Design in Translation. The Role of Iconicity in the ... · Agata HOLOBUT. “Design in Translation. The Role of Iconicity in the Description of Design” 2

© 2008. Pieter BOULOGNE (ed.). Translation and Its Others. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in Translation Studies 2007. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html

Design in Translation.

The Role of Iconicity in the Description of Design

Agata HOLOBUT

Jagiellonian University

Abstract

This paper investigates the ways in which product designers verbally present their newly conceived projects (chairs, lamps) to the general public for expository and persuasive purposes. Viewing their texts as manifestations/triggers of intersemiotic translation, it addresses the question of how functional, practical and aesthetic aspects of design can be adequately transposed into natural language.

The first part of the paper explains the theoretical assumptions concerning product design, understood here as communication between designers and users by means of forms endowed with referential, emotive, conative, metalingual, phatic and poetic functions. It also attempts to justify the decision to treat authorial comments on the design in terms of transposition or re-expression of the original message in a different medium. The second part of the paper makes clear that the Cognitive Linguistic tools are useful for an analysis of design presentations in terms of intersemiotic translation. The third part presents intermedial analyses of selected texts that come across as successful design transpositions.

1. Introduction

“Talking about music is like dancing about architecture”, Laurie Anderson once remarked

(Naylor and Ball 2005: 57), apparently viewing art commentary as futile or absurd. Yet

people talk about music all the time, they sing about painting, dance about literature and write

about theatre. Art animates art. Different channels of communication compete, crisscross and

converge. Such intermedial relationships lie at the very core of human culture, which can be

described in semiotic terms as an “infinite process of total translation” (Torop 2003: 271),

whereby signs are paraphrased or transposed into different signs, that is interpretations,

reviews, comments, descriptions, adaptations, quotations, reproductions and reworkings in

various media.

Adopting such a semiotic attitude, this paper focuses on a specific example of visual

art verbalised. It investigates the ways in which product design students verbally present their

newly conceived projects (chairs, lamps, earthenware) to the general public for expository and

Agata HOLOBUT. “Design in Translation. The Role of Iconicity in the Description of Design” 2


persuasive purposes. Viewing their texts as manifestations/triggers of intersemiotic

translation, the paper addresses the question of how functional, practical and aesthetic aspects

of design can be adequately transposed into natural language. Presentations collected at the

Department of Industrial Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow and found on the

web pages of the Royal College of Arts in London are used as research material.

The first part of the paper explains the theoretical assumptions concerning product

design, understood here as communication between designers and users by means of forms

endowed with referential, emotive, conative, metalingual, phatic and poetic functions. It also

attempts to justify the decision to treat authorial comments on the design in terms of

transposition or re-expression of the original message in a different medium. The second part

of the paper defines and characterises this Jakobsonian concept, clarifying the semiotic and

functional perspective on translation adopted below. It also presents the cognitive linguistic

tools handy for an analysis of design presentations in terms of intersemiotic translation. The

third part of the paper presents intermedial analyses of selected texts that come across as

successful design transpositions.

2. Design semantics

Industrial design is a discipline responsible for the aesthetic, symbolic and functional aspects

of objects destined for mass production. Concerned with our practical, emotional and

aesthetic needs, it brings together art, technology, sociology, psychology and economics to

offer solutions that “communicate meaning and emotion” and “ideally transcend their

appropriate form, structure and manufacture” (Fiell 2003: 17). Referring to the etymology of

the Latin word designare, used to denote the process of making something, distinguishing by

a sign and creating relationships among objects and people, the American scholar Klaus

Krippendorff suggests that design can be best defined as making sense (of things) (1989: 9),

the ambiguity here being far from accidental. On the one hand, design involves making (that

is, generating) sense, by giving shape to new ideas and sharing them with others. On the

other, it involves making sense of things, as products need to be meaningful and

understandable (ibidem) if they are to be recognised, utilised and loved.

In a word, design consists in sharing and shaping experience through spatial forms. As

such, it lends itself best to a description in terms of communication between designers and



users by means of objects (Hammer 1992: 95), the forms of which express identity, function,

appropriate usage, values and emotions (Monö 1992: 120). This is a theoretical approach to

design that we adopt here, following product semantics, a discipline concerned with “the

meaning of objects, their symbolic qualities and their psychological, social and cultural

context” (Friedlander after Langrish 1992: 132). Such a methodological decision will enable

us to discuss projects and their verbal renditions within a unified framework of

communication. Yet, in order to talk about visual and verbal communication, we first need to

clarify what meaning means to us and how we understand human understanding.

Faced with the same task, product semanticians reach for various semiotic,

psychological and pragmatic models. In their research they frequently refer to James J.

Gibson’s ecological theory of perception, from which the crucial concept of affordance

derives. It denotes the possible behaviours allowed by the object and recognisable in its form.

Thus, ladders afford climbing, buttons pushing and chairs having a seat; otherwise they would

not be identified as such. According to Gibson’s conception, people do not see things but

affordances (Krippendorff 1992: 32). According to product semantics, “people do not see

things but meanings” (ibidem), which need to be studied and analysed if designers are to

create good projects.

Hence, some researchers focus on the communicative functions of design, explaining

the meanings people see in terms of physical, intellectual and emotional responses evoked by

objects. For example, the Danish scholar Rune Monö follows Karl Bühler in suggesting that

the appearance of products describes/represents their purpose and function; expresses

qualities and ambitions; signals appropriate reactions (by offering appropriate affordances)

and identifies the author/producer (Monö 1992: 120). It seems, however, that a broader

spectrum of functional categories, as proposed by Roman Jakobson (1960: 353-7), would

account even more adequately for the communicative potential of design. Indeed, forms seem

to perform a referential function (disclosing the object’s functional and aesthetic value);

emotive function (expressing designer’s attitudes and tastes); conative function (appealing to

the recipient); as well as a metalingual function (respectfully or ironically commenting on

formal tradition and design history), phatic function (establishing contact and choreographing

the user’s motor responses to products) and finally poetic function (facilitating aesthetic

experience). Some functions usually dominate over others in particular communicative

situations (Mathiot and Garvin 1975: 149-151).



Nevertheless, the meaning of objects investigated by product semantics does not reside

in their communicative function alone. Hence, some researchers focus specifically on the

practical, the emotional or the aesthetic aspects of forms, adopting various theories of

meaning, both objectivist and subjectivist. Commenting on this methodological pluralism of

product semantics, Klaus Krippendorff denounces the popular objectivist encoding/decoding

model of communication (1992: 30) and opts for a constructivist model, whereby meaning is

not transferred (wrapped in form and subsequently unwrapped), but actively created by

communication participants who cognitively interact with each other. The meaning of an

object is “a cognitively constructed relationship”, which “selectively connects features of an

object and features of its … context into a coherent unity” (1989: 12-13). Features of an

object originate with the designers, who express their ideas by means of forms. These forms

result from “professional, as opposed to ordinary, sense-making” and are “the designers’ way

of objectifying and, hence, disowning their own meaning in the process of making sense for

others” (Krippendorff 1989: 15). Features of the context originate with the individual

recipients, who project their expectations and experiences on forms, and recognise their

meaning, that is to say, they imagine all possible situations in which a given object may

appear because of its function, but also because of “similarities, contrasts, family

belongingness, associations, synchronicities, harmonies and social conventions” (ibidem),

which are highly idiosyncratic and only partly designable.

Viewed from this perspective, the users’ meaning is an elaboration of the designers’

“objectified meaning”, that is form, while the task of product semantics consists in explaining

how the forms are conceived and understood (Krippendorff 1989: 15) in different pragmatic

and sociocultural contexts, while interacting with users, authors, commentators and other

existing artefacts. Faced with such a vast research area, Krippendorff observes that

“developing a single theory of meaning applicable to all design contexts may not be

possible”, and “just as in linguistics… product semantics may also have to settle on several

parallel theories” (1989: 15).

3. Cognitive semantics

In the current paper we settle on a theory of meaning that complies with Krippendorff’s

constructivist requirements, while providing useful tools for the analysis of both visual and



verbal communication. It is a view on semantics offered by Cognitive Linguistics, an

interdisciplinary approach to the study of language that has proved highly influential since the

1970s, because of its emphasis on the non-autonomy of language in the human cognitive

faculty and the identity of meaning with conceptualisation.

According to the former postulate, our linguistic abilities are governed by the same

principles as other cognitive abilities, such as categorisation, perception, attention, reasoning,

memory or motor skills (Croft and Cruse 2004: 2). Advances in such disciplines as

psychology, neuroscience or cognitive phenomenology are therefore useful to linguistics,

while advances in linguistics are useful to other disciplines. As demonstrated below, because

of this programmatic interdisciplinarity, tools offered by cognitive linguists can be easily

applied to the analysis of non-verbal communication.

According to the latter postulate, meaning is synonymous with conceptualisation or

cognitive processing (Langacker 1991: 2), that is to say, it is not transferred but begotten in

the process of communication. Cognitive linguists emphasise that we do not perceive reality

the way it is, but actively structure it, thanks to our ability to construe (i.e. organise,

understand and verbalise) the conceived situations in different ways, by means of “alternate

images” (Langacker 1987: 110), while thinking or communicating with others. Accordingly,

we can view and describe a given objective situation from different perspectives, with

different attitudes and at different levels of specificity, focusing on some of its aspects and

disregarding others. The renowned cognitive linguist, Ronald W. Langacker calls these

parameters dimensions of imagery and distinguishes among them selection, perspective

(figure/ground alignment, point of view, orientation, directionality and deixis) and

abstraction. Yet the list of construal operations we perform to shape and express our

experience is much longer, as it also includes scanning, comparison or metaphorical

projection (Croft and Cruise 2004: 44). All these operations are directly reflected in the

lexicon and grammar of language, which can be defined as a “repertoire” of conventionalised

images. From this repertoire, speakers select those linguistic tools that best reflect their

conceptualisation. Recipients, on the other hand, use these tools to rebuild and reconstruct the

conceptualisation in their minds. Importantly, the linguistic tools we have at our disposal

differ in the degree of conventionalisation (Tabakowska 1993: 31). This enables us to create

and encounter both predictable and unique linguistic compositions, depending on the

communicative situation and purpose.



