Aspectos Hostiles de la Política Exterior

The previous section has revealed the interplay between translation choices and ideological constraints and defined the behaviour of translators in relation to stance and voice in media translation studies. This section describes the relationships between media texts, power relations, and ideology in translation studies (TS) in order to further outline the way the studies of ideology and power relations are pertinent to Kurdish media translation.

The field of media studies has recently developed considerably. The study of print media, including the language of the press, was highly significant in laying the groundwork for critical analysis. Among others, Montgomery (2001, 2007) draws attention to the specific lexical, syntactic and stylistic features of the language of the press. Comparative studies opened up questions in many other areas, such as language quality, language reporting, journalistic ethics, and ideology and/or politics. The study of ideology and power relations has also been

22 _{First published in: Baker, M. 2007. Reframing Conflict in Translation. Social Semiotics 17(2), pp. 151–}

reflected in the language features and textual structures of media texts (e.g. van Dijk 1985, 1988a, 1991; Fairclough 1995a, 1995b, 2001). In addition, this consideration has most lately been extended to the “new media”, particularly the internet (see van Dijk 2006, p.76, Trimarco 2015, pp.56-75; Sheyholislami 2011; Tannen, and Marie Trester 2013). Nevertheless, a number of researchers have highlighted that translation is typically unobserved in media texts, while the study of reporting politicians’ words in translation is common (e.g. Bassnett 2004, 2005, Schäffner 2005, Holland 2006, Kang 2007, Bielsa 2007, Bielsa and Bassnett 2009, Bielsa and Hughes 2009). There is thus work to be done in examining the role of translation, especially online translation, which has not been fully researched in these studies and indeed has gone almost unnoticed (Schäffner and Bassnett 2010, p.3). Building on these studies, therefore, this study highlights the way translation functions in the context of Kurdish media, arguing that media translation reflects the manipulative existing socio-political ideology in Iraqi Kurdistan. It can be argued that media and translation share similar characteristics for they are both contrivances and devices of communication. They affect the way societies communicate and thus how culture is moulded in a variety of ways. Media, both as news and entertainment forms, have long been perceived as sites for the dissemination of ideology. According to Gitlin (1980):

Every day, directly or indirectly, by statement and omission, in picture and words, in entertainment and news and advertisement, the mass media produce fields of definition and association, symbol and rhetoric, through which ideology becomes manifest and concrete. (1980, p. 2)

When media forms are the product of powerful agents or institutions, they may reflect the ideas that support their interests as well. The same might hold true when it comes to the translations they provide. Schäffner and Bassnett (2010, p.2) argue that “there is a direct, though usually invisible link between politics, media and translation”. As explained in chapter one, media outlets in Iraqi Kurdistan are typical forms of politically aligned institutions. Thus, it can be argued that the translations they deliver might also support particular forms of socio-cultural and political stereotypes. However, while media reflects society and culture through different mediums such as words, images, audio-visuals and internet, translation does so only by words. The concept of media translation in this study thus is clustered only around media translated

texts and the study corpus of this study includes the available Kurdish online translations of the electronic English journalistic texts. In addition, the topics of the translated texts under scrutiny in this study are derived from and developed within Middle East culture, in general, and Kurdistan, in particular. Therefore, since the focus of this study is geopolitics and translation in media, the study will narrow down the discussion to one specific communicative context and text type, which is geopolitics and translated geopolitical texts (or geopolitical discourse). Following Dalby’s definition (1998), geopolitics is understood as a form of politics concerned with international global perspectives and therefore geopolitical texts are often writings that are underlined by ideological positioning (see the subsection 1.1.3 of chapter one). In this study, thus, media translated texts can be interpreted as institutionalised communicational ways of obtaining, establishing and preserving power and/or expressing ideology. With the development of technology, media texts have taken a significant position in today’s worldwide mass-media communication. Briggs and Cobley (2002) state that:

These texts are important as a result of their ubiquity and because there is widespread belief that they contribute to the production of our ‘common-sense’ understandings of the world. As such, media texts are thought to affect, in a very real sense, the way in which we understand ourselves/others and the way we lead our lives. (2002, p. 307)

Amongst different genres, media geopolitical commentary-texts may seem more challenging for translation. Outwardly, they may look as similar to the other text types but the ideas behind the lexico-grammatical choice and message of these texts are enigmatic and subtle. Ideologies, attitudes, and feelings are communicated through the written or spoken language and by scrutinising it we can interpret the writer’s thoughts and attitude about or towards an event or phenomenon.

Thornborrow (2004, p. 52) further explains that “the most important and interesting aspects of the potential power of the media from a linguistic point of view are the way that people and events get reported.” This reporting comes into view either through a written or a spoken language. Languages have relatedness beyond linguistics which uncover the mechanisms through which one makes sense of the world (Turner 2003, p.12). In other words,

the complex nature of the language of media texts is bound up with socio-cultural relations in terms of the actions, opinions and values of dominant groups in society. Lefevere’s (1992b) notion of patronage and Chesterman’s (1997) concept of norms help in exploring the way this study demonstrates the relationships between media language and the attitude and values of dominant groups in Kurdish society. Aspects of political and institutional ideology, which emerge from looking at translated media texts, contribute significantly to the way translation shapes media discourses. In this sense, media language tends to act ideologically, not so much due to prejudice, but simply because of the nature of established routine practices. However, it can also be used not only to “steer people’s thoughts and beliefs but also to control their thoughts and beliefs” (Jones and Wareing 2004, p. 35)23_{, with the language of propaganda as a}

prominent example.

Speaking of journalistic techniques in this respect, van Dijk (1991) contends that the journalistic text is like "an iceberg of information," of which only the "tip" is really expressed in words and sentences. According to him, the analysis of the implicitness is very helpful in the study of underlying ideologies since ideologies and intentions are not always stated clearly and explicitly (p.181). Understanding the textual features of media texts, including translated texts, thus, inevitably involve the creators and readers of the texts as well as the socio-cultural and political relationships holding between the participants involved. This understanding also involves possible statuses between parties concerned that, in turn, beget varied power relations. Power, here, is interpreted as the social power of groups or institutions over the participant’s use of language. Media language, thus, is a very significant tool for obtaining and preserving such power in communicative contexts. In this sense, politics can be expounded in relation to power. Chilton (2004) talks about two general aspects of politics as follows:

On the one hand, politics is viewed as a struggle for power, between those who seek to assert and maintain their power and those who seek to resist it. […] On the other hand, politics is viewed as cooperation, as the practices and

23 _{Italicisation is the original emphasis.}

institutions that a society has for resolving clashes of interest over money, influence, liberty, and the like. (2004, p.3)

In any case, since Kurdish media texts are the product of powerful and dominant institutions that are directly or indirectly affiliated to the existing political parties in Kurdistan (see chapters 1 and 4 for details), the analysis of their language can provide insights into how a particular media is used to represent particular social and political groups, and provide ways to resist or incorporate those groups and/or events. In this sense, if the power of the media language can “influence knowledge, beliefs, values, social identities” (Fairclough 1995b, p. 2), it is also feasible to argue that the ability to construct meaning in media translation can be attributed to the mechanisms of language within society and culture. This study therefore aims to explore ideological mediation in translation by investigating the language used in the geopolitical journalistic articles translated into Kurdish from English. This, in turn, might indicate that media translation in Iraqi Kurdistan reflects and helps in shaping the manipulative existing ideology in society.