This lecture discusses how socio-narrative theory (Baker 2006; Harding 2012) alongside concepts like framing and paratexts enable researchers to reveal the way in which narrative voices encoded in a source text are reframed and mediated through translation and to identify how both the act and product of (re)translation challenge dominant narratives and bring changes to society. It will also explain what they can offer for translation studies.
The definition and types of narratives (Somers 1992, 1997; Somers and Gibson 1994), framing (Goffman 1974), and paratexts (Genette 1997) will briefly be introduced in the first part of the lecture, while the second part will show how the model of narrative analysis elaborated by Baker (2006) alongside these two concepts (i.e. framing and paratexts) can be used in translation analysis. Drawing on various examples from written texts to audiovisual materials and spaces like museums, it will show how translation can be paratextually framed and temporally positioned to make one narrative more salient while downgrading others, to ultimately construct a particular reality and reconfigure existing dominating and dominated narratives.