Cover not available
Article published In:
Babel
Vol. 65:1 (2019) ► pp.26–50

News translators’ para-textual visibility in South Korea

 | Ewha Womans University
This study aims to examine news translators’ para-textual visibility suggested through their names and other indicators of identity in TTs to gain clues to their status within media organizations. For this purpose, (1) whether translators’ identity is given in TTs, (2) what type of information, if any, is provided, and (3) how it is presented in terms of location, size, colour and space is explored. The corresponding data for ST writers, particularly reporters, are also analysed for comparison. The findings suggest that while more than half of the 11 organisations analysed present the translators’ identity in some form in the TTs, the full name is provided only by two organizations with one presenting the title of translators as a reporter and most of the identity indicators are visible only when readers scroll down several times to reach them. The identity indicators of reporters and other contributors, on the other hand, are provided in a very detailed and conspicuous manner. The findings show that translators, despite being one of the key contributors in news production, remain considerably invisible in the very texts they produce, indicating that they are denied the recognition and credit they deserve within media organisations, which can in turn reinforce their low status.
Keywords: para-textual visibility, status of translators, news translation, identity indicators, layout
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1Translators’ visibility
    • 2.2Translators’ para-textual visibility
    • 2.3Para-textual visibility on online newspapers
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1News organizations to be analyzed
    • 3.2Data collection and analysis procedure
  • 4.Findings
    • 4.1Translators’ identity
    • 4.2Presentation of translators’ identity: Location, size, colour, spaces
      • 4.2.1Location
      • 4.2.2Size
      • 4.2.3Colour
      • 4.2.4Space
    • 4.3Indication of TT’s status as a translation
  • 5.Discussions and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 April 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00076.hon
References (72)
References
Barnhurst, Kevin; and John Neron. 2001. The Form of News: A History. New York: Guildford.Google Scholar
Bassnett, Susan. 2006. “Introduction”. In Translation in Global News: Proceedings of the Conference held at the University of Warwick, 23 June 2006, ed. by Kyle Conway; and Susan Bassnett, 5–8. Coventry: University of Warwick Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies.Google Scholar
Bielsa, Esperança. 2007. “Translation in Global News Agencies”. Target 19 (1): 135–155. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bielsa, Esperança; and Susan Bassnett. 2009. Translation in Global News. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Chan, Andy Lung Jan. 2011. Information Economics and the Translation Profession. Riga: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.Google Scholar
Chen, Ya-mei. 2009. “Quotation as a Key to the Investigation of Ideological Manipulation in News Trans-editing in the Taiwanese Press”. TTR 22 (2): 203–238. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2011. “The Translator’s Subjectivity and Its Constraints in News Transediting: A Perspective of Reception Aesthetics”. Meta 56 (1): 119–144. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Collins English Dictionary. 2015. Bylines. [URL]
Dam, Helle V.; and Karen Korning Zethsen. 2008. “Translator Status: A Study of Danish Company Translators”. The Translator 14 (1): 71–96. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2009a. “Who Said Low Status? A Study on Factors Affecting the Perception of Translator Status”. Journal of Specialised Translation 121: 2–36.Google Scholar
(eds.). 2009b. Translation Studies: Focus on the Translator. Special Issue of Hermes 421.Google Scholar
. 2010. “The Status of Professional Business Translators on the Danish Market: A Comparative Study of Company, Agency and Freelance Translators”. Paper presented at the 6th EST Conference Tracks and Treks in Translation Studies, University of Leuven, Belgium, 23–25 September 2010.
