Bringing the News Back Home: Strategies of Acculturation and Foreignisation

This paper considers the long-standing debate in the field of translation concerning whether texts should be fully acculturated into the target system or should retain traces of their foreign origin. The author suggests that these debates become redundant, if not counter-productive in the field of news translation, where the demands of the target audience, the time constraints and the hybrid nature of the linguistic processes involved in creating global news approximate more closely to what happens in interpreting, where the target needs take precedence and acculturation becomes the dominant strategy. The paper also raises a fundamental question about the nature of news translation, and asks whether we have an adequate definition of the whole, complex process. The argument is illustrated by two case studies: translated transcripts of the first court appearance of Saddam Hussein and a statement issued by al Qaida following the terrorist bombing of the British consulate in Istanbul in November 2003.