Media Translation as Meta-Communication: Quotes in News Reports and Invisibility of Translation Acts

Abstract

This paper focuses on quotes in international news reports and looks at the relationship between the quotation and translation invisibility. It analyzes news discourse relating to the recent national census in Bosnia and Hercegovina carried out for the first time in 20 years. It aims at exploring the dynamic process of media translation as meta-communication, drawing on the event model of semiotic anthropology. Generally, the translation of quotes in news has been thought of as the faithful reproduction of original utterances, where texts are simply transferred from one language into another and equivalence in meaning is easily achieved. This premise has supported authenticity in news. This study of media discourse shows that in translation of quotes there is little shift on the level of a referential practice concerning “what is said.” On the other hand, relatively significant shifts occur on the level of a non-referential, social-indexical practice related to “what is done,” a practice that indexes the identities and ideologies of the language users. This implies that translation activity is a multi-layered process and meta-communication that occurs in a sociocultural and historical context. Finally, this study points to the challenge of media translation in transferring such elements as non-referential, social-indexical, and meta-pragmatic functions in quotes.