Abstract
Many an ethically minded translator would think twice or thrice prior to translating an ideologically loaded text as they need to reflect the encoded ideologies of the original narrative in the target narrative. Yet, some translators decide, for different reasons, to undermine and challenge the narratives in question, thus applying various reframing strategies to superimpose certain directionality on the original narratives. This paper, therefore, examines the English translations of the Arabic editorials on Daesh (ISIS), published by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) that has a large impact on the US policy and the public. In this paper, we explain how media translation contributes to (re)framing the current civil war in Syria on the one hand, and how this promotes the narrative of ‘Arab and Muslim terrorists’ on the other. The study finds that by relying on the narrativity feature of selective appropriation, MEMRI extensively employs the textual reframing tools, i.e., addition and omission, thus promoting different narratives of the civil war. We propose that rival narratives could be circulated through translation where the translators reframe the original narratives and reconstruct the embedded narrativity features that, in turn, renegotiate the original arguments.
About the authors
Nael F. M. Hijjo holds a doctoral degree in Translation Studies from the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics at University of Malaya. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. His research interests include Translation Studies, Narrative Inquiry, Framing Theory, Intercultural Communication and Middle Eastern Studies.
Ali Almanna received his PhD in Translation Studies from the University of Durham, UK and is currently an Associate Professor of Translation at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. His research interests include Critical Discourse Analysis, Cognitive Linguistics, Narrative Theory, Frames and Framings. His most recent book-length publications are Reframing Realities Through Translation (2020, Peter Lang) and Translation as a Set of Frames (2021, Routledge).
References
Almanna, Ali. 2016. Semantics for translation students: Arabic-English-Arabic. Oxford: Peter Lang.10.3726/978-3-0353-0840-2Search in Google Scholar
Almanna, Ali. 2020. Translation as a set of frames. In Almanna Ali & Martínez Sierra Juan José (eds.), Re-framing realities through translation, 11–20. Oxford: Peter Lang.10.4324/9781003024828Search in Google Scholar
Al-Sharif, Souhad S. H. 2009. Translation in the service of advocacy: Narrating Palestine and Palestinian women in translations by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). The University of Manchester PhD diss.Search in Google Scholar
Anyanwu, Chika. 2018. Fear of communicating fear versus fear of terrorism: A human rights violation or a sign of our time? International Journal of Speech Language Pathology 20(1). 26–33.10.1080/17549507.2018.1419281Search in Google Scholar
Baker, Mona. 2006. Translation and conflict: A narrative account. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203099919Search in Google Scholar
Bal, Mieke. 1985[1997]. Narratology: Introduction to the theory of narrative. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Search in Google Scholar
Bal, Mieke. 2009. Narratology: Introduction to the theory of Narrative, 3rd edn. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Search in Google Scholar
Borah, Porismita. 2011. Conceptual issues in framing theory: A systematic examination of a decade’s literature. Journal of Communication 61(2). 246–263. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2011.01539.x.Search in Google Scholar
Bruner, Jerome. 1991. The narrative construction of reality. Critical Inquiry 18(1). 1–21.10.1086/448619Search in Google Scholar
Cacciatore, Michael A., Dietram A. Scheufele & Shanto Iyengar. 2015. The end of framing as we know it… and the future of media effects. Mass Communication & Society 19(1). 7–23.10.4324/9781315164441-10Search in Google Scholar
Chong, Dennis & James N. Druckman. 2007. Framing theory. Annual Review of Political Science 10. 103–126. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.10.072805.103054.Search in Google Scholar
D’Angelo, Paul & Jim A. Kuypers (eds.). 2010. Doing news framing analysis: Empirical and theoretical perspectives. London: Taylor & Francis.Search in Google Scholar
Druckman, James N. 2001. On the limits of framing effects: Who can frame? The Journal of Politics 63(4). 1041–1066. https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-3816.00100.Search in Google Scholar
