Co-constructing the Vredefort Dome: the role of matter-energy in epistemic translation

Abstract

If the creation of knowledge is itself a translation process, as the call for papers for the recent Epistran Conference1 suggests, translation studies scholars need to be able to account for this process and for the translationality (Blumczynski, 2023; Robinson, 2017) that the process entails. In my view, translation studies does not as yet have a conceptual framework that is able to explain the role that matter-energy plays in the knowledge translation process. It is true that cognitive translation studies follow the 4E approach (Ehrensberger-Dow, Gopferich and O'Brien, 2015; Garcia, 2019; Schwieter and Ferreira, 2017), but even there, there is no clear conceptual framework for how matter-energy outside of the translator’s body influences the translation of knowledge. Unless matter-energy is included as a relatum in the translation process, knowledge translation will be explainable as a solipsistic human activity only, excluding living and inert matter-energy, with all the ecological implications of the latter (Cronin, 2017).

KEYWORDS: Epistemic Translation; Vredefort Dome; Semiotic Realism; Intersemiotic Translation; Semiotic Work