News translation and national image in the time of Covid-19

Abstract

The press, as a culturally structured system, contributes to the formation of audience self-images – defining one's domestic identity – and hetero images – defining the Other. Using journalistic translation and journalism studies, this contribution explores the national image provided by the Italian press in news translated into English by the Ansa news agency website during the current COVID-19 pandemic. The few studies on news translations including the English-Italian language pair studied the linguistic characteristics of translated language (i.e. universals), thus making the analysis of national image in news translation an unexplored area. The methodological framework will be based on Critical Discourse Analysis' qualitative approach as well as two essential concepts from Journalism Studies. To begin with, the concept of gatekeeping can be used to explain the various flows of information and news provided in translated articles. Second, understanding the framework of news manipulation and rewriting will be made possible by understanding the concept of frame. The goal is to disclose how the Italian national image is communicated.