Translation or Renarration of a Narrative?! Translation of Iran’s Recent Bankfraud News Reports in English Social Media

Translations may be manipulated and reframed by different parties to disseminate and legitimize their own narratives, with each side attempting to frame the same event in a different way that strengthens its own narratives and serves its own interests. The problem emerges where dominant countries disregarding their share in the conflicts alter the facts in translation. This situation can be seen mostly in the context of news translation. This study aims at identifying the differences between narration of recent bank frauds’ news reports in Iran and their English renderings based on Baker’s methodology (2006) and its major sources (Somers and Gibson (1994), Somers (1997) and Goffman (1974)) as the framework and recognizing and classifying the strategies that cultural mediators draw on to reframe a narrative in the new setting. To this end 20 samples were selected from the English and Persian online media namely BBC, VOA and MNA (Mehr News Agency), they were analyzed for the features of narrativity and framing devices. The results of the study showed a significant number of differences in the narration of Persian news and their English renderings. Thus the classical definition of translation is no more valid for news translation and as Baker (2008) stated the term “renarration” should be used as the new metaphor for translation in this area.