Positioning in News Translation Regarding Hamas: A Parallel Corpus-Based Approach

Authors

  • Imamati Zikra Ar Rusyfa Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia
  • Frans Asisi Datang Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia
  • Junaidi Junaidi Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33394/jollt.v13i1.13445

Keywords:

Critical discourse analysis, News translation, Narrative theory, Appraisal theory, Parallel corpus,

Abstract

Translating news reports can hardly be free from subjectivity, especially in relation to a conflict, since the opposing ideology often creates friction that necessitates translators to assume complex and multifaceted roles. The concept of positioning refers to participants’ attitudes or stances toward the event or other participants in the event which significantly influences the interpretation of a text. The objective of this study is to examine the positioning regarding Hamas in a parallel corpus-based Israel-Palestine conflict. The corpus comprises 160 articles that have been translated from English to Indonesian. The researcher applied the evaluative model proposed by Pan and Liao (2020), that integrated CDA (Fairclough, 2013), Appraisal Theory (Martin & White, 2005), and Narrative Theory (Baker, 2006). It was found that the translators intentionally and carefully (re)positioned of Hamas by implementing a discursive strategy called redacted labelling in their actual activities. This can be done by omitting, adding, softening, and even strengthening the word construction embedded in these elements. The activities were motivated by the political stance of the news organization as determined by its official identity, media discourse counterpoints, the situation of the political of Indonesia toward the conflict, and their expectations of the reaction of the target audience. Examining news translation using CDA adds to translation theory by providing a critical perspective on how non-linguistic elements like ideology, power, and culture influence the translation process. It provides a more in-depth understanding of the translator's position as an agent who translates meanings, values, and worldviews as well as words.

Author Biographies

Imamati Zikra Ar Rusyfa, Universitas Indonesia

Linguistics Study Program, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia

Frans Asisi Datang, Universitas Indonesia

Linguistics Study Program, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia

Junaidi Junaidi, Universitas Indonesia

Linguistics Study Program, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia

References

Al-Hejin, B. (2012). Linking critical discourse analysis with translation studies: An example from BBC News. Journal of Language and Politics, 11(3), 311–335.

Allawzi, A., Al-Jabri, H., Ammari, D., & Ali, S. (2022). Translation as a political action: reframing ‘the deal of the century’in the translations of the BBC. Heliyon, 8(2).

Ayyad, A. (2024). Contested naming practices in the Palestinian–Israeli conflict: a translation perspective. Translation Studies, 17(2), 333–351.

Bergman, T. (2022). Manufacturing foreign news from afar: Views from an editor’s desk. Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies.

Bielsa, E. (2007). Translation in global news agencies. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies, 19(1), 135–155.

Bielsa, E. (2016). News translation: global or cosmopolitan connections? Media, Culture & Society, 38(2), 196–211.

Dubbati, B., & Abudayeh, H. (2018). The translator as an activist: reframing conflict in the Arabic translation of Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza. The Translator, 24(2), 147–165.

Fairclough, N. (2013). Language and power. Routledge.

González, L. P. (2014). ‘Ad-hocracies’ of translation activism in the blogosphere: A genealogical case study. In Text and context (pp. 265–293). Routledge.

Inghilleri, M., & Harding, S.-A. (2010). Translating violent conflict. The Translator, 16(2), 165–173.

Kang, J.-H. (2007). Recontextualization of news discourse: A case study of translation of news discourse on North Korea. The Translator, 13(2), 219–242.

Liao, S., & Pan, L. (2018). Interpreter mediation at political press conferences: A narrative account. Interpreting, 20(2), 188–203.

Liu, N. X. (2017). Same perspective, different effect: Framing the economy through financial news translation. Perspectives, 25(3), 452–463.

Luo, Y. (2015). News translation as a site of framing Chinese identity: The case of Yeeyan Sport. Ethnicities, 15(6), 829–847.

McLaughlin, M. L. (2015). News translation past and present: Silent witness and invisible intruder. Perspectives, 23(4), 552–569.

Pan, L. (2015). Ideological positioning in news translation: A case study of evaluative resources in reports on China. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies, 27(2), 215–237.

Pan, L., & Liao, S. (2021). News translation of reported conflicts: a corpus-based account of positioning. Perspectives, 29(5), 722–739.

Qin, B., & Zhang, M. (2018). Reframing translated news for target readers: a narrative account of news translation in Snowden’s discourses. Perspectives, 26(2), 261–276.

Rahman, A., & Apipuddin, A. (2018). The Critical Discourse Analysis of Translation Shift from the Word Use of Al-Quds to Jerusalem in Republika. Proceedings of AICS-Social Sciences, 8, 245–252.

Sanatifar, M. S., & Jalalian Daghigh, A. (2018). Translation as re-narration: a case of Iran’s nuclear program as circulated in the Western and Iranian media. Asia Pacific Translation and Intercultural Studies, 5(1), 3–20.

Tirado, F., & Gálvez, A. (2008). Positioning theory and discourse analysis: Some tools for social interaction analysis. Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 224–251.

Tsai, C. (2018). Reframing humor in TV news translation. In Chinese Translation Studies in the 21st Century (pp. 132–150). Routledge.

Valdeón, R. A. (2008). Anomalous news translation: Selective appropriation of themes and texts in the internet. Babel, 54(4), 299–326.

White, P. R. R. (2006). Evaluative semantics and ideological positioning in journalistic discourse. Mediating Ideology in Text and Image, 37–67.

Zanettin, F. (2016). ‘The deadliest error’: translation, international relations and the news media. The Translator, 22(3), 303–318.

Zhang, M., & Munday, J. (2018). Innovation in discourse analytic approaches to translation studies. In Perspectives (Vol. 26, Issue 2, pp. 159–165). Taylor & Francis.

Downloads

Published

2025-01-16

How to Cite

Ar Rusyfa, I. Z., Datang, F. A., & Junaidi, J. (2025). Positioning in News Translation Regarding Hamas: A Parallel Corpus-Based Approach. Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, 13(1), 60–73. https://doi.org/10.33394/jollt.v13i1.13445

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 1 (2025)

Section

Articles

Citation Check

License

License and Publishing Agreement
In submitting the manuscript to the journal, the authors certify that:

  1. They are authorized by their co-authors to enter into these arrangements.
  2. The work described has not been formally published before, except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review, thesis, or overlay journal.
  3. That it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere,
  4. That its publication has been approved by all the author(s) and by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – of the institutes where the work has been carried out.
  5. They secure the right to reproduce any material that has already been published or copyrighted elsewhere.
  6. They agree to the following license and publishing agreement.

Copyright
Authors who publish with JOLLT Journal of Languages and Language Teaching agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-SA 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. 
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
  3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.

Licensing for Data Publication

JOLLT Journal of Languages and Language Teaching uses a variety of waivers and licenses, that are specifically designed for and appropriate for the treatment of data:
Other data publishing licenses may be allowed as exceptions (subject to approval by the editor on a case-by-case basis) and should be justified with a written statement from the author, which will be published with the article.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.