Introduction: “sound sense & translation”

This introduction aims to elaborate key questions raised by the intersections and divergences among the papers in this special issue, all of which, from their diverse perspectives, address the question of what it means to translate sound into sense. We elaborate the polysemic reach of the terms sound and sense, the former denoting both perception and meaning, the latter signifying both the vibrations that produce the sense of hearing and (in adjectival form) the solid, valid, and true. We draw into our analytical purview multiple modes of translation (e.g. linguistic, intermedial, medical, technological, and corporal) and theorise the echoic latency that inheres in them. Our readings of the papers in this collection lead us to further examine the significance of, inter alia, unsound sense; noise; overpowering and invasive sounds; muted sound, diverse sound technologies; and the soundscapes that constitute, or destroy, homes.