Ulster Museum’s “The Troubles and Beyond Gallery” in Chinese: Translating Difficult Histories in Northern Ireland

Abstract

Museums and heritage sites offer the forum for presenting difficult histories. As visitors explore the exhibition, they engage themselves with the past and reflect on the present. Any exhibition consists of multiple texts, and these texts in the museum work with each other and with the gallery space to produce the difficult stories within the museum context. This thesis examines the challenges inherent in the translation process when dealing with difficult histories, and analyses the way in which difficult histories are presented and curated to a diverse audience. In collaboration with the National Museums NI, I translated exhibitions and texts in the Troubles and Beyond Gallery into Chinese and designed a website for presenting both the images of the exhibits and my translation. This study has two primary objectives: 1) establishing a comprehensive framework for analysing and implementing the translation of difficult histories in multimodal museum contexts and 2) creating a website that showcases both the exhibit images and my translation.

   Regarding the above objectives, this study proposes three research questions:

• What are the reasons for translating difficult histories in museums?
• How do museums deal with difficult histories through museum text?
• How to translate multimodal text in museums and present the translation to target audiences?

Chapter One answers the first research question. This chapter first describes three features of difficult histories in reference to relevant research in the fields of history and museum studies. The Troubles history in Northern Ireland is then briefly introduced. Through analysing the difficult nature of the Troubles, I propose that the main reasons for translating difficult histories are to meet the needs of the target audience, as well as to serve educational and tourism purposes.  

Chapter Two responds to the second research question. This chapter looks at translation in museums, including the presentation of difficult histories in museums and textual issues in museum translation. I discuss the roles of museums and give examples of how museums deal with difficult histories. I then discuss issues surrounding multimodal museum text, with a description of the Troubles and Beyond Gallery in the Ulster Museum. The study finds that museums tend to use authentic objects to present difficult histories and use personal stories to resonate with visitors.

Chapters Three and Four map my translation decision-making process and answer the third research question. Chapter Three covers exhibits selected from the 1970s and 1980s exhibitions, while Chapter Four covers the exhibits selected from the 1990s, and 2000s, as well as independent exhibitions. The translation analysis and commentary include descriptions of the selected exhibits and museum text, reasons for the selection, how I translated the text in terms of the difficulties and particular issues each object presents, along with how I present these exhibits and translations on my Chinese-language website to my target audience. In the process of translation, I integrate multimodal texts and employ various strategies (e.g., addition strategy) to explain the historical content of the exhibits to the target audience. I also consider webpage space when presenting the exhibits and translations. The strategies and methods discussed within this thesis provide a reference for translating multimodal museum texts relating to difficult histories, offering the possibilities in producing museum translation through the design of a website.