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Internazionale. The Translation Process Starts With The Selection of Sources To Be Analyzed. The

The translation process at Internazionale magazine involves several stages and gatekeepers that influence the final translated text. The process begins with editors selecting source materials to translate from a limited set of five languages that are ideologically aligned with the publication. Articles are then chosen for translation based on the reputation of the source/author, stylistic qualities, subject matter focus, and foreign perspectives on Italy. Translations are done off-site by freelance translators and aim to render the text as similar as possible to an Italian article while keeping the translator's role invisible to readers.

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62 views3 pages

Internazionale. The Translation Process Starts With The Selection of Sources To Be Analyzed. The

The translation process at Internazionale magazine involves several stages and gatekeepers that influence the final translated text. The process begins with editors selecting source materials to translate from a limited set of five languages that are ideologically aligned with the publication. Articles are then chosen for translation based on the reputation of the source/author, stylistic qualities, subject matter focus, and foreign perspectives on Italy. Translations are done off-site by freelance translators and aim to render the text as similar as possible to an Italian article while keeping the translator's role invisible to readers.

Uploaded by

Khofifah Hrp
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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3.

Translation process
All through the translation process, which starts from the selection of sources and ends with
readers’ reactions to the translated text, there is a series of gatekeepers that control the
information flow (Vuorinen: 1995). Each passage implies decisions that influence the final result
of the translation process, that is the actual target text. Hence the importance of studying the
attitude of the various characters involved in the translation process that takes place for
Internazionale. The translation process starts with the selection of sources to be analyzed. The
favoured sources are those that are akin to the Italian editorial board from the ideological and
political point of view.

This first stage of the translation process is already characterized by limitations due to the
languages known inside the editorial board, which basically are five: English, French, German,
Spanish, and Portuguese. As a consequence, newspapers published in other languages are
excluded. Internazionale does not aim to present a press review of newspapers from all over the
world (which is what some readers might expect from the magazine). The five languages
mentioned above already allow a reasonable coverage of most aspects of current international
news, also because the linguistic limitation is not paired by a limitation in selecting the sources.

Every week the editors, who select articles, analyze the most important and prestigious
newspapers from all over the world (leaders both for linguistic reasons as well as for their
status). Moreover they monitor a variable series of minor newspapers within the most important
countries and other newspapers from countries that belong to a cultural periphery (at least if we
look at them from an Italian and Western point of view). This is done with the clear intention of
giving voice to positions and topics that generally go unnoticed (Venuti: 1998 and 2000). For
instance, here is a list of newspapers selected from English between January and May 2006, from
which at least one article was taken and published:

The Star (Malaysia); The Christian Science Monitor (USA); Khaleej Times (United Arab
Emirates); South China Morning Post (Hong Kong); The Weekly standard (USA); New
Scientist (UK); The Observer (UK); The Sunday Times (UK); The Times (UK); The
Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan); Financial Times (UK); Globe and Mail (Australia); New
Statesman (UK); The New York Times Magazine (USA); The Australian (Australia);
The Guardian (UK); Mother Jones (USA); Outlook (India); The Hindu (India); The
Nation (USA); London Review of Books (UK); Malaysiakini (Malaysia); The
Progressive (USA); The Boston Globe (USA); The Wall Street Journal (USA); Dawn
(Pakistan); Al Ahram Weekly (Egypt); News from Africa (Kenya); Segye Times (South
Korea); Al Quds al Arabi (UK); Seed (USA); Discover (USA); The Bulletin (Australia);
The daily star (Lebanon); Al Watan (Saudi Arabia); Globe and Mail (Canada); Business
Day (South Africa); Slate (USA); The Irrawaddy (Thailand); The Atlantic Monthly
(USA); Open Democracy (UK); The Telegraph (India); The Daily Telegraph (UK)

This shows that, if on one hand the sources are recognized and well-known, on the other hand
there is space for minor sources that offer a different point of view of a specific event.
The translation process then moves on to the choice of text to be translated (Carbonell:
1996). The reasons that drive to the choice are various:

 Reputation of the source or the author: some articles are chosen because their author or
publisher is well known, so that they are interesting from a commercial point of view. Of
course this does not mean that articles are chosen regardless of their topic, but the
authority of the source contributes to guarantee translations prestige. They can also be
well-known figures who position themselves against the dominant ideology (Naomi
Klein, Noam Chomsky with their political positions), but anyway they enjoy an
unchallenged international status. In this sense, the status of the writer plays a
fundamental role (Ayala: 1985).
 Stylistic issues: Most articles are reportages, society pieces or travellers’ tales.
Internazionale is still a weekly magazine (even if peculiar in its kind) and as such
dedicates part of its space to texts of which the information aspect is secondary (Volli:
1994).
 Subject matter: in a sense they are the opposite of texts selected according to stylistic
issues. Some texts are chosen because they deal with subjects ignored by the mass Italian
press (which is unfortunately an easy task, as the Italian attention to international issues is
limited to a few subjects and countries, and some world zones are often neglected if not
completely ignored, as is the case with Latin America or Africa). In this case, the
information function prevails over the formal aspect: it does not matter whether an article
is badly written or if its style hardly fits with Internazionale’s, what does matter is its
subject. During the translation and proofreading stages it will be manipulated until it
complies with the style required by the editorial board.
 The way others see us: this last kind of text is very common in various Italian
newspapers, especially during these last few years of government. Learning opinions of
other countries about Italy has become almost an obsession for Italian newspapers.
Internazionale follows this trend. In this sense translation becomes a necessary
phenomenon: our country is now going through a (temporary?) moment of weakness and
translated texts represent a way of thinking about itself and promoting internal debate
(Even-Zohar: 1978).

Once selected, the original text is sent to the translator who works away from the editorial
office to create the actual translation. Translators working for Internazionale are characterized by
two aspects that influence translation strategies:

 Invisibility:
- from the graphical point of view, because the translator’s name is given very little space
compared to the author’s;
- from the point of view of translation strategies. The role of translation is to render the
target text as similar as possible to a newspaper article produced in Italian. The reader
must be left in peace and should not be expected to make the least effort to go towards
the text (Schleiermacher: 1813; Venuti: 1995).
 Loyalty: the translator is an expert who is given a specific task. Internazionale translators
are freelance and periodically work for the magazine, so they know in which section their
translation will be published. Some sections are more informative than others, and
according to the section chosen for the text, translators know how far they can push their
degree of

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