While seldom discussed in academic research, the role of imagery and visualization in translation is by no means a new topic. Renowned late French interpreter Danica Seleskovitch mentions visualization as an interpretation strategy in her 1978 book Interpreting for International Conferences. In her book, Seleskovitch devotes two small sections to explain the importance of visual imagination or visualization, which she also calls descriptive images:
The technique used in interpretation to relay a descriptive message, i.e., visual imagination, is relatively easy to apply provided the described object or a similar one is known to the interpreter. Understanding a descriptive message thus requires greater knowledge than is required to understand a line of argument. (p. 50)
Her general point is that interpreters often need to be able to visualize what they are hearing in order to then produce a message that the audience can visualize. She is also communicating
the same old message that usually falls on deaf ears of those outside the translation community—there is much more to translation and interpretation than just turning words in one language into words in another language.
Although Seleskovitch writes that visualization plays an important role in many types of interpretation situations, she also mentions areas where “mental imagery” is less helpful, such as with processing “a series of events” (p. 50). A series of events could be the steps of a family’s unfortunate journey from war-torn Syria to a European country or a breakdown of the events at a crime scene. While one could argue that using visualization during a series of events could still be helpful, Seleskovitch’s point reveals an important truth about imagery and visualization that gets picked up in later research—imagery and visualization might not always be useful and they have the potential to be harmful to the quality of translation.
Seleskovitch’s most interesting point about visualization may be her explanation that the images in the brains of the interpreter, speaker, and audience may all be different, and this is due to differing personal experiences. However, it is imagery, nonetheless, that ultimately helps in getting the message across:
The interpreter’s image may be very different from the speaker’s because the interpreter may not possess the speaker’s and listener’s specialized knowledge of the subject. The interpreter’s careful analysis is, however, sufficient to enable him to evoke the original image in the mind of the listener. (p. 49)
The above point is just another example of how using visualization someway and somehow can result in successful interpretation. Overall, Seleskovitch does not explain how one should visualize or what one should visualize, as she only emphasizes that using visualization during the act of interpretation is important for comprehension and production. Furthermore, Seleskovitch does not cite nor conduct any qualitative or quantitative research, and it seems like she is relying on her own experiences and observations as well as what she has learned
from other professionals in her field. Sadly, Seleskovitch has already passed away and many questions she directly or indirectly posed have mostly gone unanswered, only being brought up briefly by scholars like Kussmaul. Overall, although imagery has gotten increasingly more attention over the years, visualization in many ways has been left untouched since Seleskovitch left us.
As for 21st Century research, which has pushed the study of imagery and visualization in translation past theoretical arguments to conducting real research that produces tangible results, Paul Kussmaul (Kußmaul in German) and researchers at the University of Granada’s Faculty of Translation and Interpretation in Spain are currently the most notable scholars (at least for research published in English). Kussmaul, a German academic, focuses on a variety of aspects that involve visualization and imagery, including visualization and imagery in dictionaries and technical writing (2005b). Kussmaul also serves as an important historian, as his work frequently mentions imagery and visualization scholarship published decades earlier.
For example, Kussmaul’s translations include Arthur Koestler, who in 1966 wrote in German that “creative thought is visual thought” (in Kussmaul 2005b, p. 383).
In addition to German scholarship, Kussmaul has also introduced some of Seleskovitch’s French work to the English-reading translation community, and by doing so we are informed of how she and her research partner Lederer recommend visualization as a teaching method and say that visualization is a type of deverbalization. Kussmaul relays a vivid story from Seleskovitch’s and Lederer’s French article “Pédagogie Raisonnée de l’Interprétation” (1989), which argues how properly visualizing a scene of starving African children will ensure that the interpreter does not make an unforgiveable error (please see the Sample Images section). Essentially, interpreters should imagine a scene with “a little child with bony legs and arms and a blown-up belly, a picture often seen in the media”. The two French scholars claim that, apparently, it is easy to make a linguistic error in French in which
you accidentally say that these kids “have forgotten their manners” instead of relaying their destitute poverty. By visualizing the scene they argue that you are more much likely to accurately communicate the message that they have “forgotten how to eat” because of food shortages (2005a, p. 1).
