Translation of attribution and news credibility

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the translation of attribution, one of the key journalistic conventions to ensure news credibility, in the context of South Korea. An examination on how attribution is translated can address one of the major challenges facing today’s news industry: the erosion of credibility. While the growth of new media threatens news credibility, the norms and process of news translation can aggravate this credibility. Based on the attribution principles for Korean and English news, this study compares 359 Korean-language articles and their English translations collected from the websites of South Korea’s three major newspapers to investigate whether and how the meanings and functions of attribution change in the process of translation and what impact the changes may have on news credibility. The findings show that the meanings and functions of attribution change in the process of translation, and the consequence is not insignificant because it can weaken credibility, which in turn calls for more scholarly and practical attention to the translation of attribution in this fast-changing media landscape.