Whose Sign Is It, Anyway? Semiotic and Lingual Translations of the Nanjing Massacre (1937-38) and Dissonant/Consonant Visitor Interpretation at Japanese Museums

Where this issue asks, “shall we still write?”, this article responds, “let’s write mindfully”, by establishing how translation and its impact on visitor engagement and interpretation can be overlooked by heritage practitioners, e.g., museum curators. Best practice in lingual translation pre-emptively incorporates culturally specific concepts of the target language community. This practice also applies to the semiotic translation (i.e. communication of meaning) of heritage content to better understand what causes dissonance between heritage managers and visitors. I present the Nanjing Massacre (1937–38) as an example of how different semiotic and lingual translations of an internationally significant semiotic marker can elicit dissonant interpretations at two Japanese heritage sites: the Yūshūkan Museum and the Kyoto Museum for World Peace. I argue that mindful translation is key to mitigating dissonance, as direct translation of local-to-local texts alienates international visitors. Disrupting national heritage paradigms and challenging writers of authorised heritage discourse, I ask: whose sign is it, anyway?