Eleonora Fois

When Translation Meets Newswriting: Simplification in Translated Quotations

Introduction

When translation meets newswriting: simplification in translated quotations. Examines simplification, rhetoric, and interpretation in political quotations translated into Italian news. Analyzes Clinton's & Trump's speeches using RPA & CDA.

Abstract

Simplification is one of the translation universals (Baker 1996) and it is often equated with reduced sentence length and lexical complexity. This implies that the translator attempts to ease the reader’s comprehension (Vandevoorde 2020: 17), sometimes “selecting an interpretation, therefore blocking potential others”, raising “the level of explicitness by resolving ambiguity” (Baker 1996: 182). The interplay between simplification and interpretation also characterizes journalistic writing. Journalistic writing requires the simplification of complexity (Cotter 2010: 171), operating within limits related to space and word count and limits related to the readers’ attention. The safest way to overcome them is by using quotations, thus reducing reading complexity (Wasike 2018). Fink and Schudson (2014) coined the term ‘contextualization’ to describe how interpretation, rather than description, has become increasingly important in the journalistic approach towards politicians. As politicians’ political personas are built on the highly interpretive discourse of rhetoric (Price-Thomas and Turnbull 2018), the role played by intermediaries (Dillet 2020) such as journalists may interfere, especially in interlingual translation. This contribution will thus investigate rhetoric, simplification and interpretation in political quotations translated into Italian. The contrastive qualitative analysis will involve articles gathered from press agencies and generalist newspapers covering Hillary Clinton’s concession speech in 2016 and Donald Trump’s victory speech in the same year. The goal is to verify if and how journalistic writing in the form of translated quotations has affected the rhetoric of the speeches, answering the following research questions: 1) does simplification in the translated quotations compromise the rhetoric of the source text? and 2) does simplification in the translated quotations favour a specific interpretation? The analysis will draw on both Rhetorical Political Analysis (RPA) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). In RPA, rhetoric is no longer a mere embellishment technique, but rather acts on “the formation, propagation, development and change of ideas in politics” (Atkins and Finlayson 2013: 162). RPA will reveal how persuasion on the one hand and the combination of form and performance of argumentation on the other hand are intrinsic to the content of source and target quotations. CDA (Fairclough 1995; Meyer and Wodak 2015) will be used to contrast the language of the source text and target text and unravel the manipulation deriving from text interpretation with its stylistic and ideological underpinning.

Review

This contribution proposes a timely and insightful investigation into the complex intersection of translation universals, journalistic newswriting practices, and political discourse. Focusing on the phenomenon of simplification in translated political quotations, the paper addresses a critical area where linguistic mediation significantly impacts public perception and understanding. By positing simplification as not merely a reduction of linguistic complexity but also an active process of interpretation, the abstract skillfully frames the core tension between easing comprehension and potentially altering the original rhetoric. The focus on journalists as crucial intermediaries highlights the practical implications of such linguistic choices in shaping political narratives, promising valuable insights into how media representations are constructed across linguistic and cultural boundaries. The proposed methodology is robust and well-suited to address the intricate research questions. The study employs a contrastive qualitative analysis, drawing on a pertinent dataset of Hillary Clinton’s concession speech and Donald Trump’s victory speech from 2016, translated into Italian for press agencies and generalist newspapers. This choice of data is highly relevant, focusing on high-stakes political rhetoric during a pivotal global event. Furthermore, the abstract outlines a strong theoretical framework, integrating Rhetorical Political Analysis (RPA) to uncover the persuasive and argumentative structures, with Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to unravel potential manipulation and ideological underpinnings in the target texts. This combined approach is particularly effective for dissecting how simplification might compromise source text rhetoric and favour specific interpretations. Ultimately, this paper promises to make a significant contribution to both translation studies and media studies. By empirically examining how journalistic constraints influence the translation of political discourse, the research will shed light on the mechanisms through which media intermediaries shape public opinion and political understanding. The findings are expected to offer critical insights into the ethical dimensions of translation, the power of media framing, and the nuanced interplay between linguistic choices and ideological implications. This investigation will undoubtedly enrich our understanding of translation universals within specific genre conventions and the broader landscape of political communication.

Full Text

Comments

You need to be logged in to post a comment.