Within the cognitive semantic framework, the meaning of a given utterance subsumes

both the conceptual content it evokes and the image imposed on it, which is characterised by

the chosen dimensions of imagery and the chosen degree of conventionalisation. Defined in

terms of our cognitive experience, the meaning of an utterance encompasses both novel and

well-established concepts, sensory, emotive and kinaesthetic experience, as well as the

cultural, physical and linguistic context of communication (Langacker 1991: 2), and thus

includes also the pragmatic aspects of communication: its informative, persuasive or aesthetic

potential.

4. Design description

One can easily recognise the similarities between the model of communication proposed by

Cognitive Linguistics and the aforementioned model of communication proposed by Klaus

Krippendorff, who explained the meaning of an object as “a cognitively constructed

relationship” and the form of an object as “objectified meaning” disowned by the designer to

make sense for others. Referring to cognitive linguistic concepts, the former corresponds to

conceptualisation or cognitive processing, whereas the latter corresponds to conventionalised

image preserved in the linguistic repertoire and helpful in the construal of meaning for

purposes of thought and expression.

How can we fit design into the model of communication adopted by Cognitive

Linguistics? Working on a new project, designers create and refine a complex

conceptualisation, which involves aesthetic, practical, emotional and socio-cultural

implications of the new product, the values it brings about and the interpersonal relations it

co-creates. They express this conceptualisation by means of a three-dimensional form,

making a choice out of the repertoire of conventionalised images known as “formal tradition”

(Vihma 1992: 104). This tradition preserves customary ways of expressing particular

functions in a particular culture, depending on both universal human needs (reflected in

affordances) and culture-specific values, as well as on available materials and technologies.

For example, a chair is typically supported by one, three or four legs, and a mug has an ear-

shaped handle. Generating new forms, designers either conform to the prototypical solutions

preserved in the tradition of forms or depart from it, creating metaphorical extensions of the

existing object categories. For example, they can devise an octopus-like eight-legged chair or



a “nosy” mug. With their choice of more or less conventionalised imagery, they also bring out

referential, emotive, conative, metalingual, phatic or poetic aspects of design. These decisions

influence the way recipients experience objects, because they too interpret new designs by

associating them with formal tradition.

Yet, it is rarely the case that designers express themselves through spatial forms alone.

As Klaus Krippendorff observes, they are usually concerned with two kinds of activities and

“successful designers engage both well” (1989: 28). First, they create new projects in the form

of sketches, drawings, visualisations, models and verbal specifications of materials,

production processes, and technologies. Subsequently, they persuade the others to get

involved, selling their ideas, translating designs into various presentations tailored to

particular addressees and communicating with clients (ibidem). According to Krippendorff,

some designers claim that presentation takes up as much as eighty percent of their time, with

only ten percent devoted to conceptual work (ibidem).

Keeping this in mind, we focus below on an important aspect of “selling ideas to

others”, that is, on putting the design into words. What interests us specifically is the way

authors present their newly conceived projects, using linguistic and graphic tools. As our

research material, we will use posters prepared for annual crits, reviews, exhibitions and

design contests at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow and websites accompanying the

Summer Show at the Royal College of Arts in London. Both types of presentation document

the designers’ conceptual work. Both combine visualisations of objects (photographs,

sketches, computer renderings) with authorial comments. Both are targeted at a wide audience

of professors, colleagues, design-lovers and random viewers, and endowed with an

informative as well as a persuasive function.

In our analysis, we shall address the question of how the authors go about describing

their designs. Which of their features do they choose to emphasise? Do they explicate or

imitate these features verbally? By what linguistic means? Let us imagine a typical scenario.

Having expressed their conceptualisation spatially, designers re-express it verbally and

graphically. They put into words the idea embodied in a visual, tactile and olfactory image.

They probably try to preserve the most important features of the “original” for expository and

persuasive purposes. That is why we shall treat design presentations as transpositions, or

intersemiotic translations of conceived objects into words and graphics, taking an approach to

translation influenced by semiotics and pragmatics. Let us clarify it briefly and explain how it

may provide an interesting key to the analysis and interpretation of students’ presentations.



5. Description as translation

Referring to modern Peircean semiotics, translation can be defined as understanding or

interpretation. We think and therefore we are. We interpret the world and therefore we are.

And by interpreting the world, we endow its various elements – interactions, behaviours,

gestures, objects, buildings, clothes – with meaning, turning them into signs, that is entities

capable of representing meaningfully something else – aliquid stat pro aliquo – and

recognised as such (Gorlée 2003: 235). According to C.S. Peirce, the meaning of a sign can

only be expressed by other signs, which act as its interpretants (Petrilli 2003: 17). Hence,

making sense of reality is an incessant process of translation, or interpretation of signs into

other signs. We translate and therefore we are.

