Recontextualization of News Discourse

Abstract

This paper explores the translation of news discourse in terms of the way in which recontextualization of discourse across the boundaries of language, culture and institutions results in the transformation, as well as transfer, of information. Based on a comparative analysis of news stories on North Korea published in Newsweek and Newsweek Hankuk Pan (Korean edition), the study examines how North Korea is (re)constructed in translation. The primary focus is on the translating context and the producers of translated news stories as they engage in an institutional routine to re-situate the source text (discourse on North Korea by Newsweek journalists), which is anchored in a specific discourse context (the context of a Newsweek story being written and published for original Newsweek readers), into the translating situation (the context of producing a translated story at Newsweek Hankuk Pan) for a new context of use (the context of reception by South Korean readers of Newsweek Hankuk Pan). As the producers of translated news at Newsweek Hankuk Pan link the two situations, elements of the prior discourse as manifested in the source text are lifted from the original setting, re-perspectivized, differently foregrounded, silenced, elaborated on or blended with other voices. The findings suggest that contrary to the lay perception of translated news as a complete and accurate representation of the intention and meaning of the source text writer, news translation as recontextualization practice is a complex site of institutional goals and procedures, coupled with tension and conflict among different representations, ideologies and voices. Translation occurs in multiple stages of gathering, generating and disseminating international news. The events being reported may take place in a language ISSN 1355-6509 © St. Jerome Publishing, Manchester

News production and intercultural communication at the crossroads of disciplines

“…Greenall and Løfaldli (2019) have recently applied this notion to translation studies as an alternative to the widely used 'adaptation' since, in their view, recontextualization can contribute to studying multisemiotic transfers by focusing on medial, generic, cultural, ideological and linguistic elements. Initially proposed by Bernstein (1990), recontextualization could prove a very productive concept in future research on the transformations and effects of journalistic translation, as shown by the work of Ji-Hae Kang (2014) on Korean news translation, Hernández Guerrero (2010) on interviews in the Spanish daily El Mundo and Floros (2012) on the translated news items dealing with conflicts in the Greek context.…”

The Inca country: el reencuadre de las noticias traducidas al inglés por la Agencia Peruana de Noticias Andina

“…Entre los estudios revisados predominan aquellos que analizan la transmisión de mensajes provenientes de países asiáticos, como China, Corea del Norte o Irán, hacia Occidente. Kang (2007) analizó el conflicto entre ideologías diversas que supone la recontextualización del discurso político de las noticias sobre Corea del Norte. Por su parte, Shojaei y Laheghi (2012) hacen el análisis crítico del discurso político de las noticias traducidas por el periódico iraní jaam-e-jam y discuten cómo la ideología política puede modificar el sentido de las traducciones.…”

“…Ji-hae Kang (2007) plantea que "la traducción periodística es una práctica compleja, por el conflicto entre las diversas representaciones e ideologías en torno a la política internacional, sumado a los objetivos y procedimientos de cada institución" (p. 219). Este planteamiento se evidencia en la traducción de la Agencia Andina.…”

Translation Evaluation: The Suitability of the Argument Macrostructure Model for the Assessment of Translated Texts across Different Fields

“…Translation and evaluation may also be viewed as a process of complex interplay. Based on her analysis of certain English articles, their translations into Korean and their final revised translations, Kang (2007) draws the conclusion that the translators' choices and the editors/evaluators' ones can be viewed as a result of a complicated interplay of translators' and editors/evaluators' subjectivities, which are founded on their interpretations of the original text, institutional objectives and well-defined norms (p. 240).…”