Translating the Nonhuman

<p><b>Extends the field of translation studies and theory by examining three radical science-fiction treatments of translation.</b> <p/>The so-called fictional turn in translation studies has staked out territory previously unclaimed by translation scholars - territory in which translators are portrayed as full human beings in their social environments - but so far no one has looked to science fiction for truly radical explorations of translation. <i>Translating the Nonhuman</i> fills that gap exploring speculative attempts to cross the yawning chasm between human and nonhuman languages and cultures. <p/>The book consists of three essays each bringing a different theoretical orientation to bear on a different science-fiction work. The first studies Samuel R. Delany's 1966 novel <i>Babel-17</i> using Peircean semiotics; the second studies Suzette Haden Elgin's 1984 novel <i>Native Tongue</i> using Austinian performativity and Eve Sedwick's periperformative corrective; and the third studies Ted Chiang's 1998 novella Story of Your Life and its 2016 screen adaptation <i>Arrival</i> using sustainability theory. Themes include the 1950s clash between Whorfian untranslatability and the possibility of unbounded (machine) translatability; the performative ability of a language to change reality and the reliance of that ability on the periperformativity of witnesses; and alienation from the familiar in space and time and its transformative effect on the biological and cultural sustainability of human life on earth. <p/>Through these close readings and varied theoretical approaches <i>Translating the Nonhuman </i>provides a tentative mapping of science fiction's usefulness for the study of human-(non)human translation with translators and interpreters acting as explorers of new ways to communicate.</p>