Websites of English-language nonfiction publications as multimodal texts: linguistic and translational aspects

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Sumy state university, Ukraine

Websites of English-language nonfiction publications as multimodal texts: linguistic and translational aspects

Ushchapovska I.,

Chornobuk K.

Abstract

This article explores the phenomenon of multimodality on the example of English-language media. Headings and thematic content of sites, technical design, translation of news headlines from English to Ukrainian and vice versa were monitored.

Keywords: multimodality, websites, genres, translation, equivalents, recipient.

Анотація

Веб-сайти англомовних публіцистичних видань як мультимодальні тексти: лінгво-перекладацькі аспекти

Ущаповська І., Чорнобук К., Сумський державний університет, Україна

У статті представлено результати лінгвістичного аналізу мультимодальності англомовних видань. Мультимодальність є вкрай важливою під час впливу на свідомість реципієнта та на його світобачення. Вона використовує для свого впливу різні почуття людини - зір, слух та дотик. Аби привернути увагу читача, сайти мають подавати не лише правильний текстовий контент, але і мати відповідне оформлення.

Найчастіші теми для висвітлення - політика та економіка, проте також веб-сайти публікують матеріали про спорт, знаменитостей, клімат. Багато видань намагаються бути різносторонніми, відходити від певної структури рубрик, тому поміщають багато інтерв'ю про моду, певні поради про місце для життя або психологічні аспекти. Багато веб-сайтів мають рубрику із авторськими колонками. Це теж досить популяризує видання. Щодо контекстуального наповнення, то завжди наявні фото та відео, дуже рідко трапляється звичайний текст.

Технічне оформлення англомовних онлайн-видань є подібним. Заголовки видань мають шрифти Times New Roman або Cattedrale. Верхня частина сторінки містить графу для пошуку по сайту, можливість зайти на свій акаунт або ж зареєструватися та оформити підписку на актуальні новини. Рубрики та розділи видання теж містяться угорі.

При перекладах з англійської мови на українську автори багато інформації змінювали і передавали її близько до змісту. Тут важливу роль грає ще суб'єктивність, думка журналіста, те, як саме він хоче подати новину, жанрові особливості та тим видання. Досить вагомим є ще і той факт, що іноземний читач може не знати деяких політичних нюансів, тому перекладач має використати стратегію доповнення, щоб надати реципієнту більш детальну інформацію.

Ключові слова: мультимодальність, веб-сайти, реципієнт, жанри, рубрики, еквіваленти.

Introduction

An important question facing philologists today is the analysis of the interaction of language and speech. Researchers are actively discussing the topic of consistency of multimodal codes. Among the factors influencing them, one can single out ethno-cultural and psychological, social, and ethno-cultural, etc. Important in the analysis of this topic is the use of a complex approach to study the interaction of codes with each other.

The relevance of the topic is due to the study of the problems of reading semantic, verbal, and audiovisual codes. The modern media space also includes all available ways of presenting information. That is why the study of signs of multimodality in the texts of English-language online publications is an actual direction of linguistic studies.

The object of the study is the phenomenon of multimodality in the modern media space.

The purpose of the study is to theoretically substantiate and analyze the linguistic and translational aspects of multimodality in the context of sustainable development.

Research methods: analysis, synthesis, comparison, induction, deduction, and generalization. Websites of well-known publications served as research material. The structural and semantic organization and design of the sites were analyzed.

Results of the research

Multimodality is associated with various fields of human activity. Therefore, the concept of multimodality and modality (multi- and Latin modalis, modus - measure, method, relation to action) is the subject of research in such areas as philology, logic, music, programming, philosophy, psychology, physiology, logistics and others. For example, there is a concept of modality in physiology, where receptors are called monomodal and polymodal, depending on the way they react to stimuli.

According to researchers, this very principle is taken as the basis of linguistic research, where multimodality is called the ability of a person to connect and combine in the process of cognition and communication several ways of learning the world and communication at once - verbal, visual, kinetic, or gestural, etc. [1, 93]. And it is the variety of information perception channels that is the basis for creating a multimodal text. A similar principle is used in music, where modality is a combination of different natural and artificial modes.

