Popular science as inter-epistemic translation: a case study

Abstract

ABSTRACT Responding to a challenge raised by Douglas Robinson in the conclusion of his book Translationality (2017: 200–202), the recently launched EPISTRAN project 1 uses concepts, methods and theories from Translation Studies to investigate the semiotic processes (verbal and nonverbal) involved in the transfer of information between different ‘epistemic systems’. This paper, produced under its auspices, analyses a popular science article from the National Geographic magazine as an instance of inter-epistemic translation. Taking as its source text a research article previously published in the scientific journal Child Psychology, it compares the two with a view to determining the strategies used by the author to re-package the research for a new readership. It concludes that these are no different, in essence, to those employed in conventional interlingual translation, and argues that consideration of the processes involved can shed light not only on the ‘operating norms’ at work in the production of popular science but also on the construction of (specialised and non-specialised) discourses more broadly.