On that assumption, a semiotic approach to translation takes into account not only

relations among natural languages, but also relations within and among different media

(Ponzio 2003: 14). Following Roman Jakobson’s typology (1971 [1959]: 261), we distinguish

among intralingual translation, or paraphrase, which involves interpreting verbal signs by

means of other signs of the same natural language; interlingual translation or translation

proper, that is, interpreting verbal signs of one natural language by means of another, and

finally intersemiotic translation or transmutation, which involves interpreting verbal signs by

means of nonverbal signs, and vice versa (Petrilli 2003; Pisarkowa 1998; Wysłouch 1994;

Clüver 1989).

Viewed from this perspective, preparing their posters or websites, designers interpret

spatial forms by means of verbal and visual signs, engaging in the act of intersemiotic

translation. But what rules govern this interpretation? And why is it interesting to uncover

them?

6. Intersemiotic translation

Let us refer to the remarks of the American literary scholar Claus Clüver, who explains the

exceptional status of intersemiotic translation in the field of translation studies and comments

on the pros and cons of exploiting this concept for analytical and comparative purposes. First

of all, transmutation differs from translation proper in that it never acts as a substitute for the

source text in the target context (Clüver 1989: 57). On the contrary, it preserves a symbiotic



relationship with the original, emphasising its existence and demanding the recipient’s

contrastive response. In this respect transposition resembles poetry translation: it can be best

appreciated “by readers who need it least” (1989: 69). Transposition manifests its real value

only in juxtaposition with the original and performs essentially a self-reflexive function,

encouraging the addressees to notice and compare the possibilities and restrictions of different

communication channels. As regards our research material, the situation is even more

complex, because artefacts presented on posters and websites are usually inaccessible to the

addressees, who envisage the objects on the basis of their visual and verbal images. These

images act as interdependent and inseparable constituents of a multimedia message. The

message owes its existence to the original design. The original design, as understood by the

recipients, owes its existence to the multimedia message.

Another peculiarity of transmutation, distinguishing it from other types of translation,

is its ambivalent origin. In the case of translation proper, the status of the original is culturally

and temporally distinct from the status of its interlingual renditions. Yet, transmutations, such

as poems with a pictorial theme, theatrical and musical adaptations of texts or book

illustrations, can be approached from many directions. Their status of intersemiotic translation

is by no means self-apparent and it is rarely acknowledged by the authors themselves. Hence,

transposition exists in the eye of the beholder: it is an analytical tool applicable to diverse

texts of culture, regardless of their authors’ original intentions (Clüver 1989: 70).

However, the choice of this device is far from arbitrary. We only apply it to signs

“permitting the construction of meaning that is very similar to a meaning constructible from a

sign in the other sign system” (Clüver 1989: 83). Mentioning the similarity of meaning,

Clüver points to a property indispensable for a given text to be interpreted as an interlingual,

intralingual or intersemiotic translation – namely its resemblance to the original, described by

translation scholars in terms of equivalence or iconicity. The latter term derives from C.S.

Peirce's tripartite typology of signs. Depending on the relationship between a sign and its

interpretant, Peirce distinguished between indices, in which this relation is based on a

temporal, spatial or causal link, icons, in which it is based on similarity, and symbols, in

which it is based on convention (Tabakowska 2001: 1). Scholars interested in Peircean

semiotics note that translation is indexical, because it is “parasitic with respect to the original

text, to which it owes something (which it ‘must render’ as is commonly said)” (Petrilli 2003:

24). It is also symbolic, because it operates on signs that are to a certain degree

conventionalised. But it is above all iconic, as it “must resemble the original” (ibidem).



7. Means of analysis

In what respects can a text resemble a design? How can it permit the construction of meaning

very similar to the meaning constructible from a given three-dimensional form? To answer

these questions, let us refer to the Polish scholar Elżbieta Tabakowska's conception of

translation poetics (1993), which explains similarity of meaning in terms of the way in which

information is structured in corresponding texts. Tabakowska uses the aforementioned

semantic model offered by Cognitive Linguistics (see Section 5 above), defining meaning as

conceptualisation and language as a repertoire of conventionalised images, which speakers

use to express their conceptualisation. The semantic value of a given linguistic form is a

combination of its conceptual content and the conventionalised image imposed on it. Hence,

equivalence in translation can be defined as “correspondence of images” (Tabakowska 1993:

74), which can be analysed and evaluated by comparing particular imagery dimensions and

the chosen degrees of conventionalisation.

