Remediating, Rescripting, Remaking. Language and Translation in the New Media

Taking inspiration from Bolter and Grusin’s pioneering study Remediation:
Understanding New Media (1999), this volume focuses on the notion of remediation
as an embodiment of transformation and reformulation, that is visible
to the analyst’s eye in a wealth of texts and communicative situations. Indeed,
as will be evident from the contributions gathered here, remediation opens up,
within the field of language studies, a plethora of possible topics for discussion
and further investigation.
In Bolter and Grusin’s view, remediation implies a rivalry between media
aiming at “refashion[ing] prior media forms”, and as such it can be regarded as
“an attempt to remediate the deficiencies of another medium”. The fact that
they note not only the interdependence of one act of mediation on another but
also that “Media are continually commenting on, reproducing, and replacing
each other” proves particularly significant for this collection of essays.
Above all, the notion of translation, in its broadest meaning, can become
useful in this sense at more than one level of analysis. Indeed, if we consider
language as the very first mediator through which human beings can access
reality, we cannot but accept the idea that every act of reading (whether real or
artistic expression) necessarily involves a process of (re)interpretation and can
thus be understood in terms of translation.