. 2011. “The Status of Professional Business Translators on the Danish Market: A Comparative study of Company, Agency and Freelance translators”. Meta 56 (4): 976–997. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2012. “Translators in International Organizations: A Special Breed of High-status Professionals? Danish EU Translators as a Case in Point”. Translation and Interpreting Studies 7 (2): 212–233. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Haan, Martin. 2011. “The Translator’s (In)visibility”. Discussion Text for the PETRAGoogle Scholar
Congress, Brussels, 1–3 December 2011. [URL]
Electronic Times. [URL]
Fung-Ming, Christy Liu. 2009. Revisiting the Translator’s Visibility: Translators as Happy Mediators between Clients and End-users: The Case of Greater China. Unpublished minor diss. Tarragona: Universitat Rovira i Virgili. [URL]
Gambier, Yves. 2006. “Transformations in International News”. In Translation in Global News: Proceedings of the Conference held at the University of Warwick, 23 June 2006, ed. by Kyle Conway; and Susan Bassnett, 9–21. Coventry: University of Warwick Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies.Google Scholar
Genette, Gérard. 1997. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation[orig. Seuils] . Transl. by Jane E. Lewin. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldscheider, Eric. 2004. “Found in Translation”. Boston Globe Magazine, 24 October 2004, 34–42. [URL]
Gouadec, Daniel. 2007. Translation as a Profession. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hong, Jungmin. 2012. “Power Relations among News Translation Participants in South Korea: A Proposal for Revision to Shoemaker’s Gatekeeping Model”. The Journal of Translation Studies 13 (4): 269–301. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013a. “A Study on Korean-to-English News Translation Strategy: Focusing on High and Low Context Theory by Hall”. Korean Journal of Applied Linguistics 29 (1): 307–334. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013b. “The Role and Status of Korean-to-English News Translators in South Korean Media Organizations: Translator Visibility and Ethnography-centered Approach to Translators”. In The Present and Future of Interpreting and Translation Studies Vol. 1, ed. by Hojeong Jeong, 241–285. Seoul: Hankuk Munhwasa.Google Scholar
. 2014a. “A Study on Textual Intervention in Korean-to-English News Translation”. The Journal of Translation Studies 15 (1): 365–413. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2014b. A Study on the Role and Status of News Translators in South Korea: Focusing on the Case of English News. Unpublished Doctoral diss. Seoul: Ewha Womans University.Google Scholar
Johnson, Sally; Tommaso M. Milani; and Clive Upton. 2010. “Language Ideological Debates on the BBC ‘Voices’ Website: Hypermodality in Theory and Practice”. In Language Ideologies and Media Discourse: Texts, Practices, Politics, ed. by Sally Johnson; and Tommaso M. Milani, 223–251. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Kang, Ji-Hae. 2010. “‘Translating Agents’ in Translation Research: What Can the Translating Agents Tell us about Translation?” Interpretation and Translation 12 (2): 3–26.Google Scholar
Katan, David. 2009a. “Occupation or Profession: A Survey of the Translators’ World”. Translation and Interpreting Studies 4 (2): 187–209. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2009b. “Translation Theory and Professional Practice: A Global Survey of the Great Divide”. Hermes 421: 111–153.Google Scholar
. 2011. “Status of Translators”. In Handbook of Translation Studies. Vol. 21, ed. by Yves Gambier; and Luc van Doorslaer, 146–152. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kim, Soonmi. 2014. “Functions and Contents of Translator’s Preface: Focusing on Translator’s Visibility”. The Journal of Translation Studies 15 (3): 33–81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kim, Youngshin. 2012. “A Research on Translators’ Self-Image through Translators’ Epilogues: A Perspective from Translation”. The Journal of Translation Studies 13 (4): 7–27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kiwoom Securities. [URL]
Knox, John. 2007. “Visual-verbal Communication on Online Newspaper Homepage”. Visual Communication 6 (1): 19–53. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kok, Kum Chiew Arthur. 2004. “Multisemiotic Mediation in Hypertext”. In Multimodal Discourse Analysis: Systemic Functional Perspectives, ed. by Kay L. O’Halloran, 131–159. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Korea Audit Bureau of Circulations. 2016. The 2015 Daily Newspaper Circulation Report. [URL]
Korea JoongAng Daily. [URL]
Koş, Ayşenaz. 2008. “Analysis of the Paratexts of Simone de Beauvoir’s Works in Turkish”. In Translation Research Projects 1, ed. by Anthony Pym; and Alexander Perekrestenko, 59–68. Tarragona: Intercultural Studies Group.Google Scholar
Koskinen, Kaisa. 2000a. Beyond Ambivalence: Postmodernity and the Ethics of Translation. Doctoral diss. Tampere: University of Tampere.Google Scholar
. 2000b. “Institutional Illusions: Translating in the EU Commission”. The Translator 6 (1): 49–65. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2008. Translating Institutions. Manchester: St. Jerome.Google Scholar
. 2009. “Going Localised, Getting Recognised: The Interplay of the Institutional and the Experienced Status of Translators in the European Commission”. Hermes 421: 93–110.Google Scholar
