Communication with international visitors

Abstract

According to Statistics Estonia, in 2022, there were 170 museums in Estonia with 277 visitor sites, all of which contribute to preserving, shaping, and communicating our memory and identity, translating our culture to the people of Estonia and international visitors alike. Among European countries, Estonia has the most museums per 100,000 inhabitants. In 2022, nearly 2.5 million people visited museums, which makes 1,769 attendances per 1000 inhabitants. Museum translation is integral to translation studies but has not been thoroughly studied in Estonia. The article attempts to reflect on the communicative potential of interlingual translation in the University of Tartu Museum, using the concepts developed in museum translation research. Estonia is an interesting case for discussion because, while it is a country with a very small population, it is a multilingual country, where about 30% of the population do not speak Estonian as their first language. As a small and multilingual country, museums cannot rely on Estonian-speaking visitors only; they also depend on foreign visitors. The research objective is to find out how the University of Tartu Museum communicates with visitors who do not understand Estonian and what communicative strategies have been used in the past.