While Seleskovitch’s points about visualization seem to mostly be concerned with interpreter accuracy, Kussmaul’s work focuses on “creative translations” just as much as accurate renderings, as his work seems to hint at the link between visualization and creativity:
Visualisations can occur at certain stages in the comprehension process, and they may lead to creative translations. Creative translations can for our present purposes be defined as translations that show changes when compared with the source text, thereby bringing in something that is novel. (2005a, p. 1)
It is important to note that Kussmaul does not see creative and correct/“adequate” (a term he uses) as being mutually exclusive. He sees visualization and imagery as a method for
“problem solving”, which is a good indicator that he places a lot of importance on accuracy.
Furthermore, although he does not make the claim directly, it seems that Kussmaul does not belong to the literal translation camp nor does he share the common belief that a translation cannot be as good as the original. Overall, Kussmaul’s points on visualization expand Seleskovitch’s scholarship, because to him visualization can lead to more than just accurate translations—it can also lead to creative work and help solve thorny areas in the source text.
Like Seleskovitch, Kussmaul also sees the potential pitfalls of using imagery or visualization during the translation process: “Translators might visualize things that are only in their minds but not in the text in front of them…” (2005a, p. 1). By being honest about the weaknesses and problems with using imagery and visualization, the translation community can lay a foundation for effective strategies and methods that do use imagery/visualization. It is important that translators are aware of ineffective strategies that incorporate
imagery/visualization and situations where imagery/visualization is not useful or potentially harmful because translators want to work quickly and be accurate—if they suffer from insufficiency and inaccuracy, they probably will not survive in this cutthroat profession for very long. In simpler words, knowing when to use imagery and visualization and when not to is a sign of a professional translator.
Seleskovitch did a lot of theorizing, yet Kussmaul takes it to the next level by suggesting that we carry out research that will produce tangible results. Kussmaul seeks to see how imagery can play a role in creative translations by carrying out a unique experiment: “We might show (prototypical) pictures or give verbal descriptions of scenes to one group of subjects but not to another group and compare their translations. The problem, of course, is to keep the groups as a variable stable” (2005a, p. 1), meaning that both groups need to be quite large for statistical reasons. Overall, Kussmaul is curious if translators who have been trained in “visualization techniques” are better than translators who have not received such training (2005b). This experiment also has the potential to prove if using imagery plays a role in accurate translations and/or if imagery can lead to translation error.
Kussmaul often talks about visualizing a scene when translating, which incorporates elements of using imagery as a tool. He talks about “point of view, focus, prototypicality and Fillmore’s scenes-and-frames”, and using this to “describe visualisations in greater detail”
(2005a). As for stimuli that may lead to accurate and creative translations, Kussmaul suggests four types: “(a) looking at real pictures, (b) looking at suggestive frames in the source text, (c) looking at suggestive scenic details in the source text or (d) imagining scenic details reconstructed from memory”. Kussmaul also mentions that by visualizing or looking at a scene, this may “lead to adequate and creative translations” (2005b).
Kussmaul is quite ambitious, as he is currently seeking to use modern technology to do something that seems impossible—“observe visualisations normally hidden in the minds
of the translators”. Kussmaul also hints at the possibility of using cognitive semantics to see
“what types of mental visual images exist” (2005a, p. 1). Seeing what is going on inside the brains of translators sounds like something from a sci-fi novel, but Kussmaul is all science, suggesting the use of translog files, think aloud protocols, dialogue protocols, and retrospective interviews as ways to find out more about how visualizations affect translators.
These experiments are a great start to proving or disproving the importance of imagery and visualization, because theories in this area are finally being tested. The biggest flaw with Kussmaul’s work is that there are a lot of proposals for quantitative research, but in the end his research is still mostly qualitative discussion or observations. However, he has laid a strong foundation for quantitative research for the translation community, so it is up to us to carry out many of the proposals he makes.
