Greece in Translation: (Re)Constructing Online Narratives of Nation and Identity in Tourism and Culture

  • Kostas Plisiotis

Student thesis: Doctoral ThesisDoctor of Philosophy

Abstract

This Dissertation focuses on original Greek and translated English online multimodal texts from the
domains of tourism and culture, produced or copyrighted between 2009-2019. It aims to examine
possible fluctuations between the two language versions, in order to determine the extent to which
translation may be an important reconstructive factor in the process of national identity creation in
contemporary Greece. To do so, it engages with narratives and discourses of nationalism and explores
the relationship between national identity and discourse within the framework of narrativity and
hegemony.

After delving into an interdisciplinary literature review which draws on Translation Studies (TS),
discourse theory, identity research, branding and marketing studies as well as nationalism theory,
textual data is extracted from three high-popularity Greek websites (i.e. Visit Greece, the Acropolis
Museum and the National Archaeological Museum of Athens), which are available both in Greek (EL)
and English (EN) and follow the EL to EN translation process.

The analysis carried out follows a Critical Narrative Analysis paradigm, drawing both on Critical
Discourse Analysis and narrativity, and focuses on multimodal and textual features. Discussion of
results leads to the conclusion that translation does not seem to be a major reconstruction force regarding
Greek nation image and identity in the websites studied, as ST and TT narratives are almost identical
with only minor fluctuations. Greece is depicted by means of its past and present, while heritage and
continuity are core to the identity construction; at the same time, processes of stereotyping,
commodification and identity attribution are also evident, as seen in the examples provided.

Hence, this study contributes to TS by examining the role of translation in discursive identity
construction and by providing an interdisciplinary method of analysis. At the same time, it offers new
insights into questions of national identity and nationalism, particularly about Greece.
Date of Award2021
Original languageEnglish
SupervisorOlga Castro (Supervisor), Frank Austermuehl (Supervisor) & Jelena Obradovic-Wochnik (Supervisor)

Keywords

  • tourism and translation
  • critical discourse analysis
  • narrativity
  • nationalism
  • ideology

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