Translation, Interpreting, and Transfer. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2020. 204 pp. (Tables.) US$49.00, paper. ISBN 978-94-6270-194-6.
Have you ever wondered how the speeches of English-speaking political elites are conveyed to readers in non-English-speaking countries? Most international news requires some level of translation, ranging from paraphrasing to literal translations contained in direct quotations. Yet most international news reports are not translated by professionally trained translators but by journalist-cum-translators known as “journalators.” Lacking universal guidelines or training to support them in this essential aspect of their profession, and given varying levels of language proficiency, the translation strategies taken by journalist-translators differ within and across countries according to whom and what is being translated. In February 2017, for example, the French newspaper Le Monde published a literal translation of a Trump diatribe with the disclaimer that “syntax errors have been deliberately left in.” In contrast, Indian journalists generally paraphrase Trump, gaining lucidity by concealing errors in syntax, grammar, and fact. The decisions journalists make in the process of translating are clearly an area ripe for analysis, but few academics have sought to systematically explain them or the impact they have on the public. When News Travels East by Kayo Matsushita, an expert in interpreting and translation studies, is a welcome exception.
When News Travels East broadens our general knowledge of the role of translation in international news production while also contributing an important empirical case study of Japanese newspaper translation practices. The work contains eight concise chapters, an afterward, and appendices. The first four chapters set the frame: a literature review reveals that existing theories have not been effective in explaining instances where translators have chosen “unethical or non-standard practices” (25). This is followed by an overview of the historical development of Japanese journalism and a lengthy review of scholarship in the field of risk analysis. Situating her analysis within extant theories in the field of Translation and Interpretation Studies (TIS), Matsushita turns to its dominant paradigm, “apply[ing] the methods of risk analysis used in neo-classical economics to the field of translation” (63). The book is both process- and product-oriented; the author utilizes a mixed-method approach combining textual analysis with interviews to explain the decisions and actions of Japanese journalist-translators as they turn source texts (ST) into target texts (TT) with interesting, though not always intuitive, results.
The second half of the book contains analyses of several datasets created by the author. One of these compares the translingual quoting practices of two Japanese newspapers (Asahi, Yomiuri) during the first 100 days of the Obama and Trump administrations. The analysis reveals that although Japanese media outlets published twice as many articles about Trump’s first 100 days than Obama’s, Trump had a substantially lower percentage of direct quotations. Explaining that this discrepancy results from the “untranslatability of President Trump’s words” (94), the author subsequently limits the analysis in a second case solely to direct quotes from President Obama’s speeches.
A second case study uses risk management to analyze 150 direct quotes extracted from 45 Japanese-language articles published in six newspapers during the 2012 US Presidential election and subsequent inauguration. The author distills and then examines three translingual quoting strategies from this corpus, including omission, addition, and substitution. Several initial risk-based hypotheses about how and why journalists used these strategies are corroborated through interviews with Japanese journalators. The book’s penultimate chapter (chapter 7) discusses significant and rather surprising “unethical and non-standard practices” (119) by Japanese journalators in translating Obama’s speeches. Of particular concern is the reported abuse of quotation marks in Japanese news reports of President’s Obama’s inaugural speech. According to the author, “President Obama’s speeches were inaccurately translated in a significant number of cases but were nevertheless presented as direct quotations…” (135). Matsushita’s suggestion that this behaviour is driven by a risk orientation is supported by corroborating interviewees, one of whom confesses that “it is only when we become aware that someone is checking the translation that we start translating more seriously” (140). However, it is also possible that this behaviour may not be motivated solely by calculations of risk. Other possible factors include insufficient language proficiency, the lack of clearly-written, strictly-enforced guidelines, and an apparent disregard among Japanese journalators for universal journalistic norms related to the use of quotations. Many such omissions described in the book are in fact mistranslations, which are certainly not low risk once discovered.
Matsushita finds that the Japanese practice of altering direct quotes by omitting some of the source’s words only occurs with translingual (foreign) reporting and not intralingual (domestic) reporting. She argues that intralingual reporting is inherently riskier because the Japanese prime minister, for example, is likely following Japanese newspaper content, while an American president is not. There are, however, other possible explanations for omission, again having nothing to do with risk: first, intralingual reports do not involve translation, making them less not more risky; second, Japanese domestic political stories are covered by domestic journalists residing in “kisha (press] clubs,” reducing the level of risk; finally, the close collaboration between club journalists and their handlers easily explains the lack of omission, as journalists are regularly provided embargoed copies of important speeches.
In sum, the author concludes that omitting text in direct quotes from President Obama’s speeches was considered low risk, but would be high risk if the situation involved the Japanese prime minister. This seems counterintuitive, especially given the universal acceptance among journalists that quotation marks are sacred. From the point of view of credibility and trust, then, violating this norm is a high-risk act that should be avoided. Although there are some concerns about the risk-based analytical framework and its ability to sufficiently explain anomalous translation decisions, this book remains an important foray into a seriously understudied topic. Matsushita should be commended for stepping in and furthering our understanding of this complex issue.
Laurie Freeman
University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara