Cover not available
Article published In:
Target
Vol. 26:3 (2014) ► pp.406–431

Referential cohesion and news content

A case study of shifts of reference in Hungarian-English news translation

 | Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary
This study explores the (re)creation of referential cohesion in Hungarian-English translation and examines the extent to which shifts of reference are motivated by the differences between the languages, the characteristics of the translation type (news translation) and the genre (news story). As referential cohesion is hypothesized to be affected by certain universals of translation, the explicitation and the repetition avoidance hypotheses are also tested. Analyses show considerable shifts of reference in translations, but these are not statistically significant. The corpus also fails to provide evidence for the universals of translation investigated; however, the in-depth analysis of optional shifts suggests that they are conditioned by the discursive features of the genre and contribute to a more explicit presentation of news content.
Keywords: referential cohesion, shift of cohesion, universal of translation, explicitation, repetition avoidance, news translation, event structure
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Referential cohesion in translation
    • 2.1Systemic differences between English and Hungarian
    • 2.2Research on the translation of referential cohesion
    • 2.3The translation of news texts
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Research questions
    • 3.2The corpus
    • 3.3Procedures of analysis
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Shifts of referential cohesion
    • 4.2Optional shifts of reference
  • 5.Summary
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 22 September 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.26.3.04kar
References (50)
References
Baker, Mona. 1992. In Other Words. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bakker, Matthijs, Cees Koster, and Kitty van Leuven-Zwart. 1998. “Shifts of Translation.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, ed. by Mona Baker, 226–231. London: Routledge.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bell, Allan. 1991. The Language of News Media. Oxford: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de Beaugrande, Robert, and Wolfgang U. Dressler. 1981. Introduction to Text Linguistics. London: Longman. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bielsa, Esperança. 2007. “Translation in Global News Agencies.” Target 19 (1): 135–155. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana. 1986. “Shifts of Cohesion and Coherence in Translation.” In Interlingual and Intercultural Communication: Discourse and Cognition in Translation and Second Language Acquisition Studies, ed. by Juliane House, and Shoshana Blum-Kulka, 17–35. Tubingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar
Callow, Kathleen. 1974. Discourse Considerations in Translating the Word of God. Michigan: Zondervan.Google Scholar
Catford, John C. 1965. A Linguistic Theory of Translating. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Enkvist, Nils Erik. 1990. “Seven Problems in the Study of Coherence and Interpretability.” In Coherence in Writing: Research and Pedagogical Perspectives, ed. by Ulla Connor, and Ann M. Johns, 9–28. Washington, DC: TESOL.Google Scholar
Fujii, Akio. 1988. “News Translation in Japan.” Meta 33 (1): 32–37. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gottlieb, Henrik. 2010. “Multilingual Translation vs. English-fits-all in South African Media.” Across Languages and Cultures 11 (2): 189–216. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Halliday, Michael A.K. 1985a. Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
. 1985b. Spoken and Written Language. Geelong, Vic.: Deakin University Press.Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A.K., and Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen. 2004. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Harsányi, Ildikó. 2008. “Metaforarendszerek fordítása – sajtószövegek elemzése kognitív megközelítésből” [The translation of metaphor systems – An analysis of news texts from a cognitive perspective]. Fordítástudomány [Translation Studies] 10 (1): 42–60.Google Scholar
. 2010. “A metafora mint az alternative konceptualizáció eszköze a fordításban” [Metaphor as a means of alternative conceptualization in translation]. Fordítástudomány [Translation Studies] 12 (2): 5–23.Google Scholar
Hasan, Ruqaiya. 1984. “Coherence and Cohesive Harmony.” In Understanding Reading Comprehension, ed. by James Flood, 181–219. Delaware: International Reading Association.Google Scholar
Hatch, Evelyn, and Anne Lazaraton. 1991. The Research Manual. Design and Statistics for Applied Linguistics. Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers.Google Scholar
Heltai, Pál, and Gabriella Juhász. 2002. “A névmások fordításának kérdései angol—magyar és magyar—angol fordításokban” [The questions of translating pronouns in English—Hungarian and Hungarian-English translations]. Fordítástudomány [Translation Studies] 4 (2): 46–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jenei, Gabriella. 2008. The Contribution of Reference and Co-reference to Cohesion. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Károly, Krisztina, Anett Árvay, Melinda Edwards, Hajnal Fekete, Katalin Kolláth, and Gyula Tankó. 2000. “A szövegkohézió mérése vizsgafordítások értékelésében” [The measuring of textual cohesion in the assessment of translations in language exams]. Fordítástudomány [Translation Studies] 2 (2): 36–62.Google Scholar
Klaudy, Kinga. 2003. Languages in Translation. Lectures on the Theory, Teaching and Practice of Translation. Budapest: Scholastica.Google Scholar
. 2006. “Szövegszintű műveletek a fordításban” [Text-level operations in translation]. In A mondat kaland. Hetven tanulmány Békési Imre 70. születésnapjára [The sentence is an adventure. 70 studies for Imre Békési’s 70th birthday], ed. by László Galgóczy, and László Vass, 204–211. Szeged: JGyTF Kiadó.Google Scholar
Lee, Chang-soo. 2006. “Differences in News Translation between Broadcasting and Newspapers: A Case Study of Korean—English Translation.” Meta 51 (2): 317–327. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leppihalme, Ritva. 1997. Culture Bumps. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Limon, David. 2004. “Translating News Genres between Slovene and English: An Analytical Framework.” Across Languages and Cultures 5 (1): 43–65. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Makkos, Anikó. 2010. “Szöveggrammatikai eszközök fordítása és alkalmazása nyelvvizsgázók fordításaiban” [The translation and the use of means of text grammar in the translations of language learners]. Fordítástudomány [Translation Studies] 12 (2): 96–121. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mason, Ian, and Adriana Şerban. 2003. “Deixis as an Interactive Feature in Literary Translation from Romanian into English.” Target 15 (2): 269–294. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Paksy, Eszter. 2005. “Szerző és olvasó viszonya a fordított szövegben” [The relationship of author and reader in translated text]. Fordítástudomány [Translation Studies] 7 (1): 60–69. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2008. “Metaszöveg és ethosz a fordításban” [Metatext and ethos in translation]. Fordítástudomány [Translation Studies] 10 (2): 47–60. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pásztor Kicsi, Mária. 2007. “Vajdasági magyar médiaszövegek mondatszerkesztésének összehasonlító kvantitatív elemzése” [A comparative and quantitative analysis of the sentence structure Hungarian media discourse in the Voivodine]. Hungarológiai Közlemények [Essays in Hungarian Studies] 21: 71–85.Google Scholar
Pléh, Csaba, and Katalin Radics. 1976. “ ‘Hiányos mondat,’ pronominalizáció és a szöveg” [“Elliptical sentence,” pronominalizaton and text]. Általános Nyelvészeti Tanulmányok [Studies in General Linguistics] 91: 261–277.Google Scholar
Shlesinger, Miriam. 1995. “Shifts in Cohesion in Simultaneous Interpreting.” The Translator 1 (2): 193–214. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sidiropoulou, Maria. 1995a. “Headlining in Translation: English vs. Greek Press.” Target 7 (2): 285–304. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1995b. “Causal Shifts in News Reporting: English vs. Greek Press.” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 3 (1): 83–92. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1998. “Quantities in Translation: English vs. Greek Press.” Target 10 (2): 319–333. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Swales, John. 1990. Genre Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tolcsvai Nagy, Gábor. 2000. “Vázlat az ő – az anaforikus megoszlásról” [A study on the anaphoric distribution of ő – az]. Magyar Nyelv [Hungarian Language] XCVI (3): 282–296. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Toury, Gideon. 1980. In Search of a Theory of Translation. . Tel Aviv: The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, Tel Aviv University. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1986. “Monitoring Discourse Transfer: A Test-case for a Developmental Model of Translation.” In Interlingual and Intercultural Communication. Discourse and Cognition in Translation and Second Language Acquisition Studies, ed. by Juliana House, and Shoshana Blum-Kulka, 79–95. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tyler, Andrea. 1994. “The Role of Repetition in Perceptions of Discourse Coherence.” Journal of Pragmatics 211: 671–688. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Valdeón, Roberto A. 2005. “The ‘Translated’ Spanish Service of the BBC.” Across Languages and Cultures 6 (2): 195–220. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Leuven-Zwart, Kitty M. 1989. “Translation and Original: Similarities and Dissimilarities I.” Target 1 (2): 151–181. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1990. “Translation and Original: Similarities and Dissimilarities II.” Target 2 (1): 69–95. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vidal, José Manuel. 2005. “Algunas vivencias de un traductor de prensa.” In La traducción periodística, ed. by Carmen Cortés Zaborras, and María José Hernández Guerrero, 379–390. Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha.Google Scholar
Vinay, Jean-Paul, and Jean Darbelnet. 1995. Comparative Stylistics of French and English: A Methodology for Translation. Trans. and ed. by Juan C. Sager, and M.-J. Hamel. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vuorinen, Erkka. 1995. “News Translation as a Gatekeeping.” In Translation as Intercultural Communication, ed. by Mary Snell-Hornby, Zuzana Jettmarova, and Klaus Kaindl, 161–172. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (9)

