Understanding migration through translating the multimodal code

Abstract

Manipulating discoursal inferences in translated texts, among other things (Allanmand and Jaszczolt, 2012; Tipton and Desilla, 2019), affects pragmatic aspects of meaning-making and allows intended implications to follow from target messages. Press communication is keen on manipulating inference-making (both verbally and visually and press translation offers a unique opportunity for tracking down the specifics of pragmatic shifts, heightening awareness of the significance of multimodality in shaping identities and affecting public view.The study examines pragmatic variation in twenty pairs of web-retrieved English source and Greek target press news headlines and accompanying images on the European refugee crisis in 2015. It highlights how inference-drawing through verbal and visual discourses changes the meaning of the news, through translation strategizing. The study first shows that verbal discursive strategies re-narrate (rather than simply transfer) news stories for the target audience, to reshape their perception of reality. The study then shows that the reshaping of the news is realized multimodally (rather than simply verbally), i.e. with shifts in the visual message (Valdeón, 2018), while mediators critically re-narrate news items (Sidiropoulou, 2018) by interfering with the inference-drawing mechanism, the us/them strategizing in the reception environment, and by avoiding unintended connotations which may be disseminated globally. Shifts in the visuals accompanying digital texts seem to be vital in re-narrating the divide between Northern Europe and the Mediterranean area, which reshapes 'Europeanness' and reassigns an us/them status to stakeholder roles by managing content and aesthetic value of images.Translation scholars often focus on the transfer of verbal messages. However, translating the visual code is another crucial layer of signification generating pragmatic inferences which reshape the meaning of the news. Pragmatics and translation seem to be two inherently connected fields. Translation seems to be another platform, in addition to that of monolingual discourse, where the specifics of pragmatic meaning-making become most evident through the 're-narration' process, while pragmatics becomes highly instrumental in accounting for the specifics of translation strategizing.