Article published In:
TargetVol. 18:2 (2006) ► pp.229–259
Language(s) in the global news
Translation, audience design and discourse (mis)representation
In September 1999 B.J. Habibie, then President of Indonesia, made a public statement concerning the proposed deployment of UN peacekeeping troops to East Timor. Habibie made ‘the statement’ twice, once in Indonesian, then again in English, and differences between the two resulting texts cannot straightforwardly be explained in terms of the different languages employed. This paper examines the two original versions, along with various representations of these that appeared in British and US news media. Processes of text production and dissemination are discussed, and linguistic and translational choices analysed in relation to context and audience, along with the possible reasons underlying those choices and some of their potential effects upon interpretation. In this case, it is argued, different news audiences may have received significantly different impressions of the content and tone of the original speech—depending, for example, upon the particular media through which they accessed the text.
Keywords: discourse, globalization, media, news, representation, translation
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Newsmakers, media and the public: Language(s) and ‘audience design’
- 3.Contexts and texts
- 4.SE as translation of SI
- 5.The two texts: An agenda for closer analysis
- 5.1invite vs. accept
- 5.2Justifying the ballot
- 5.3Loss of life
- 5.4 ‘To protect the people...’
- 6.Media representations [1]: The CNN voiceover
- 6.1‘Loss of life’
- 6.2Nation, peoples, and the international community
- 6.2.1Saya mengerti bahwa ... vs. We are fully grateful for ...
- 6.2.2bangsa vs. peoples
- 6.2.3teman-teman di seluruh dunia vs. our friends in the international community
- 7.Media representations [2]: Representing text as text
- 8.Media representations [3]: Representing text as event
- 9.Concluding remarks
- Notes
-
References
References (28)
Amnesty International. 2000. “Indonesia and East Timor”. Amnesty International annual report, 2000. London: Amnesty International Publications.
Bell, Allan. 1984. “Language style as audience design”. Language in society 13:2. 145–204. 
. 1991. The language of news media. Oxford: Blackwell.
Calzada Pérez, Mariaed. 2003. Apropos of ideology: Translation Studies on ideology—Ideologies in Translation Studies. Manchester: St. Jerome.
Cronin, Michael. 2003. Translation and globalization. London: Routledge.
Crystal, David. 1997. English as a global language. Cambridge: CUP.
Fairclough, Norman. 1995. Media discourse. London: Edward Arnold.
. 1996. “Border crossings: Discourse and social change in contemporary societies”. Hywel Coleman and Lynne Cameron, eds. Change and language [Papers from the annual meeting of BAAL, Leeds, September 1994]. Avon: Multilingual Matters, 1996.
Fowler, Roger. 1991. Language in the news: Discourse and ideology in the press. London: Routledge.
Glasgow University Media Group. 1976. Bad news. London: Routledge&Kegan Paul.
. 1980. More bad news. London: Routledge&Kegan Paul.
Hatim, Basil and Ian Mason. 1990. Discourse and the translator. Harlow, Essex: Longman.
. 1997. The translator as communicator. London: Routledge.
Herman, Edward S. and Robert W. McChesney. 1997. The global media: The new missionaries of corporate capitalism. London: Cassell.
Holland, Robert. 2002. “Globospeak?: Questioning text on the role of English as a global language.” Language and intercultural communication 2:1. 5–24.
Hutton, Lord. 2004. Return to an address of the Honourable House of Commons dated 28th January 2004 for the report of the inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly C.M.G. The Hutton Report. London: The Stationery Office.
Nord, Christiane. 1997. Translating as a purposeful activity. Manchester: St. Jerome.
Pennycook, Alastair. 1994. The cultural politics of English as an international language. London: Longman.
Phillipson, Robert. 1992. Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: OUP.
Scollon, Ron. 1998. Mediated discourse as social interaction: A study of news discourse. Harlow, Essex: Longman.
Sneddon, James N. 1999. Indonesian: A comprehensive grammar. London: Routledge.
van Dijk, Teun A. 1988. News as discourse. Hillsdale, New Jersey: L. Erlbaum Associates.
van Ginneken, Jaap. 1998. Understanding global news: A critical introduction. London: Sage.
Venuti, Lawrence. 1998. The scandals of translation. London: Routledge.
, ed. 1992. Rethinking translation: Discourse, subjectivity, ideology. London: Routledge.
Vermeer, Hans J. 2000. “Skopos and commission in translational action”, tr.Andrew Chesterman. Lawrence Venuti, ed. The Translation Studies reader. London: Routledge, 2000.
Wadensjö, Cecilia. 1998. Interpreting as interaction. Harlow, Essex: Longman.