As mentioned above, the tradition of forms in design can also be described as a

repertoire of conventionalised images, i.e. the established ways of structuring conceptual

content by means of three-dimensional forms. Devising new artefacts, designers use this

repertoire of conventionalised visual references. Describing new artefacts, they refer to the

linguistic repertoire of conventionalised images. A successful intersemiotic translation of a

design recreates the way in which it structures meaning, by profiling its most salient aspects,

reflecting the intended relationship between the object, its author and the addressee, and

matching its degree of conventionality. Obviously, texts can never reflect the entire

conceptual make-up of the object. They will always be selective and creative. Yet, as Susan

Petrilli points out, although translation must resemble the original, this resemblance “does not

obstacle the capacity for inventiveness, creativity and autonomy with respect to the original-

text” (2003: 25).

Yet, what degree of inventiveness is acceptable for a text to be interpretable in terms

of intersemiotic translation? Which features of the design should it preserve to deserve its

name? An interesting answer to these questions can be found in the American art historian

Ernst Gombrich’s essay “Meditations on a Hobby Horse” (1994), in which he seeks to find

out what makes an artistic form sufficiently iconic to function as an adequate representation

of reality. Is faithful likeness a detailed likeness? Gombrich turns his attention to a hobby

horse: made of a stick, it literally does not have a leg to stand on, and still children perceive it



as a perfect representation of a horse. Why? Because it preserves those features of the original

that are most important in a given pragmatic context: it has a back and it allows children to

gallop. The same holds for a successful intersemiotic translation. It must recreate those

aspects of the original, which are most important in a given pragmatic context.

This is indeed a view on translation “fidelity” taken by scholars of a functionalist

persuasion, who interpret translation as an action endowed with a particular purpose, or

skopos (Vermeer 2000 [1989]: 227), which determines the shape of the target text and

justifies its potential variation from the source. Early functionalist approaches to translation

defined it as a process of communication aiming at the production of a target text that would

be “functionally equivalent” to the source text (Reiss 2000 [1971]: 168). In her early works,

the German scholar Katharina Reiss proposed appropriate methods of translation

corresponding to particular communicative functions of the original text. Following the

aforementioned typology of language functions proposed by Karl Bühler, she distinguished

between informative texts (presenting objects and facts), which are primarily logical and

demand that the translators preserve their content in “plain prose”; expressive texts

(expressing the author’s attitudes), which are primarily aesthetic and demand that the

translators preserve the artistic form of the original by identification, and operative texts

(appealing to the addressee), which are primarily dialogic and demand that the translators

preserve the persuasive potential of the original through adaptation (Munday 2001: 73-4). We

are going to refer to Reiss’s suggestions in our analysis below.

Later, functional equivalence ceased to be viewed as a prerequisite for adequate

translation. Instead, careful adjustment of the target text to the target function began to be

viewed as the translator’s major objective (Reiss 2000 [1971]: 169). Two important

conclusions can be drawn from this change of perspective. First, the original and its

translation can be legitimately unlike each other. Just like a hobby horse and a living horse,

they can share only those aspects which comply with the skopos of the translational action. As

Hans J. Vermeer remarks, they can consequently differ with respect to both information

structure and communicative purpose (2000 [1989]: 234). Secondly, the original can be

interpreted in multiple ways, depending on pragmatic context, and it “does not have one

correct or best translation only” (ibidem). The “optimal” translation can be defined as “one of

the best translations possible in the given circumstances” or “as good” a translation “as

possible in view of the resources available” (Vermeer 2000 [1989]: 236).



8. Ends of analysis

Drawing inspiration from these semiotic and functional models of translation, we assume that

designers interpret spatial forms by means of verbal and visual images, according to specific

informative, expressive and/or persuasive purposes. Below, we take a look at five design

presentations and treat them as products of intersemiotic self-translation (the authors

expressing their ideas spatially and then verbally and graphically) to find out, what aspects of

a design the authors preserve in their search for “optimal” presentation solutions. How do

they verbally reflect the semantic make-up of a project? Do they endow the designs and their

descriptions with similar communicative functions? How do they accomplish these tasks? The

presentations will be grouped according to the predominant communicative function of

designs they refer to: informative, appellative, and expressive, respectively.

9. Informative function in translation

David Weatherhead’s Coat Hook Family (see appendix, figure 1) is an example of a design in

which the informative function predominates, the object being self-evident, easily identifiable

and highly functional. In the picture, we immediately recognise two hooks: red and black,

standing out as figures against the white background of a wall. The hooks openly flaunt their

practicality and multipurpose character, supporting a coat, a key and a couple of letters. No

other elements of the human world enter the picture frame. Consequently, it is the function,

the shape and the colour of the object that remain in focus.

The description presented on David Weatherhead’s website iconically reflects the

functionality and simplicity of the design, thanks to the chosen dimensions of imagery and the

chosen degree of conventionalisation. In the opening line, the product is clearly identified as

the coat, keys and letter hook, and singled out as the most prominent figure in the description.

Subsequently, its material, technical and practical aspects come to the fore. The text presents

a detailed account of the origin (experiments with raw materials), construction (steel bar and

powder coated finish) and application (coat and keys hook) of the object. Almost verbless, it

avoids mentioning any processes that might deictically point to the “here” and “now” of the

designer or the addressee, who are absent from the depicted scene. Hence, the perspective

from which the object is viewed appears impersonal and a-temporal. All in all, it is not the



expressive or aesthetic qualities of the product, but its function that remains in focus. Also the

choice of the conventionalised linguistic imagery typical of technical writing alludes to the

utilitarian character of the object.