Kress, Gunther; and van Leeuwen, Theo. 1998. “The (Critical) Analysis of Newspaper Layout”. In Approaches to Media Discourse, ed. by Allan Bell; and Peter Garret. 186–219. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Leech, Wendy. 2005. The Translator’s Visibility: An Investigation into Public Perceptions of the Translators and How to Raise the Translator’s Status in Society. Unpublished MSC thesis. London: Imperial College, The University of London.Google Scholar
Lu, Guang-hui; and Ya-mei Chen. 2011. “The Mediation of Reader Involvement in Soft News Transediting”. Translation & Interpreting 3 (2): 48–66.Google Scholar
Maeil Business Newspaper. [URL]
Nielsen, Jakob; and Marie Tahir. 2002. Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed. Indianapolis: New Riders.Google Scholar
Newspim. [URL]
Pellatt, Valerie (ed.). 2013. Text, Extratext, Metatext and Paratext in Translation. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Robinson, Douglas. 1997. Becoming a Translator: An Accelerated Course. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sela-Sheffy, Rakefet. 2006. “The Pursuit of Symbolic Capital by a Semi-professional Group: The Case of Literary Translators in Israel”. In Übersetzen – Translating – Traduire: Towards a “Social Turn”?, ed. by Michaela Wolf, 243–252. Berlin: LIT Verlag.Google Scholar
. 2008. “On the Status and Professional Self-perception of Translators in Israel”. Paper presented at the Translation, History and Culture: A Colloquium in Tribute to Saliha Paker, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, 29 April 2008. [URL]
. 2010. “‘Stars’ or ‘Professionals’: The Imagined Vocation and Exclusive Knowledge of Translators in Israel”. In MonTI 2: Applied Sociology in Translation Studies/ Sociologia aplicada a la traducció, ed. by Oscar Diaz Fouces; and Esther Monzó, 131–152. Alicante: Publicaciones de la Universidad de Alicante.Google Scholar
Sela-Sheffy, Rakefet; and Miriam Shlesinger. 2008. “Strategies of Image-making and Status Advancement of Translators and Interpreters as a Marginal Occupational Group”. In Beyond Descriptive Translation Studies: Investigations in Homage to Gideon Toury, ed. by Anthony Pym; Miriam Shlesinger; and Daniel Simeoni, 79–90. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Setton, Robin; and Alice Guo Liangliang. 2011. “Attitudes to Role, Status and Professional Identity in Interpreters and Translators with Chinese in Shanghai and Taipei”. In Identity and Status in the Translational Professions, ed. by Rakefet Sela-Sheffy; and Miriam Shlesinger, 89–118. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stetting, Karen. 1989. “Transediting – A New Term for Coping with the Grey Area between Editing and Translating”. In Proceedings from the Fourth Nordic Conference for English Studies, ed. by Graham Caie; Kirsten Haastrup; Lykke Jakobsen; Jorgen Erik Nielsen; Jorgen Sevaldsen; Henrik Sprecht; and Arne Zettersten, 371–382. Copenhagen: Department of English, University of Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Tahir Gürçağlar, Şehnaz. 2002. “What Texts Don’t Tell: The Uses of Paratexts in Translation Research”. In Crosscultural Transgressions: Research Models in Translation Studies Ⅱ: Historical and Ideological Issues, ed. by Theo Hermans, 44–60. Manchester: St. Jerome.Google Scholar
The Associated Press. [URL]
The Chosun Ilbo. [URL]
The Dong-A Ilbo. [URL]
The Hankyoreh. [URL]
The Korea Economic Daily. [URL]
The Kukmin Daily. [URL]
The Kyunghyang Shinmun. [URL]
The Wall Street Journal (Korean Edition). [URL]
Tsai, Claire. 2005. “Inside the Television Newsroom: An Insider’s View of International News Translation in Taiwan”. Language and Intercultural Communication 5 (2): 145–153. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Venuti, Lawrence. 1995. The Translator’s Invisibility. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vermeer, Hans J. 1994. “Translation Today: Old and New Problems”. In Translation Studies: An Interdiscipline: Selected Papers from the Translation Studies Congress, Vienna, 1992, ed. by Mary Snell-Hornby; Franz Pöchhacker; and Klaus Kaindl, 3–16. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vuorinen, Erkka. 1995. “News Translation as Gatekeeping”. In Translation as Intercultural Communication, ed. by Mary Snell-Hornby; Zuzana Jettmarová; and Klaus Kaindl, 161–171. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Zhang, Meifang. 2013. “Stance and Mediation in Transediting News Headlines as Paratexts”. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 21 (3): 396–411. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (6)

Cited by six other publications

BinSultan, Nora & Eithar Alangari
2024. Paratextual framing of trans-edited Saudi news reports on the BBC and the Xinhua (2023). Babel. Revue internationale de la traduction / International Journal of Translation / Revista Internacional de Traducción DOI logo
Ni, Xiaodi & Lijun Yang
2024. Mapping Salience and Trajectory: On How to Situate Literary Translators in Publishing Legends of the Condor Heroes With Visualization. Sage Open 14:2 DOI logo
Ping, Yuan & Kefei Wang
2024.  (Re)framing online news through paratexts: a multisemiotic analysis of The New York Times in Chinese . Social Semiotics ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Chen, Xi
2023.  Reframing queer pop through media paratexts: translation of Chinese TV drama World of Honor in cyberspace . Translation Studies 16:3 ► pp. 346 ff. DOI logo
Freeth, Peter Jonathan
2023. Between consciously crafted and the vastness of context: collateral paratextuality and its implications for translation studies. Translation Studies 16:3 ► pp. 419 ff. DOI logo
Zanettin, Federico
2021. News Media Translation, DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 8 december 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.