli.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), and intermodal aspects (Gambini, Dianella & Sabina Fontana. 2016. La lengua de signos: aspectos traslativos y sociolingüísticos desde un observatorio italiano. Revista Española de Discapacidad, 4(1). 155–175. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). This study explores the intermodal/intersemiotic processes in translating poems between vocal and sign languages, emphasizing the body’s role in embodied cognition and simulation (Gallese, Vittorio & Corrado Sinigaglia. 2011. What is so special about embodied simulation? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(11). 512–519. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). We discuss “intersensoriality” — the blending of senses in translation — and its impact on linguistic choices, illustrated with translations from Italian to Italian Sign Language (LIS) and vice versa. Specifically, we analyse translations of Giuseppe Giuranna’s “Musica” into Italian and Giacomo Leopardi’s “L’Infinito” into LIS, aiming to understand the sensory dialogue in translation.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The translation process and its characteristics
  • 3.Language, body and senses: The hypothesis of intersensoriality in poetic translation
  • 4.A practical application
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (27)
References
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