Intertextuality in the Translation of Popular Science Podcasts

Abstract

The dissemination of scientific content through podcasts involves the recontextualisation of specialised knowledge for a lay audience. Popular science texts themselves constitute instanc­es of intertextuality, insofar as a primary discourse is reworked into a secondary discursive form aimed at knowledge popularisation. Within such texts, a second type of intertextuality emerges when the primary speaker invokes expert voices through citation. The translation of popular science texts–understood as a further stage of recontextualisation for a different audience–must therefore address how these cited voices are mediated. A qualitative analysis of the translation of cited sources in a series of popular science podcasts illustrates how train­ee translators make decisions in accordance with the purpose, or skopos, of the translation, namely scientific popularisation. In each case, translators choose either to adopt pre-existing translations embedded in the discursive tradition of a given community or to produce new translations better suited to the target audience. The analysis highlights the need for translators to consider not only the prior knowledge of listeners situated in a different cultural context, but also their tolerance for specialised discourse as non-expert recipients of scientific content.