Museum Text Translation through Multimodal Discourse Analysis: A Case Study of the Wooden Screen at Guangzhou Museum

Abstract

With the increasing prominence of multimodality in museum exhibitions, museum text translation is no longer simply an interlingual transformation but rather a complex process involving multiple semiotic resources and modalities. However, museum translation practice has yet to fully respond to the new trend, and previous studies have largely followed a monomodal, language-oriented paradigm centered on source–target equivalence, while scholarly engagement with multimodal discourse analysis in museum translation remains scarce. Against this background, this study aims to investigate the multimodal dimensions that shape museum text translation by drawing on the five-layered analytical framework proposed by Zhang Delu in his Synthetic Framework for Multimodal Discourse Analysis. This study selects a carved wooden screen at the entrance of a permanent exhibition in Guangzhou Museum (China) as the single case for qualitative analysis. The findings demonstrate that museum text translation is not solely a linguistic act but a multimodally situated practice shaped by layered semiotic dimensions: cultural narratives, semantic choices, visual conventions, spatial constraints, and material affordances. This study carries significant theoretical implications in that it bridges multimodal discourse analysis and translation studies, advancing their integration and offering a structured lens for examining museum text translation within multimodal environments. On a practical level, the findings inform curators and designers working to enhance intercultural accessibility and coherence in multimodal museums. ReferencesBahrudin, H., & Bakar, K. A. (2022). Dissent by Design: A Multimodal Study of 2019 Women's March MY Protest Signs. Theory & Practice in Language Studies (TPLS), 12(6), 1076-1086. https:// doi. org/10. 17507/tpls. 1206.07El Muarrifa, Z. (2016). 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