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Article published In: Translation and Interpreting Studies
Vol. 20:2 (2025) ► pp.169–188

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Atmospheric translations

Translating through songs and chants in Cecilia Vicuña’s performances

ORCiD logo with link | Universidad de Salamanca
Published online: 5 August 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.25029.vid
Abstract
The aim of this article is to show how sound can translate knowledge, not with words but sensorially, with the whole body. Together with the new ways of understanding translation not only through words but with the whole body and senses, the article bases its argument on the new approaches to sound and music of the so-called “Sound studies” and “Sonic art” and applies the notion of “atmosphere” to Cecilia Vicuña’s artworks. She uses her voice and the voices of others as a means to translate without words and thus creates atmospheres that are affective translations of the land and the environment, of the human and the non-human. Her atmospheres are spaces in which she translates corporeally.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Atmospheres
  • Indigenous sonic atmospheres
  • Translating through songs and chants: Cecilia Vicuña’s sonic atmospheres
  • Notes
  • References
References (49)
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