David Weatherhead’s text comes across as an “optimal” intersemiotic translation,

because it recreates the semantic make-up of the design and its predominant communicative

function. Hence, it seems to confirm Katharina Reiss’s prescriptive remark that a successful

translation of the originals endowed with an informative function requires translation in plain

prose, “according to the sense and meaning” (Reiss 2000 [1971]: 175).

10. Appellative function in translation

In Luis Eslava Aloy’s design for a USB flash drive (see figure 2), appellative and metalingual

functions seem to dominate. As to the former, a mundane electronic device disguised as a

miniature statuette of the Holy Virgin is bound to evoke strong emotional and intellectual

responses, ranging from amusement, surprise, offence to philosophical thoughts about the

unreliability of computers, and their dominion over our lives. We can even imagine a good-

natured interpretation of this design as a devotional item facilitating our communication with

God. As to the latter, the USB Saint self-reflexively comments on the tradition of forms. It

defamiliarises the typical religious iconography by presenting it in a new context. It also

makes us aware of the common forms of USB memory sticks, by deviating from these

prototypical design solutions.

The picture presenting the USB Saint profiles its figurative form. The Virgin statuette

contrasts sharply with the plain white background and catches the eye with its benevolent

appearance. The author’s commentary, on the other hand, is less economical. On the contrary,

it comes across as dynamic, personal and, above all, interactive. How does Luis Eslava Aloy

compose the verbal image of his design? His conceptualisation involves quite a wide scope of

phenomena, including typical attitudes to computers, popular data-saving rituals, as well as

his own habits. He carefully handles the perspective from which he presents the conceived

situation, that is his design and its cultural context. First, he focuses on computers,

characterising them as a new religion and an entity of adoration, but without actually making

any spatiotemporal reference to himself or to his addressees. Thus, he sketches the general

background against which he portrays the main participants of the conceived situation: that is,



the collective us (we trust in computers), the virgin USB, the individual addressee (addressed

directly with the personal pronoun you, as in the phrase you plug your virgin USB) and

eventually himself (I am not a believer). By directly addressing the readers, Luis Eslava Aloy

renders his description interactive and dialogic. The choice of colloquial language further

reinforces this effect. And by identifying with his readers (as illustrated by the phrases we

trust and we cannot predict), he helps them empathise and adopt his viewpoint.

The description seems to be dynamic because it presents a number of processes,

mostly in terms of universal truths (we trust in computers, for the majority of people they are

still a big mystery, governed by laws we cannot predict) and typical scenarios (you plug your

virgin USB and hope for the best; every time my computer crashes I end up imploring a

superior being). It consequently shows the designer, his addressees and the USB as involved

in a number of habitual actions, described in an emotionally coloured way (as demonstrated

by particular lexical choices, for example modifiers: big, significant, and verbs: crashing,

being struck by a virus, imploring). All in all, because of the personal touch and dynamism,

the verbal picture created by the author seems to reflect well the interactive, appellative

character of the design, provoking the addressee either to empathise or to revolt against the

author’s statements. This, again, illustrates well the remark by Reiss that if the original is

designed to elicit a particular reaction, “the contents conveyed in the TL must be capable of

triggering off analogous impulses of behaviour in the target language reader” (2000 [1971]:

176).

11. Expressive function in translation

In some designs, it is the formal and not the practical or persuasive properties that come to the

fore. According to Umberto Eco, signs endowed with poetic/aesthetic function are

characterised by self-reflexivity and unconventionality (Eco 1968: 84). As a consequence they

draw the recipient’s attention to their own form. In poetry, this mechanism is usually triggered

off by repetition, innovative description, creative syntax, rhyme, alliteration, creative

metaphor, and other “deviations” from the expected use of language (Stockwell 2002: 14).

Typically, forms endowed with a poetic function possess one organising principle, the most

striking feature, which becomes their dominant (ibidem). The same holds for design. It is also

metaphor, repetition, and syntactic and morphological anomaly that draw the viewers’



attention to form and enhance their aesthetic experience.

11.1. Metaphor in translation

One of the most prolific mechanisms resulting in conceptual and formal innovation is

metaphor, which involves the integration of aspects belonging to different cognitive domains.

In their book The Way We Think, the renowned cognitive scholars Gilles Fauconnier and

Mark Turner claim that “human beings are exceptionally adept at integrating . . .

extraordinarily different inputs to create new emergent structures which result in new tools,

new technologies, new ways of thinking” (2002: 27). One can hardly imagine a better

example of this phenomenon than product design, which synthesises the existing materials

and technologies to create innovative and meaningful solutions to our practical, emotional and

aesthetic needs. Thanks to complex interspace mappings, designers extend and metamorphose

the familiar categories of objects, create new interfaces, as well as new formal and aesthetic

solutions, which in turn prompt equally complex interpretative processes on the part of the

viewers.