The theoretical base of the study: the question of the functioning of multimodality in the English-language mass media of the modern social space became the subject of study for such well-known domestic and foreign scientists: Z.I. Vinovskyi, R.M. Bliharskyi, B.O. Zhemelko, T.M. Hornyi, T.M. Kharyk, A.I. Sobolevskyi, V.O. Zablotskyi, I.R. Mykytchyn, A.I. Barbulyak and P.R. Shved, M.B. Klimkovskyi, I.O. Kusiy, R.A .Ozarkiv, R.R. Dubyna, M.I. Makar, I.P. Viytyshyn, V.R. Voytovych and V.L. Matviyev, N.M. Kreinina, E.S. Stoyanova, I.T. Balabanov, V.M. Rodionova, A.D. Sheremet, O.V. Yefimova, etc.

Multimodality is a person's ability to combine several ways of knowing reality and communicating - verbal, visual, kinetic (using gestures) and others. Multimodality is a theory that examines how people communicate and interact with each other, not only verbally, but also through language, gesture, gaze, and visual modes.

There are two types of multimodalities - cognitive and verbal, which are closely related to each other. The term multimodality refers to the mixture of several sensory and communicative codes, such as sight, sound, print, image, video, music, etc., which create meaning in any message [2, 38].

The term “multimodality” as a distinct aspect of a communicative utterance or medium is sometimes used in relation to physiological or sensory channels or capabilities such as sight (visual mode), hearing (auditory mode), touch (tactile mode or “tactile” mode if considered as aspects of the device), taste (taste mode) and smell (olfactory mode). Modality is also often defined by the medium, so one can speak, for example, of images and texts, music and vocals and vocal sounds, although all belong to a visual or auditory channel or mode.

Semiotic resources are a leading phenomenon in multimodal linguistics. By them, T. Van Leeuwen means actions, objects, things, products of human activity, which are used for the purpose of communication and appear physiologically. For example, our articulatory apparatus or muscles enable appropriate facial expressions and gestures to function; pen, ink, or computer hardware and software are examples of technical communication resources. It is worth noting that semiotic resources are the object of analysis of some similar linguistic fields, such as visual linguistics and visual communication, graphic linguistics, paralinguistics, computer paralinguistics, nonverbal semiotics, social semiotics, cognitive semiotics, media linguistics, and Internet linguistics.

Often, several semiotic resources are used simultaneously during communication. Their combination depends on several factors. It is worth paying attention to the possible variants of their compatibility. Semiotic resources are heterogeneous, so it is natural that their spectrum is quite large and not limited to a single field of use.

All semiotic resources can be conditionally divided into three groups:

- Those that are used only in oral speech;

- Those that occur only in written speech;

- Those that are used both in oral and written speech.

A text whose content is conveyed using two or more semiotic systems is considered multimodal [6, 177]. All these systems are perceived by the senses (sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste), but they intersect and can be assimilated in different ways. Semiotic systems, and multimodal text in particular, perform at least 3 main functions:

1) formation of concepts (ideational);

2) interaction between communicators (interpersonal);

3) organization and structuring of the text (textual) [7, 26].

Multimodal texts include maps, tables, advertising posters, newspaper columns, magazine pages, artwork, etc. The most relevant example of the use of text multimodality is a website that combines different semiotic systems, as it integrates words and texts, pictorial images, graphically abstract means, sound and animation [8, 317]. linguistic multimodal english language online publication

A website is a hypertext formation of electronic communication activity that is in continuous dynamics and is implemented in a set of interdependent (thematically, semantically, intentionally, physically) web pages [9, 7].

For our research, we took the English-language publications “BBC News” and “Los Angeles Times”. “BBC News” contains the following headings: War in Ukraine, Climate, World, UK, Business, Tech, Science, Stories, Entertainment, Health, Sport, Travel, Culture.

Рис. 1. BBC News, official web site

The column “World” is the most filled, because every day the journalists of the publication add from 100 to 200 news on various topics in the world: topics of the war in Ukraine, medicine, arrests, politics, sports: “Eight dead as car hits people in Texas border town, Kielty addresses Late Late Show host speculation, Malawi court orders schools to allow dreadlocks, Duelling with Russian jets in the skies over Ukraine, Thousands of Serbs protest against gun violence”.

Thus, the most materials were published in the rubric about Great Britain and its areas, the least - in the rubric of stories from life and climate. Since foreign online publications influence the reader's opinion by spreading information, we monitored the functional features of the visual material, because it is the visualization that attracts the attention of the recipient, and the reputation and authority of the publication depends on its quality. In the “BBC News” edition, materials containing text in combination with photos or videos prevail. Plain text is quite rare. There are also video-only materials available. We can summarize that more than 70% of the materials are filled with visualization.