Cited by nine other publications

Liu, Nancy Xiuzhi & Stephen Andriano-Moore
2023. Repositioning of city branding through promotional videos: the case of Ningbo. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 19:3 ► pp. 371 ff. DOI logo
Chen, Shukun, Winfred Wenhui Xuan & Hailing Yu
2022. Applying systemic functional linguistics in translation studies. Babel. Revue internationale de la traduction / International Journal of Translation 68:4 ► pp. 517 ff. DOI logo
Jiang, Yue & Jiang Niu
2022. A corpus-based search for machine translationese in terms of discourse coherence. Across Languages and Cultures 23:2 ► pp. 148 ff. DOI logo
Gendron, Philippe, Kyle Conway & Lucile Davier
2019. News translation on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s English and French websites. In Journalism and Translation in the Era of Convergence [Benjamins Translation Library, 146], ► pp. 63 ff. DOI logo
Jiang, Zhanhao & Yuan Tao
2017. Translation Universals of Discourse Markers in Russian-to-Chinese Academic Texts: A Corpus-based Approach. Zeitschrift für Slawistik 62:4 ► pp. 583 ff. DOI logo
Tao, Yuan & Zhanhao Jiang
2017. Translation universals of kak structures: a corpus-based approach. Russian Linguistics 41:1 ► pp. 61 ff. DOI logo
Valdeón, Roberto A.
2015. Fifteen years of journalistic translation research and more. Perspectives 23:4 ► pp. 634 ff. DOI logo
Valdeón, Roberto A.
2016. Translating stable sources in times of economic recession. Babel. Revue internationale de la traduction / International Journal of Translation 62:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Valdeón, Roberto A.
2019. Ad hoc Corpora and Journalistic Translation Research: BBC News and BBC Mundo's Coverage of Margaret Thatcher's Death and Funeral. Across Languages and Cultures 20:1 ► pp. 79 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 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.