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A Cultural Studies Approach To Semantic Instability The Case Of News Translation
1. Title: âA cultural studies approach to semantic instability: The case of news translationâ
Author: Kyle Conway
Journal: Linguistica Antverpiensia New Series
Issue: 7
Date: 2008
2. A cultural studies approach to semantic instability: The case
of news translation
Kyle Conway1
University of North Dakota (USA)
This article explores news translation and the semantic instability of politi-
cally charged words and their translations. Such pairs are linked in a pa-
radoxical relationship of dependence (one is a translation of the other) and
independence (they have evolved and continue to evolve within different
conceptual horizons). This paper describes a methodology for addressing
this phenomenon by considering such pairs as examples of âessentially
contested conceptsâ (Gallie 1956). This methodology derives from a circuit
model of culture, and it provides translation studies scholars with tools to
describe the dynamic, historically conditioned relationships linking politi-
cally charged words, their translations, and their contested, frequently
contradictory meanings.
1. Introduction: news translation
As the speed of global communication increases, so does academic interest
in news translation. âIn our multi-lingual, multi-cultural world,â writes
Susan Bassnett,
information flows through, around, and across language boundaries,
and the speed of the flows means that obstacles to communication
have to be erased as quickly and smoothly as possible. The processes
of global news transfer are extremely complex, and yet the end-
product must be available quickly, efficiently and, insofar as anyone
can judge, accurately. (2005: 105)
This recent interest builds on a relatively sparse literature made up of ar-
ticles published sporadically since the 1970s. They fall into three main
groups, the first of which includes articles focusing on international news
flow, especially as it is facilitated by international news agencies (e.g. Lee-
Reoma 1978; Wilke & Rosenberger 1994). The second group, which in-
cludes articles by academics and journalists alike, examines the journalistâs
institutional role in collecting and writing news about people belonging to
different cultures, nations, or linguistic groups (e.g. Chu 1984; Goldscheid-
er 2004). The third (and smallest) group of articles compares original texts
and their translations (e.g. Abdel-Hafiz 2002; see Bassnett 2005 and Con-
way & Bassnett 2006 for recent examples of all three types).
3. Kyle Conway
30
While we should not underestimate the value of past research, these
studies all share a common shortcoming: they all focus on the journalist-as-
translator (the two roles are often filled by the same person) as the crucial
actor in the processes of meaning-making. Journalists negotiate relation-
ships in foreign cultures, finding fixers who help them meet and interview
local people. They act as gatekeepers, deciding what to include and what to
omit. They take âtranslated versions of texts such as official speeches, in-
terviews, witnessesâ accounts of factsâ and use them âas raw material for
the construction of news storiesâ (Orengo 2005: 173). They are the arbiters,
past research tells us, of what foreign news is made available to readers,
listeners, and viewers.
This focus on the journalist, however, obscures the role played by
other important actors â including those whose speech journalists cite â in
attributing meaning to words and events. What is the role of speech writers,
to name one example, in shaping the meanings of key politically charged
terms, for instance âwarâ and âterrorâ in George Bushâs speeches imme-
diately following the attacks of September 11, 2001 (Montgomery 2006)?
What are the roles of public officials, academic experts, and people-on-the-
street? What happens when such terms are translated and reported in a cul-
tural context where they bear a different semantic charge?
Such words and their translations are in fact linked in a paradoxical
relationship of dependence and independence: dependence, first, because
one is a translation of the other (or, more accurately in some cases, they are
translations of each other); and independence, second, because both the
word and its translation have evolved within different conceptual horizons.
More important, they continue to evolve as journalists and political actors
engage in a larger ideological struggle to give them meaning (Conway
2005). Drawing examples from English- and French-language coverage by
the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation of the Meech Lake constitutional
accord in 1990, this article describes a methodology for addressing this
phenomenon of relative semantic instability by considering such pairs as
examples of âessentially contested conceptsâ (Gallie 1956). This methodol-
ogy, in contrast to that of past research, shifts focus away from the journal-
ist to the relation of the journalist to the larger social and industrial system.
It derives from a cultural studies circuit model of culture, and it provides
translation studies scholars with tools to describe the dynamic, historically
conditioned relationships linking politically charged words, their transla-
tions, and their contested, frequently contradictory meanings.
