| Abstract [eng] |
The topic of this master’s final degree project is “A Multimodal Perspective on the Construction of Newsworthiness in the Translated News Headlines of the Lithuanian Radio and Television News Portal”. This topic is chosen as a response to the emerging interest in the news translation research field and the notion that journalists and news translators govern the power to create different representations of events by making them appear as newsworthy to the readers (Bednarek and Caple, 2017). The aim of this thesis is to investigate how newsworthiness is constructed in the headlines and images published in the source news items of the Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty (RFE/ RL) news portal and the target news items of the Lithuanian Radio and Television (LRT) news portal. To achieve this aim, the objectives are as follows: to provide a systematic literature review covering the research from the past two decades about the phenomenon of news translation from the interdisciplinary and multimodal perspective of translation and media study fields; to identify the most dominant news values that are used to create newsworthiness in the source and target news headlines and the main images of the RFE/ RL and LRT news portals; to examine the translation changes in terms of how news values are used in the headlines and the main images of the LRT news items to create meaning for the target readers; to investigate the perceptions of the news translators, who are working in the LRT news organization about the construction of newsworthiness and other influential factors regarding news translation in their professional practice; to investigate the perception towards the translated online news headlines and images among the target readers. In this thesis, a total of 100 news headlines and images are analyzed by employing a mixed methodology constructed of both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The analysis is threefold, covering the translation product, translation process, and translation reception levels. For the product analysis, a Discursive News Value Analysis approach is implemented, as this multimodal approach was created to analyze how various linguistic and visual resources are used to construct newsworthiness in the news items (Bednarek and Caple, 2017). For the process and target reader reception evaluations, a Critical Discourse Analysis perspective was employed. Two questionnaires were used and provided insight into the news translation practices and how the readers perceive the final translation product. The findings broaden the understanding about news translation as an interdisciplinary study area and reveal the news translator as an important intermediary between the original news author and the target reader. The findings suggest that in the process of translation the newsworthiness was increased. This was done in one of the three ways, i.e., by adding linguistic resources to the headline; by altering the image; or by choosing an entirely different image. Therefore, the aim of the LRT news organization to be objective news providers was not reflected well in their practice in this aspect. Some strategies to construct the events as newsworthy in the process of translation are a conscious decision made by a translator. However, the increase of the newsworthy aspects across the textual and visual modes, which is evidently done by a news translator, does not always result in positive attitudes among the target readers: while the reading interest might be enhanced because of news headline and the main image, the level of trust in the news item can decrease. The findings of this study can provide insight into the quality of the news translation products in Lithuania. They can also provide insights into how certain practices can be changed to reflect the mission and values of the national broadcaster. By grounding the ideas on the translated news product reception results, useful information for news translation training could also be provided. |
