Empowering the Italo-Australian community through news translation. A case study on “Il Globo” community newspaper

Abstract:

Within social relations in globalized and multilingual spaces affected by massive movements of people (e.g. Australia), globalisation encourages specificity at the micro-community level. “Ethnicity” here represents “a great source of comfort” (Spinner, 1994: 59) and community newspapers are indeed expressions of ethnicity, embodying an ongoing struggle between the multiple forces of globalisation represented by host and heritage cultures and languages, as well as providing an independent and meaningful voice for the community.

This case study on the Italo-Australian community newspaper “Il Globo” explores translational aspects in the articles treating national issues in Australia (“Stati & Territori” section). Thanks to a senior journalist at “Il Globo” (IGJ1 henceforth), I retrieved English source texts (ST) and published Italian target texts (TT), affording a privileged look into news translation practices and outcomes.

A corpus of 12 published TTs was analysed against the STs that informed and guided IGJ’s writing, paying special attention to how the journalist quoted her sources and dealt with cultural-specific items (CSIs, House, 2006). Finally, I discuss how this case study’s results can contribute to and offer a different perspective on the complex issues that link globalisation, language, and power within migrants’ communities and the role of ethnic media in today’s highly globalised multilingual and liquid (western) societies.