This paper explores the translation of news discourse in terms of the way in which recontextualization of discourse across the boundaries of language, culture and institutions results in the transformation, as well as transfer, of information. Based on a comparative analysis of news stories on North Korea published in Newsweek and Newsweek Hankuk Pan (Korean edition), the study examines how North Korea is (re)constructed in translation. The primary focus is on the translating context and the producers of translated news stories as they engage in an institutional routine to re-situate the source text (discourse on North Korea by Newsweek journalists), which is anchored in a specific discourse context (the context of a Newsweek story being written and published for original Newsweek readers), into the translating situation (the context of producing a translated story at Newsweek Hankuk Pan) for a new context of use (the context of reception by South Korean readers of Newsweek Hankuk Pan). As the producers of translated news at Newsweek Hankuk Pan link the two situations, elements of the prior discourse as manifested in the source text are lifted from the original setting, re-perspectivized, differently foregrounded, silenced, elaborated on or blended with other voices. The findings suggest that contrary to the lay perception of translated news as a complete and accurate representation of the intention and meaning of the source text writer, news translation as recontextualization practice is a complex site of institutional goals and procedures, coupled with tension and conflict among different representations, ideologies and voices.
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