Exposition

Lost in Translation: Navigating through Individual and Cultural Differences of Communication & Building Mutual Understanding beyond Language (2025)

Xiaoyao Ma
Ega Huurdeman
open exposition

About this exposition

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022 BA Interactive Media Design We express ourselves primarily through language. Somehow for me, these precious moments like sharing a box of chicken nuggets convey more than saying, “I’d like to spend some time with you.” I always feel understood in those situations. There are so many qualities that embed into senses rather than words. Through the course of the thesis, I took examples from my experiences to explore the contrasting worldviews generated by speaking different languages. I then looked into numerous literary and philosophical texts to investigate the reasons behind the differences, including discussing variations in translating poems and expressing emotions in Chinese and English languages. Extracts from fictional literature about language are also listed to help expand the panel to the nature of communication and variation of individual perceptions. An experiment with my friend to have a conversation in our different mother tongues also gave me the insight that the first step of understanding is the desire to understand. I choose to present these examples because they are all tied together by experiencing loss, contradiction, and transformation. By threading these pieces together, I finally gathered the floating pixels in my brain and curated them into a tangible image to make myself understood to others.
typeresearch exposition
keywordsBachelor Interactive Media Design
date06/07/2022
published21/05/2025
last modified21/05/2025
statuspublished
share statusshared in portal(s):
affiliationRoyal Academy of Art, The Hague
copyrightXiaoyao Ma
licenseAll rights reserved
languageEnglish
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1702393/1702392
published inRoyal Academy of Art, The Hague
portal issue0. Publications 2022
connected toRoyal Academy of Art, The Hague


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