Entman, Robert M. 1991. Framing US coverage of international news: Contrasts in narratives of the KAL and Iran air incidents. Journal of Communication 41(4). 6–27. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1991.tb02328.x.Search in Google Scholar
Fisher, Walter R. 1987. Human communication as narration: Toward a philosophy of reason, value, and action. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.Search in Google Scholar
Gambier, Yves. 2006. Transformations in international news. In Kyle Conway & Susan Bassnett (eds.), Translation in global news, 9–23. Coventry: University of Warwick Centre for Translation and Comparative Studies.Search in Google Scholar
Garyantes, Dianne M. & Priscilla J. Murphy. 2010. Success or chaos? Framing and ideology in news coverage of the Iraqi national elections. International Communication Gazette 72(2). 151–170. https://doi.org/10.1177/1748048509353866.Search in Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Harris, Leah. 2003. A note on MEMRI & translations, Counterpunch, 15 January. Available online at: www.counterpunch.org/harris01152003.html (accessed 15 February 2016). Search in Google Scholar
Hatim, Basil & Ian Mason. 1997. The translator as communicator. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Hertog, James K. & Douglas M. McLeod. 2001. A multiperspectival approach to framing analysis: A field guide. In Stephen D. Reese, Oscar H. Gandy & August E. Grant (eds.), Framing public life: Perspectives on media and our understanding of the social world, 139–161. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Hijjo, Nael F. M. 2018. Narrative analysis of MEMRI’s English translations of Arabic editorials on Daesh. University of Malaya Unpublished PhD thesis.Search in Google Scholar
Hijjo, Nael F. M. & Surinderpal Kaur. 2017. Recontextualizing terror: ISIS narratives in the English media. International Journal of Euro-Mediterranean Studies 10(2). 49–77.Search in Google Scholar
Johnson-Cartee, Karen S. 2005. News narratives and news framing: Constructing political reality. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.Search in Google Scholar
Kitzinger, Jenny. 2000. Media templates: Patterns of association and the (re)construction of meaning over time. Media, Culture & Society 22(1). 61–84.10.1177/016344300022001004Search in Google Scholar
Liu, Nancy X. 2017. Same perspective, different effect: Framing the economy through financial news translation. Perspectives 25(3). 452–463. https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676X.2017.1287203.Search in Google Scholar
Nelson, Thomas E., Zoe M. Oxley & Rosalee A. Clawson. 1997. Toward a psychology of framing effects. Political Behavior 19(3). 221–246.10.1023/A:1024834831093Search in Google Scholar
Nisbet, Matthew C. 2010. Knowledge into action: Framing the debates over climate change and poverty. In D’Angelo Paul & Jim A. Kuypers (eds.), Doing news framing analysis: Empirical and theoretical perspectives, 43–83. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Somers, Margaret R. 1992. Narrativity, narrative identity, and social action: Rethinking English working-class formation. Social Science History 16(4). 591–630.10.1017/S0145553200016679Search in Google Scholar
Somers, Margaret R. 1994. The narrative constitution of identity: A relational and network approach. Theory and Society 23(5). 605–649.10.1007/BF00992905Search in Google Scholar
Somers, Margaret R. 1997. Deconstructing and reconstructing class formation theory: Narrativity, relational analysis, and social theory. In John R. Hall (ed.), Reworking class, 73–105. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah. 1993. Framing in discourse. New York: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Valdeón, Roberto A. 2015. Fifteen years of journalistic translation research and more. Perspectives 23(4). 634–662.10.1080/0907676X.2015.1057187Search in Google Scholar
van Doorslaer, Luc. 2010. The double extension of translation in the journalistic field. Across Languages and Cultures 11(2). 175–188. https://doi.org/10.1556/Acr.11.2010.2.3.Search in Google Scholar
Wesel, Jaap Van. 2003. MEMRI games. Media translation psyches Arabs. The Jerusalem Report. http://www.jerusalemsummit.org/eng/razdel.php?id=18&article_id=82 (accessed 10 October 2016).Search in Google Scholar
Wu, Xiaoping. 2017. Framing, reframing and the transformation of stance in news translation: A case study of the translation of news on the China–Japan dispute. Language and Intercultural Communication 18(2). 257–274.10.1080/14708477.2017.1304951Search in Google Scholar
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
