Application of Frames to the Practice of Translation with Reference to News Translation

Abstract

In this article, I have discussed how a translation must be "coherent" (Vermeer 1996) within the context of the target reader. This coherence is achieved by the "awareness of receivers' assumptions and expectations" (Mason 2000:16).In order to illustrate this rather nebulous idea of reader assumptions and expectations, we have adopted the useful concept of frames. As to the interactional aspect of frames, I have seen that the interactonal distance (Lee 1996) between interactants (that is, the news writer and news readers) is established differently in the ST and TT. While the English source texts, in the present study, make frequent use of solidarity-creating expressions, the Korean target texts resort to distance-maintaining markers. This leads us to suggest that different interactional frames are brought into play in the ST and the TT. Accordingly, the claim has been made that the translator is required to skillfully adjust these varying interactional distances. This claim should constitute the heart of audience design espoused by many scholars including Bell (1991) in the field of the news and Mason (2002) in the branch of translation.I have also suggested that this variance in interactive frames is closely related to differing textual rituals governing the ST and the TT. These textual rituals are something that have been acquired and reinforced by the text producer through his or her previous encounters with texts in the same genre and same discourse community. Consequently, the concept of intertextuality is a universal consideration that the translator should pay heed to in the translation of any genre, of which the news genre represents one example.