The Bilingual Presentation of Qatari National at the National Museum of Qatar Through Written Texts

Author Information

Maha Aladba, University of Geneva, Switzerland
Ismehene Sonia Hallimi, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Abstract

This study investigates the construction and presentation of national identity within the written texts of the National Museum of Qatar (NMoQ). The textual corpus examined three distinct categories of museum discourse: object captions, introductory panels, and video subtitles. These texts are analyzed through Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The analysis focuses on a comparative evaluation of the museum's Arabic source texts and their English target translations, seeking to identify any shifts in transitivity, modality, and thematic structure that may affect the presentation of national identity across the two languages. However, the study recognizes that a purely textual analysis provides only a partial understanding of the museum's communicative impact. Therefore, the research extends beyond the linguistic examination of the texts to investigate how these narratives are actually received by the museum's diverse audience. Specifically, the study poses two interrelated questions: first, whether local Arabic-speaking visitors and English-speaking international visitors receive the same version of Qatari national identity through the museum's bilingual texts; and second, whether the version of national identity perceived by visitors aligns with the curatorial intentions that informed the exhibition's design and textual content. This approach of examining the museum’s source texts and its translation enables the understanding of the museum as a site of cultural mediation, where national identity is not only presented but is also negotiated between institutional producers and diverse visitors.

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