Literary translation and cultural memory

Abstract

This article intends to investigate the relationship between literary translation and cultural memory, using a twentieth century film version of one of Shakespeare’s plays as a case study in inter-semiotic translation. The common perception of translation is often confined to its use as a language learning tool or as a means of information transfer between languages. The wider academic concept embraces not only inter-lingual translation, but both intra-lingual activity or rewording in the same language and inter-semiotic translation defined by Roman Jacobson as “the interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems” (Jakobson, 1959: 114)