2. A more dynamic conception of semantics
Past research on news translation has treated meaning as one consideration
among others that figure in a journalistâs decision-making process. Stella
Sorby (2006) asks, for instance, how journalists working between Chinese
and English account for the approval or disapproval implied by many Chi-
4. A cultural studies approach to semantic instability 31
nese words when English words tend more toward neutrality. What this
research has neglected, however, is the historical dimension of meaning â
how words come to evoke specific associations for different speakers and
listeners.
âMeaningâ here, to be clear, refers to more than mere denotation (see
Hall 1980: 132â133). Instead, it includes the broad, contested set of conno-
tations associated with a word. What a speaker seeks to evoke and what is
evoked for a listener may not be the same thing, at which point a certain
politics enters the equation: what happens when a word evokes different
associations for different people? Whose associations win out when two
people or groups of people disagree about what a word means, that is, what
it connotes?
Examining this politics involves examining a word and its translation
in all of their historical dimensions. As mentioned above, two tools are
especially useful in this task: W.B. Gallieâs (1956) notion of essentially
contested concepts, which provides a vocabulary for describing the com-
plex set of associations (and the tensions between them) evoked by a word,
and the circuit model of culture, developed by cultural studies scholars (e.g.
Hall 1980; DâAcci 2004) as a means to describe the interactions between
competing forces shaping a text, a cultural artifact, or in this case, a word.
2.1. Essentially contested concepts
In a paper he delivered to the Aristotelian Society in 1956, W.B. Gallie
(1956: 121â122) observed that there existed a class of concepts which,
when evoked, were âliable to be contested because of an evident disagree-
ment as to â and the consequent need for philosophical elucidation of â
[their] proper general use [...].â He went on to argue, however, that for cer-
tain concepts, the very idea that there should be a âproper general useâ was
misleading:
We find groups of people disagreeing about the proper use of [such]
concepts, e.g. of art, of democracy, of the Christian tradition. When
we examine the different uses of these terms and the characteristic
arguments in which they figure we soon see that there is no one
clearly definable general use of any of them which can be set up as
the correct or standard use. Different uses of the term âwork of artâ or
âdemocracyâ or âChristian doctrineâ subserve different though of
course not altogether unrelated functions for different schools or
movements of artists and critics, for different political groups and
parties, for different religious communities and sects.
Gallie (1956: 125, 131) identified seven traits that characterized concepts
such as these, which he described as âessentially contestedâ: 1) they were
evaluative or, in his words, âappraisiveâ, and 2) the achievement they de-
scribed was internally complex, 3) requiring an explanation that referred to
5. Kyle Conway
32
the ârespective contributions of its various parts or featuresâ. 4) The under-
standing of the achievement could be modified as circumstances changed 5)
because everyone using the concept recognized its contested nature. Final-
ly, 6) such concepts referred back to an original exemplar, 7) the under-
standing of which also developed as people argued about it.
One of Gallieâs (1956: 141) stated goals was to shift philosophersâ
(and linguistsâ) attention away from a conception of meaning informed by
the assumptions of classical systems of logic to one informed by hermeneu-
tics or at least historical investigation: âAt any given stage in the history of
the continued uses of any essentially contested concept, it will no doubt be
necessary to call upon psychological or sociological history or the known
historical facts of a personâs or groupâs background, to explain their present
preferences and adherences.â This shift has important implications for ques-
tions of cross-cultural communication, and by extension translation, as
William Connolly (1974: 38) points out: âWhen we see the extent to which
shared concepts and beliefs enter into our emotional states and actions, it is
immediately clear that other societies could populate the world of action
and emotion rather differently than we do.â
In other words, a concept might be essentially contested in various
cultural and linguistic contexts, but contested differently, with groups in
each context placing different value on the conceptâs constituent parts. This
situation is further complicated when we consider the relationship of such
concepts to language: the associations evoked by the word that names a
concept in one language are unlikely to map directly onto the associations
evoked by that wordâs translation in another. As Christina SchĂ€ffner (2004:
121) has demonstrated, differences between languages become especially
acute in news translation about politics, when journalists or the people they
cite make âstrategic use of political concepts, or keywords, for achieving
specific political aims.â
Thus Gallieâs conceptual tool raises a larger methodological ques-
tion, namely how to identify and describe the forces that shape the interpre-
tations and consequent uses made of essentially contested concepts at a
given historical moment.
