Developing bilingual content for educational gallery

Abstract

This paper examines the practical challenges of developing bilingual content for an educational gallery, an area which remains largely unexplored in the field of translation studies. The case study in question is the ENVision Gallery under the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources (MEWR), a showcase of Singapore’s environmental journey.

By incorporating bilingual content for the gallery, key messages on environmental awareness could be conveyed to segments of Singapore’s community that might otherwise be left out. It also presents a learning opportunity for bilingual visitors to improve their bilingualism, and for mother tongue languages to gain more symbolic capital. Nevertheless, this paper recognises the implications of creating bilingual content in multilingual society, as the choice of which language to display can be a sensitive issue. Only by examining the practical translation challenges that go into creating bilingual content for an exhibition, can organisations better evaluate the costs and benefits of such a proposition for their audience.

Ultimately, this project on creating bilingual exhibitions is an exploratory step towards a more accessible learning environment for a more diverse audience, in the context of Singapore’s multilingual society.