A quick look at the University of Granada shows that this Spanish public university (which has 88,000 students) is no slouch—it offers excellent translation and interpretation education and pumps out a great amount of research for the field of translation studies. The university is unabashedly international: the Erasmus Programme is an international exchange student program that brings in over 2,000 European students every year, the university’s Center for Modern Language accepts 10,000 international students every year, and the university was voted the best Spanish university in an international students poll carried out in 2014 (“La Universidad de Granada, la Mejor de España por los Estudiantes Internacionales”, 2014). It is easy to see that the university focuses on both language education and translation, and the diversity of students enables the university’s Faculty of Translation and Interpretation to teach a long list of languages: Spanish, Arabic, English, French, German, Chinese, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Polish, Galician, and Czech. The university publishes two magazines (Sendebar and Puentes), and it carries out research and development work in addition to having several research groups. Besides offering translation and interpreting
programs for the undergraduate levels, the faculty also offers a Degree in Applied European Languages. At the graduate level, the master’s degree in translation offers specializations for legal translation, translation technologies, audiovisual and multimedia translation, and Arabic-Spanish translation in addition to the master’s degree for conference interpreting.
There is also a Doctorate in Languages, which is called Texts and Contexts (and it specializes in translation and interpretation research). Essentially, the university’s size and prestige as well as the translation program’s resources and focus on imagery research/education means that the University of Granada will serve as the foundation for present and future imagery/visualization research.
International and boasting a team of translation researchers, the University of Granada’s translation program is the most prolific in terms of output on research concerning imagery. In addition to providing translation courses that “place special emphasis on the importance of visual and graphic information in texts” (Tercedor-Sanchez, Lopez-Rodriguez, and Robinson, 2005, p. 9), the university is also publishing research on the text-image relationship, including articles on advertising, scientific and technical translation, multimedia, translation instruction, and making imagery accessible for the visually impaired. Much of this research focuses on the more recent trend of the translation community moving away from a text-centered approach. According to Tercedor-Sanchez and her team, today’s translators often have to translate more than just text: “Today's professional environment has new implications as regards to work demanded from the translator. These include the shift towards new concepts of translation that include focusing on non textual information to produce translation or technical writing solutions” (2005, p. 9). The University of Granada is not alone in its emphasis on imagery in translation, as they mention that scholar Maria Tymozcko also recommends that translation courses nowadays must get past traditional definitions of translation and “assess the new sorts of activities that are being demanded from the translator”
(2005, p. 9). The University of Granada’s researchers have such a broad amount of research on imagery that it is difficult to summarize what their focus is, but perhaps this indicates what these researchers believe—there is more to translation than just text.
While Kussmaul seems to focus on using imagery to understand or comprehend the text, which can be labeled as input, the University of Granada also places emphasis on the output, as the researchers there take the translator’s target audience into consideration, too.
Accuracy is undeniably important, but research by the university tests the common translation standard that (textual) accuracy is everything. The research team proves their point by providing an example of a newspaper advertising campaign in the UK’s The Financial Times and then comparing how the same campaign would work in Spanish and Latin-American cultures. The advertisement contains a picture of Che Guevara next to the slogan “Business Revolutionaries” (please see Sample Images section). While this could be problematic for Spain and Latin-American countries because of a history full of bloodshed, cultural issues, and ideological stances, this advertisement “worked well for the newspaper's audience in the UK because of the exotic effect of the drawing and the image-slogan play (based on the unusual collocation of "business" and "revolutionaries”)” (Tercedor-Sanchez, Alarcón-Navío, Prieto-Velasco, and López-Rodríguez, 2009, p. 152). This example reveals an important truth about translation—an accurate translation is not a guarantee that it will be well received by the target audience. Therefore, in order to produce a successful advertising campaign in Spain and Latin America, the Spanish translation of this ad needs a new physical image and possibly a different slogan.