A design in which conceptual blending comes to the fore is Shay Alkalay's Bin Bag

Bear (see figure 3). It is a disturbing hybrid of a headless teddy bear and a rubbish bag. It

manages to combine the function and material typical of the latter with the shape and

sentimental appeal typical of the former. This unconventional design is accompanied by an

unconventional text, which recounts the creative prehistory of the project. The narrative

presents the story of a rubbish employee who suffers from serious psychological problems

and, obsessed with teddy bears, sees them everywhere. Bin Bag Bear is presented here as a

figment of the fictional character’s sick imagination. Only by comparing the text with the

picture do we realise that we all share the rubbish employee’s delusions.

What aspects of the original does this verbal image recreate? First of all, the

unconventionality of design is reflected in the unconventionality of its description. What is

more, instead of explicating the properties of the design, Shay Alkalay verbally re-enacts the

mechanism of conceptual integration that brought the idea of Bin Bag Bear to life. The form

of the bag triggers conceptual blending and so does the protagonist’s wild cry: look at that

bear...look at that one... don’t throw it into the Garbage Crusher... nooooo! The rubbish

employee perceives the world the way designer did, projecting a teddy bear onto a rubbish

bag. Thus, both the conceptual contents and the unconventionality of the authorial statement



reflect the poetic potential of the design. Thanks to alliteration and rhythmical repetition of

one-syllable words, the design title – Bin Bag Bear – also reflects the conceptual integration

of two categories of objects (bin bags and bears), which appear similar when placed next to

each other.

11.2. Compounding in translation

Sometimes designers generate new forms by incoherent juxtaposition of independent

elements. This strategy also highlights the poetic function of design. Jonathan Legge's

Bulb/Pole/Concrete (see figure 4) is a case in point. The object looks like a paraphrase of a

lamp, bringing together a light bulb, a wire, a stick and a lump of concrete. These ordinary

elements combine into a make-shift, improvised construction. The photograph presents it as

an element of a stage setting for a disturbing, theatrical scene, the lamp leaning over a faceless

recumbent figure.

The structure of the description reflects the make-shift composition of the object. The

lamp combines ordinary elements: a bulb, a pole, concrete. Based on enumeration, the

description combines casual, generic “things”, too. Some of them lack a precise conceptual

contour (sticks, long grass, stones), while others are more individualised (a plastic bag, a kiss,

Syln Head way west of Ireland). The verbal juxtaposition of uncountable substances (grass)

with countable entities (a bag, a kiss) brings to mind the formal juxtaposition of concrete with

countable, bounded elements (a bulb, a pole, a wire).

Also the title Bulb/Pole/Concrete “transposes” the constructional and aesthetic

properties of the design, enumerating its salient constituents and separating them with slash

marks (the shape of which reminds us of the position of the pole). The self-reflexive, poetic

nature of the design is preserved by the self-reflexive, unconventional linguistic images.

11.3. Ellipsis in translation

The last example of a form, the unconventionality of which emphasises its expressive

function, is the Polish student Marek Suchowiak's design for Minimum stool (see figure 5).

The project was accomplished in 1988, as a result of an experiment in ergonomics. The author

wanted to find out how little material is necessary for a comfortable and healthy seated

position. The resultant design looks like a skeleton of a chair. The simplification and



schematisation of a prototypical form becomes a clear semantic and aesthetic dominant of the

design.

The author reflected both the functionality and unconventionality of the object in his

description. He profiled his scientific approach to design, resulting in a stark, elliptical form,

by choosing specialised diction and sparse grammar. The text profiles the ergonomic

properties of the object and the anatomical properties of its user, who is consequently

transformed into bodily surface, ischiadic tubers, thighs, lower back and spine in the lumbar

and pectoral region. The minimalism and simplification of design is imitated by the

minimalism and schematisation of its description. Instead of creating a coherent linguistic

portrait of the chair, Suchowiak lists the main theoretical assumptions underlying his

conceptual work. Thus, he manages to avoid any personal or spatiotemporal references that

would clash with the impersonal approach he adopted and expressed in his design.

In the texts discussed above, the authors mirrored the aesthetic dominant of objects by

verbally reconstructing such cognitive processes as metaphorical projection, juxtaposition and

schematisation. Again, referring to Katharina Reiss, they preserved the aesthetic potential of

the original, choosing “an analogous artistic organisation” of their target texts (2000 [1971]:

175).

12. Conclusion

We have analysed authorial comments on designs in terms of intersemiotic translation,

expecting them to reflect the way in which the original forms structure information. And since

the way of structuring information influences the representational, persuasive and aesthetic

potential of objects, we also expected the authorial comments to reflect the dominant

communicative functions of the designs. Indeed, all the examined presentations showed a

high degree of functional equivalence with the original, achieved by various methods and

means.

But why is it worthwhile to study the mechanisms of a successful design

transposition? Above all, it might be valuable for design students, who are professionally

trained to express their ideas by formal means and usually left to their own devices when it

comes to the verbalisation of their projects. Perhaps a careful analysis of the mechanisms of

intersemiotic translation might help them “design” their verbal presentations more



successfully? In his handbook for visual art students, Michael Clarke seems to adopt a similar

view, when he observes:

Translating a visual experience into a verbal statement, spoken or written, is far from easy. Yet

students of almost any of the expanding subjects within visual culture are expected, above and

beyond their technical and creative abilities in their chosen discipline, to have the necessary

skills to do so. Much like translating or interpreting any one written or spoken language into

another, these skills can be learned, but they must first be identified, examined and evaluated

so that an appropriate choice can be made from the available options to suit the specific

requirements of a particular visual experience and its verbalisation (2007: 8).

Indeed, the authors’ ability to mirror iconically the most important aspects of a design,

instead of explicating them, encourages the viewers to creatively recognise the similarity

between verbal and visual images of objects. Such a conceptual Do-It-Yourself makes design

presentation more appealing, confirming popular semiotic views that iconicity reinforces the

meaning of a given message and “intensifies” its “overall effect” (Fischer 1999: 257).

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Appendix: figures

Figure 1. David Weatherhead: Coat Hook Family

Visited October 2007. http://www. dams.rca.ac.uk.htm.

Mild black steel bar, powder coat finish

Coat, keys and letter hook. Part of a family that includes a coat and keys hook and a coat hook bracket

for a hat shelf. A product of raw material experiments with steel bar. Made from 12 x 3 mm mild

black steel bar with a powder coat finish.



Figure 2. Luis Eslava Aloy: Oh Maria Keep My Data Safe!

Visited October 2007. http://dams.rca.ac.uk/show2005/Search.html

Computers as a new religion. Computers as an entity of adoration. We trust in computers without

knowing how they work.

Oh keep my data safe! - you plug your virgin USB into your computer and hope for the best. For the

majority of people computers are still a big mystery. There still seems to be a significant part of them

that is governed by laws we cannot predict. Although I am not a believer, every time my computer

crashes or is struck by a virus alert, I end up imploring a superior being to protect the existing data.



Figure 3. Shay Alkalay: Bin Bag Bear

Visited October 2007.

http://dams.rca.ac.uk/netpub/server.np?find&site=Show2006&catalog=catalog&template=genstudent.np&field=i

temid&op=matches&value=1260

A council rubbish employee had a peculiar imagination: he could see teddy bears in every object. As a

child he would stare at the clouds imagining he could see bears in the sky. Today he sees them

everywhere, even the bin bags look like bears to him.

No one at work could stand his excited cries when he shouted 'look at that bear...look at that

one...don't throw it into the Garbage Crusher... nooooo'!'.

He lost his job and his friends and became homeless. Even though many thought he was strange, no-

one would admit that they too saw the teddy bears around the streets of London.

Bin Bag Bear. Plastic bag



Figure 4. Jonathan Legge: Bulb/Pole/Concrete

Visited October 2007.

http://dams.rca.ac.uk/netpub/server.np?find&site=Show2006&catalog=catalog&template=genstudent.np&field=i

temid&op=matches&value=1120

Things like sticks, long grass, stones, a plastic bag in the breeze, the sea, a shadow from a streetlight, a

kiss, Syln Head way west of Ireland. A casual anthology of primitive elegance. Elements with a raw

and playful simplicity.

Bulb/Pole/Concrete

Tungsten light bulb, rubber coated pole, concrete base

200 x 40 x 40 cm



Figure 5. Marek Suchowiak: Program Minimum

Visited June 2007. Poster displayed at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow.

Dzialania projektowe dotyczace pozycji siedzacej

podporzadkowane czterem kryteriom podstawowym:

Minimum powierzchni podparcia ciala

Minimum srodkow technicznych uzytych do realizacji pozycji

Minimum uzytego materiału

Zgodnosc z ergonomicznymi wymogami

Strefy podpierane przy realizacji pozycji siedzacej:

-guzy kulszowe

-uda

-kregosłup w partii krzyzowej

-ledzwiowej

-piersiowej

[Design activities regarding the seated position

subordinated to four basic criteria:

Minimum of bodily surface

Minimum of technical means

Minimum of materials used

Compliance with ergonomic requirements

Areas supported in the seated position:



ischiadic tubers

thighs

lower back

spine in the lumbar

----- pectoral region]

(Transl. A. Holobut)

About the author

Agata HOLOBUT holds a PhD in linguistics obtained for her doctoral dissertation Product Design and Its Linguistic Image – a Cognitive Analysis. She teaches at the Institute of English Philology, Jagiellonian University and co-operates with the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. Her main areas of interest are Cognitive Linguistics, visual arts and poetry translation.

Address: Instytut Filologii Angielskiej UJ, Al. Mickiewicza 9/11, 31-120 Kraków, Poland

E-mail: [email protected]

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