Translating in a world of untranslated signs: the impact of multimodality in translatology (Traduire dans un monde de signes non traduits : l’incidence de la multimodalité en traductologie)

Translation Studies, traditionally focused on the verbal, has recently turned to the field of Multimodal Studies for adequate methodologies and analytical frameworks that can ground research on the translation of multimodal texts such as films, websites or comics. Analytical tools and concepts developed within the area of multimodality have been imported into Translation Studies, yet with little in-depth reflection on the principles upon which those tools have been built or on what accepting those principles means for Translation Studies. As a result, translation theories remain mostly focused on the verbal while limiting the discussion of all other semiotic resources to a contextualising role. In this article we give the first steps in a well overdue examination of the implication of multimodality for Translation Studies. We review key principles of a Social Semiotic perspective onto multimodal communication, proposing a redefinition of text, co-text, and context, and introducing the notion of semiotic knowledge, required to interpret meaning at all levels. We then discuss the implications of this new perspective for Translation Studies and revisit some of the basic concepts of Translation Studies raising several questions we believe should be at the centre of the discipline. We end by offering the sketch of a new integrated theoretical and methodological approach.