Exploring intersemiotic and interlingual trans <i>labor</i> ation

Abstract “Labor” is a subject matter of Xu Bing’s art installation Phoenix and its reincarnation in the ekphrastic poem by Ouyang Jianghe, a concept that has rarely been foregrounded in its own right in Translation Studies, and an indispensable element of the coinage of “trans labor ation” blending translation and collaboration. With a focus on the subjective and collective nature of translational labor, this study examines Phoenix as a translaborative enterprise encompassing diverse forms of translation and collaboration. It analyzes Ouyang’s poetic creation as the poet’s intersemiotic translaboration with different disciplinary realms, followed by a discussion of Austin Woerner’s English translation of the poem as a more multifaceted interlingual translaboration where various human and nonhuman actors are engaged. The creators not only utilize their subjectivities in their own translational labor but are also further involved in the collective labor of (re)producing their works. The findings illustrate that translation, collaboration and translaboration can be effectively considered through the lens of labor, both empirically and conceptually.