Hawaii

Translating ‘Sustainability’ in Hawai'i: The Utility of Semiotic Transformation in the Transmission of Culture

Translating ‘Sustainability’ in Hawai'i: The Utility of Semiotic Transformation in the Transmission of Culture

DOI: 10.1080/14442213.2014.954601 The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, Volume 16, Issue 1, 2015, pages 55-73 Kyung-Nan Koh Abstract This paper examines how businessmen and educators in Hawai'i have semiotically ‘translated’ sustainability to promote sustainability practices. Using data gathered from an educational institute that was co-founded by a corporation and a college, I analyse how the source discourse was, using Silverstein's term, ‘transformed’ so that the target discourse (or the signs used in the target discourse) invokes Hawaiian imageries rather than imageries of capitalism.