“Los Angeles Times” is a newspaper published daily in Los Angeles, one of the most popular and authoritative media in the United States, most focused on covering the events of city life.

Рис. 2. The Los Angeles Times, official web site

The Los Angeles Times includes the following sections: Business, California, Climate & Environment, Entertainment & Arts, Food, Housing & Homelessness, Politics, Science, Sports, Travel & Experiences, World & Nation.

The heading “WORLD & NATION” contains the following subdivisions: Immigration & the Border, Mexico & the Americas. The section contains information about the world, various spheres of people's lives, so the texts of this section occur most often. Popular materials are Jordan's royal rift entangles an American-born queen, unprecedented wildfire on Canada's Atlantic coast still burning after four days, GOP walkout in Oregon Senate hits record fourth week, Mike Pence to launch campaign for president in Iowa on June 7, NASA's experts talk UAPs ahead of final report on unidentified flying objects.

Thus, the Los Angeles Times writes the most about politics, economics and sports, the least - about science and food. As for the means of conveying content in the materials of the Los Angeles Times, a combination of photos and text prevails. Sometimes there is just text and a separate video.

We also analyzed technical design of English-language news sites. “Hromadske” is a non-profit organization that was created on November 22, 2013, by Ukrainian journalists. It gained popularity thanks to the broadcasts of the Revolution of Dignity events. “Hromadske” is registered as a public organization, it has no owners and is independent in its editorial activities. Media creates materials in Ukrainian, English and Russian. The concept of the site is easy to understand - the dominant color is orange, the corporate color of the publication. The navigation of the site is simple and easy to use: the headings are presented at the top: “News”, “Texts”, “Opinions”, “Videos”, “Special projects”, “Vacancies”. It is worth noting that the sections of the English-language version are quite different because the following are available here: “News”, “Texts”, “Videos”, “Opportunities”, “Twitter”. On the right are search icons, language switching and the ability to support the media financially. Moreover, you can view other news related to the one the user is currently reading.

The black color completes the site, on which social media networks are located, tenders, advertising and financial reports can be viewed, as well as submitted contacts and information about the publishing team.

Translation strategy is a method of implementing the translation process, which aims to adequately transfer information from a foreign language to the language of the recipient. During this process, it is necessary to consider the cultural component, as well as the personal qualities of the speaker.

The translator chooses a translation strategy focusing on certain aspects. Among them, the following stand out:

1) Target audience

2) The number of existing translations of this text in the target literature.

D. Delabastit singles out the following translation strategies:

- substitution (search for equivalent analogues)

- repeat

- reduction and exclusion of certain words

- expansion and addition

- permutation of words.

The title “Dismissal of Territorial Defense commander, closure of Rotterdam+ case and video of beating in Chernivtsi mall: the main thing for October 9” has the following equivalent in the English version: “Dismissal of Territorial Defense commander, closure of Rotterdam+ case, video of beating in Chernivtsi mall: highlights”. TCC is translated as mall, which means shopping center. This error distorts the content of the message and falsifies the information.

The title “Laura Kuenssberg: Ukraine in 'mortal danger' without aid, Olena Zelenska warns” is translated as “Zelenska: Ukraine is in “mortal danger” without the aid of the West.” The translator left out the fact that it was Laura Kuensberg who was quoting Zelenska. However, the author adds that the help will come from the West. This is a rather significant clarification that contributes to a better understanding of the material by the reader. Strategies of expanding and adding information, and at the same time omitting certain phrases, were used for the translation.

Conclusions

Multimodality is extremely important when influencing the recipient's consciousness and worldview. It uses various human senses for its influence - sight, hearing, and touch. To attract the reader's attention, sites should not only present the correct textual content, but also have an appropriate design. Multimodality is a defining feature that must be considered when creating a publication website. Firstly, during the creation of the text, selection of genre and topic, secondly, during the planning of the layout of the site, its colors and navigation. One way or another, we perceive information, and it is multimodality that is decisive in the process of information perception. The 21st century and its technological progress have caused the fact that a person constantly perceives information visually. Now it is much easier to watch a video or a photo than to read a long text or listen to a recording. That is why journalists of online publications must understand the importance of the content and design of the media page. Their reputation in the mass media and on the client, market primarily depends on this.

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Illustrative sources

1. BBC News.

2. Los Angeles Times:

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