Warwick University. 2004. “The languages of global news” (report on the proceedings of a symposium held by the Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies, April 23rd 2004). [URL]
Cited by (30)
Cited by 30 other publications
Alwazna, Rafat Y. & Alawia A. Al Hamed
2024. Transediting the terms used for describing the US dollar in Arabic and English news websites: a triangulational study of transediting strategies adopted in four channels. Frontiers in Communication 9 
Barbosa, Leandro Pereira & Talita Serpa
2024. THE REPORTING VERBS AS A STRATEGY FOR TRANSEDITING IN LE MONDE TRANSLATIONS INTO PORTUGUESE VIA THE RFI WEBSITE: A CORPUS-BASED ANALYSIS OF JOSTLE. Alfa: Revista de Linguística (São José do Rio Preto) 68
Barbosa, Leandro Pereira & Talita Serpa
2024. OS VERBOS DE DIZER COMO ESTRATÉGIA PARA TRANSEDIÇÃO NAS TRADUÇÕES DO LE MONDE PARA O PORTUGUÊS VIA SITE DA AGÊNCIA RFI: UMA ANÁLISE BASEADA EM CORPUS. Alfa: Revista de Linguística (São José do Rio Preto) 68
Gheisari, Mahsa & Omid Akbari
2024. A comparison of cultural representation and ideologies in the multimodal discourses of textbooks used in public and private Iranian contexts: a cross-textual study. Social Semiotics 34:2 ► pp. 289 ff.
Hatani, Faith
2023. Framing biases and language choices: how the Japanese media broadcast foreign aid policy for Africa. Critical Perspectives on International Business 19:5 ► pp. 640 ff.
Daghigh, Ali Jalalian & Alireza Amini
2022. Ideological manipulation in political news translation: An actor-network perspective. Journalism 23:7 ► pp. 1530 ff.
Kamyanets, Angela
2022. Selective appropriation in the BBC news translated into Ukrainian and Russian. Journalism 23:7 ► pp. 1548 ff.
Robertson, Wesley Cooper
2022. Register phenomena as international news: risk, register, and translation in Japanese coverage of quotes from the 2020 US presidential debate. Continuum 36:3 ► pp. 448 ff.
Zanettin, Federico
2021. News Media Translation,
Havumetsä, Nina
2020. Instances of translatorial action: a journalist as a translating reporter of speech. Perspectives 28:3 ► pp. 440 ff.
Xia, Liang
2020. Chapter 10. Impact of power relations on news translation in China. In Analysing Chinese Language and Discourse across Layers and Genres [Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse, 13], ► pp. 178 ff.
Daghigh, Ali Jalalian, Mohammad Saleh Sanatifar & Rokiah Awang
2018. A taxonomy of manipulative operations in political discourse translation. FORUM. Revue internationale d’interprétation et de traduction / International Journal of Interpretation and Translation 16:2 ► pp. 197 ff.
Davier, Lucile & Luc Van Doorslaer
2018. Translation without a source text: methodological issues in news translation. Across Languages and Cultures 19:2 ► pp. 241 ff.
Scammell, Claire
2018. The Global News Agencies. In Translation Strategies in Global News, ► pp. 7 ff.
Zheng, Lingqian & Wen Ren
2018. Interpreting as an influencing factor on news reports: A study of interpreted Chinese political discourse recontextualized in English news. Perspectives 26:5 ► pp. 691 ff.
Pan, Yun
2017. Raising trainee translators’ critical language awareness in news translation. Asia Pacific Translation and Intercultural Studies 4:2 ► pp. 160 ff.
Valdeón, Roberto A.
2015. Fifteen years of journalistic translation research and more. Perspectives 23:4 ► pp. 634 ff.
Pan, Li
2014. Investigating institutional practice in news translation: An empirical study of a Chinese agency translating discourse on China. Perspectives 22:4 ► pp. 547 ff.
Floros, Georgios
2013. News Translation and Translation Ethics in the Cypriot Context. Meta 57:4 ► pp. 924 ff.
Kang, Ji-Hae
2013. Translating Mad Cow Disease: A Case Study of Subtitling for a Television News Magazine. Meta 57:2 ► pp. 439 ff.
Károly, Krisztina
2013. News Discourse in Translation: Topical Structure and News Content in the Analytical News Article. Meta 57:4 ► pp. 884 ff.
Károly, Krisztina
2014. Referential cohesion and news content. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 26:3 ► pp. 406 ff.
Károly, Krisztina, Henrietta Ábrányi, Szilvia Deák, Ágnes Laszkács, Andrea Mészáros & Márta Seresi
2013. Cohesion and news translation. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 60:4 ► pp. 365 ff.
Van Doorslaer, Luc
2013. Translating, Narrating and Constructing Images in Journalism with a Test Case on Representation in Flemish TV News. Meta 57:4 ► pp. 1046 ff.
Davies, Eirlys E.
2012. Translation and Intercultural Communication: Bridges and Barriers. In The Handbook of Intercultural Discourse and Communication, ► pp. 367 ff.
Schäffner, Christina
2012. Unknown agents in translated political discourse. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 24:1 ► pp. 103 ff.
Schäffner, Christina
2013. Rethinking Transediting. Meta 57:4 ► pp. 866 ff.
Chen, Ya-Mei
2011. The Translator’s Subjectivity and Its Constraints in News Transediting: A Perspective of Reception Aesthetics. Meta 56:1 ► pp. 119 ff.
[no author supplied]
[no author supplied]
2017. Chapter 8. Summary and conclusions. In Aspects of Cohesion and Coherence in Translation [Benjamins Translation Library, 134], ► pp. 206 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 7 november 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.