While it may prima facie be regarded as a specialized and thus easily delineable activity, translation is in fact a complex but fundamental activity constituted by its intricate connections with signs, language and communication. This talk will compare three conceptualizations of signs in terms of their explanations of translation. One deep-seated sign that has corroborated translation theories for the longest time is the bipartite linguistic sign consisting of a form and a meaning; this sign has occupied a principal position from as early as the classical period and has become hackneyed since the Saussurean-semiological formulation was put forward. Gaining traction in recent decades is the semiotic sign, which is purported to rid translation theories of their linguistic bias and offer a more dynamic account. This talk will instead propose an integrational-semiological sign as an alternative that will better illuminate translation by emancipating it from the abstract sign i.e., the stale semiological sign and the semiotic sign.

In light of the recent debate on the applicability of narratology in the study of the lyric, this paper approaches Byron’s personal lyric, “The Dream”, with an attention to its lyric-narrative synthesis. By adapting Peter Hühn’s schema-based theory of eventfulness for the evaluation of the poem’s idealized representation of mental processes—particularly against the Wordsworthian tradition—I uncover Byron’s systematic inversion of lyric epiphany and the rendering of the sublime as narrative (anti)climax. This paper argues that narrative sequentiality is integrated with the lyric form to embody the poet’s conception of the sublime as well as to strengthen, instead of undermine, the poem’s lyricity.

Drawing on data from across multiple social media platforms, this study investigates the identity construction of a self-identified, disabled, lesbian vlogger named Jessica Kellgren-Fozard. In my talk, I focus on how she mobilizes verbal and visual semiotic resources to present herself as a “smart and sassy” ambassador for the LGBTQ+ and disabled communities. In particular, I explore her construction of and stancetaking in two apparent, imagined communities: an “in-group”, conceived as a community of disabled and queer people, and an “out-group”, conceived as all the people espousing hegemonic able- and hetero-normative ideologies. These two groups constitute what DuBois (2007) calls the “stance object”, and JKF aligns herself with the former through the celebratory stance and disaligns herself with the latter through the agonistic stance. She uses humor, kinship terms and hashtags to enact the celebratory stance, and varidirectional voicing (Bakhtin, 1984) of her purported adversaries’ voices to enact the agonistic stance.

Zoom link: https://hku.zoom.us/j/96718590457?pwd=REFUN3FmS2hCTnJ0ZklhdWlZSVhRUT09    

Meeting ID: 967 1859 0457
Password: 940253

Live broadcast will be available in Room CRT-7.45, 7/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU.