Museum practice and translation studies

Museums are major sites of translation in which the production of multilingual interpretive resources is crucial to fulfilling the museum’s institutional purpose in the global heritage milieu. Equally, from the perspective of translation studies research, the academe has in recent years shown increasing interest in the museum as a less-understood site of translation. However, there has hitherto been relatively little dialogue between translation studies and museum practice. This chapter presents an exchange between a university-based researcher in museum translation and a senior museum translation practitioner from one of China’s premier museums. It focuses on the role of the translator, a role which has been under-theorized, and for which the practitioner perspective is particularly important to better understanding how the translator approaches museum-based translation practice. The exchange calls for greater dialogue and collaboration, both in practical training and research, in ways that can be of genuine benefit to both communities.