Narratives and Discourse: Translation in the Development and Contestation of Media Frames

Abstract

Objectives: This study investigates the overlooked possibility of importing and exporting narratives’ impact through translation and circulation in international news agencies. An exported narrative gains currency and alternative interpretations through guided associations or disassociations with discourses circulating the host socio-political context.

Methods: The study adopts the descriptive-analytical approach and borrows tenets offered by critical discourse analysis. Rather than focusing on the impact of exported narrative on the host socio-political discourses, it explores the possible implications of the host socio-political narrative for the introduced interpretation. Accordingly, the study compared and analysed the narratives of Translation students’ at Mutah University to address the study’s primary aim of exporting AlMamlaka discourse through translation.

Results: This view of narrativity approaches exporting narratives as an attempt to re-narrate an event and alter its dynamics. This study explores possible applications in AlMamlaka English because international news agencies often re-narrate ontological or public narratives as disciplinary or meta-narratives to allow a broader audience to subscribe to the represented interpretation of reality. After being empowered as a metanarrative, the exported discourse will eventually return to the source language socio-political context from where it had emerged.

Conclusions: The study recommends launching AlMamlaka English and asserts its role in acquainting international audiences with Jordanian viewpoints on local and global events.