Museums, material culture, and cultural representations

Museums are key sites for the public presentation of culture. The 'verbal register' refers to the range of textual materials used in the museum, including object ID labels, wall panels, audio guides, and what in David Dean's typology of museum text types are referred to as 'distributed materials'. Innovative forms of curation, particularly in regard to the inclusion of indigenous cultures in the museum design and curation process have also played a role in altering the power relations between creators and consumers of museum representations. The project sought to build on the findings of an earlier documentary research survey which examined attitudes to translation in museum trade journals, also taking in personnel adverts. While broad issues of representation are clearly central to museological research and practice, the interface between translation and the museum has continued to receive surprisingly little scholarly attention. Jiang Chengzhi's work deals with issues of translation quality assessment in bilingual museum texts, using a systemic functional framework.