Introduction to Special Issue: Food and translation: international and interdisciplinary issues

Citation

Li S, Fuentes-Luque A & Desjardins R (2026) Introduction to Special Issue: Food and translation: international and interdisciplinary issues. Perspectives, 34 (4), pp. 655-660. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0907676X.2026.2684381#d1e169; https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676x.2026.2684381

Abstract
Food is a universal human necessity, yet its meanings, practices and representations are profoundly shaped by language, culture, place and technology. Translation therefore plays a central, though often overlooked, role in how food knowledge, narratives and practices circulate across linguistic and cultural boundaries. This Special Issue brings Translation Studies into closer dialogue with Food Studies by examining food translation as a multidimensional process encompassing interlingual, intercultural, multimodal and intersemiotic forms of mediation. Bringing together international and interdisciplinary perspectives, the contributions demonstrate that translating food involves considerably more than finding lexical equivalents for ingredients, dishes or culinary practices. It can shape cultural identities, mediate representations of place and belonging, influence access to information, and determine how food-related knowledge is understood and experienced across communities. The Special Issue develops these questions through four interconnected areas: food, translation and culture; food, translation and literature; food and menu translation; and food and audiovisual translation. Contributions examine subjects ranging from Chinese culinary heritage, Macanese hybrid food cultures and literary food metaphors to digital menus, machine translation, localisation, subtitling and participatory translation. Together, they reveal food as a particularly productive site through which to investigate longstanding Translation Studies concerns—including domestication and foreignisation, translator agency, cultural specificity and non-translation—alongside emerging questions concerning digital technologies, artificial intelligence and user-generated translation. By positioning translation as both a means of cultural mediation and an epistemological practice, this Special Issue argues for greater interdisciplinary engagement between Translation Studies and Food Studies and establishes food translation as an increasingly important field for understanding how knowledge, identities and cultures are produced, negotiated and circulated in a globalised world.

Keywords
food, translation, interdisciplinary issues, mediation, culture

Notes
This is the special issue introduction. Thanks

Journal
Perspectives: Volume 34, Issue 4