A study on framing strategies employed in English-to-Chinese transediting of news about aircraft accidents

• Main Author: Lim, Li Khee
• Other Authors: Helena Gao
• Format: Thesis-Master by Coursework
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2020
• Subjects: Humanities::Language
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/138692
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

News about aircraft accidents has been dominating the category of breaking news in the past 20 years. Such breaking news is transedited by news agencies for target readers around the world, possibly with the use of framing strategies. When aircraft accidents occur, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) mandates the release of official investigation reports at specific times. However, readers’ attention span for aircraft accident news was found to dwindle within a week of the accident, so news agencies had the challenge of maintaining readership. This paper thus investigates whether framing strategies were employed in English-to-Chinese translations of news about aircraft accidents, and whether there was a difference between the transediting strategies undertaken before and after official reports were released. News about eight aircraft accidents that occurred in the past 10 years was identified, and English and Chinese news articles were collected from various news sites. 87 entries were highlighted for analysis, and it was found that the framing strategies of selective appropriation, labelling and ambiguity were indeed undertaken. Details that put parties in a positive light were omitted, while remarks that highlighted suspicions were added and presented in more affirmative tones. Complex information like aircraft components and detailed recounts was also found to be replaced by simple labels. These could be attributed to the Skopos theory, where the target news text had to adhere to the conventions of “news” for Chinese readers, and had to be simple. For disaster news, readers also tended to search for culprits. As the news articles served the same purpose to readers before and after official investigation reports were released, no difference was found in the framing strategies employed. Further research can be done on other types of disaster news for a comparison on the framing strategies employed.