Quand les interprètes font les journalistes: une analyse linguistique

Abstract

Against the background of current literature on media interpreting and journalism, this paper presents an analysis of a corpus obtained from the Italian state TV programme Unomattina in 2001. The corpus was built with the aim of comparing two roles: journalists as in-the-field professionals reporting the latest news on the Iraq war from abroad (Journalists-as-Journalists: JJ); interpreters watching CNN and Al Jazeera from a booth in the studio, and giving journalistic updates from these to the Italian audience (Interpretersas- Journalists: IJ). If we assume that audiences judge the journalists and interpreters by the same standards, differences between JJ and IJ could be seen as failings on the part of IJ to be as effectively telegenic as their JJ counterparts. Combining notions from Conversation Analysis, Sociolinguistics, and Media Studies this paper sets out to characterise interpreters’ linguistic behaviour when they play this hybrid role of interpreter/journalist. Are there linguistic differences between JJ and IJ? And are there additional skills interpreters need to develop in order to be more telegenic and better meet the needs of TV programmers and audiences?