While imagery and visualization can be discussed in how they help translators both comprehend the text and produce accurate/vivid/creative translations, the University of Granada also has a lot of research that explains how text and imagery often cannot be separated from one another. This can be seen in the great amount of research from the
university that focuses on scientific and technical texts. According to Tercedor-Sanchez and her team, “Images are often part of the textual structure of Scientific and Technical texts. The understanding and interpretation of the text often depends on the way the interface between the text and the image is established” (Tercedor-Sanchez et al., 2009, p. 143). It goes without saying that an image can help explain text and that text can help explain an image. But, the most logical relationship is that text and imagery complement one another, which usually makes the document easier to comprehend.
The University of Granada is not a pioneer in the image-text complementary relationship though, as issues concerning the text-image relationship have been explored in many other fields for decades. As mentioned before, Fang’s work on children’s literature shows that pictures “facilitate [children’s] understanding of the written text” (1996, p.
136-137) and Kussmaul has cited many examples of the role of imagery in dictionaries. By looking at the University of Granada’s innovative courses and research, it is clear that they are quite familiar with research in other fields that explores the text-image relationship. We too should recognize this potentially inseparable relationship between text and imagery, because it is a good indicator for why the translation community needs to start taking imagery and visualization very seriously.
The University of Granada, like Kussmaul, also has lists that label the roles of imagery/visualization. The university’s following three-item list clearly defines the role of imagery in language comprehension:
a) the presence of images is not fortuitous in the text
b) the image directs the reader’s attention to a particular aspect on the text
c) images can be classified by register, level of expertise and geographical relevance (Tercedor Sanchez et al., 2005)
While this list may seem oversimplified or obvious, it does draw attention to points we should be taking seriously. First, when images are accompanying text we should not assume that they are unimportant (which we very often do with translation research), because their presence ranges from important to critical. Second, our research also probably neglects how an image captures the attention of a reader. Last, just like spoken and written language, imagery has rules. For example, in certain situations an image may be seen as offensive (e.g. the inappropriateness of showing a dissected frog picture to kindergartners), experts can often understand pictures that laypeople cannot, and imagery in different geographic locations can have different meanings/functions (like a photo of an old Chinese woman with bound feet would be surprising or novel to Americans, whereas the same picture would trigger the emotions of middle-aged Chinese who likely know someone suffering from bound feet).
Unfortunately, for English speaking translators and academics without the right language combinations, there is a linguistic barrier for those who are interested in learning about the role of imagery and visualization in translation. Much of Kussmaul’s research in German has not been translated into English, and the University of Granada does have a lot of research in English, but they produce even more research in their native tongues of Spanish.
Fortunately, Kussmaul and the University of Granada can find a way to get their work translated into academia’s lingua franca, but there needs to be a big effort if the late French conference interpreter and researcher Danica Seleskovitch, who died in 2001, is going to have her French research translated into English. Fortunately, no one is better qualified to translate translation-centric research than the host of today’s translation experts and students.
Both Kussmaul and the researchers at the University of Granada recognize that there is a dearth of research on imagery and visualization in translation studies. In Tercedor-Sanchez et al.’s “Images as Part of Technical Translation Courses: Implications and Applications” (2009), the research team writes, “Despite its ubiquity, little attention has been
paid to the analysis of images for a successful understanding of the source text or to the development of description strategies for an effective rendering of the target text, particularly in multimedia environments” (p. 2). Kussmaul seems to have a more optimistic outlook when he mentions that “[t]here are occasional hints in the studies on professional translation that visual clues are indeed used” (2005b, p. 381). Nevertheless, the word “hints” is a clear
paid to the analysis of images for a successful understanding of the source text or to the development of description strategies for an effective rendering of the target text, particularly in multimedia environments” (p. 2). Kussmaul seems to have a more optimistic outlook when he mentions that “[t]here are occasional hints in the studies on professional translation that visual clues are indeed used” (2005b, p. 381). Nevertheless, the word “hints” is a clear