2.2. Circuit model of culture
Cultural studies scholars, beginning with those working at the Centre for
Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham, England, have proposed
various circuit models of culture for dealing with questions such as this.
Stuart Hall (1980: 128) was the author of the first (and best known) model,
the âencoding/decodingâ model, which borrowed the idea from Marxâs
Grundrisse that commodity production (in particular, production of televi-
sion programming) could be studied as a âcontinuous circuit â production-
distribution-production â [that is] sustained through a âpassage of formsâ.â
Several scholars have reworked Hallâs model, most recently Julie DâAcci
(2004), who locates cultural studiesâ object of analysis in the articulation of
6. A cultural studies approach to semantic instability 33
four discursive sites centered around 1) a cultural artifact, 2) its production,
3) its reception, and 4) the relevant socio-historical context.
Concern for context is not new, of course. SchÀffner (2004: 137), for
instance, observes that âtranslations (as target texts) reveal the impact of
discursive, social, and ideological conventions, norms and constraints. By
linking translations (as products) to their social contexts, causes and effects
of translations can be discovered [...].â The circuit model goes a step fur-
ther, however, by directing researchersâ attention to the dialectical nature of
the relationship of the translator or journalist to the larger social context:
translators and journalists, through the texts they produce, have an impact
on the very context that shapes their texts in the first place. Hence the cir-
cuit. DâAcci (2004: 433) makes this point when she states, first, that her
four sites represent points of convergence of âeconomic, cultural, social,
and subjective discourses,â and second, that applying the circuit model
means describing those discourses in conjunction with the ways the four
sites are articulated or linked.
To apply DâAcciâs model to words that evoke essentially contested
concepts in news and news translation, then, the first step is to identify
these four sites:
âą Artifact: the word or words in question as they are spoken by politi-
cal figures, experts, people-on-the-street, etc., and incorporated into
news stories
âą Production: the work performed by translators and journalists, influ-
enced by their social, institutional, and political roles, as well as by
their sense of professional norms, etc.
âą Reception: the consumption and interpretation of stories by readers,
listeners, and viewers, as influenced by their political, cultural, or
other beliefs
âą Socio-historical context: the network of other events or issues per-
ceived by translators, journalists, viewers, politicians, etc., as rele-
vant to the events described by journalists in the stories they present
Figure 1 describes these sites as they relate to coverage of the Meech Lake
Accord by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, discussed in more detail
in section 3 (cf. DâAcci 2004: 432).
The second step is to map out the circuit by describing the ways
these sites are linked. The questions linking the rectangles in Figure 1 indi-
cate relevant concerns. For instance, how do journalistsâ roles within a
news organization, shaped by their relationships to their editors, to the
owners of the organization for which they work, and so on, affect how they
incorporate key politically charged words into their stories? How do news
consumersâ belief systems influence their interpretations of those words in
the stories they see, read, or hear? How do news consumersâ interpretations
in turn, through feedback mechanisms such as television ratings and public
opinion polls, influence journalists in their work?2
7. Kyle Conway
34
Describing these points of articulation helps clarify how politically
charged words, their translations, and the concepts they evoke circulate,
making it possible to account for factors beyond those directly related to the
journalist that contribute to the processes of meaning-making.
3. The Meech Lake Accord
News coverage of the Meech Lake constitutional debates by the English-
and French-language television networks of the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation (the CBC and Radio-Canada, respectively) offers a good illu-
artifact: word as
incorporated
into news stories
production:
institutional,
political role
of journalists
reception: role
of viewersâ
political
views, percep-
tions
socio-historical
context: national
identities & the
constitution
How do viewersâ
identities affect
their political
views & vice
versa?
How do view-
ersâ political
views affect
their interpreta-
tion of news
stories?
How do
journalistsâ
institutional
roles shape
their stories?
How do the
politics of
national identi-
ty shape jour-
nalistsâ institu-
tional roles?
How does context
affect which pers-
pectives are in-
cluded/excluded?
How do
viewer
attitudes
influence
journalistsâ
stories &
vice versa?
Figure 1: DâAcciâs (2004) circuit model applied to coverage of the
Meech Lake Accord by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation