A critique of electronic media translations: a case study of TBC (Television) english – swahili news translations

Today, breaking news tends to occur every minute. Observation by scholars (see Bielsa and Bassnett (2009), Antia (1996)) shows that mistranslations become inevitable in news translating because news translators find themselves in a fix with time limit and correct translation. Consequently, most news translations become deficient. This study therefore centers on a critique of electronic media translations in Tanzania. The methodology employed is by taking TBC television (earlier known as TVT) news translations from English into Swahili Language as a case study and examine the Swahili Target Language Texts (Hence forth TLT) translations to find out whether they were done in accordance with the principle of Dynamic Equivalent Effect (PoDEE). The findings, following scrupulous analysis, disclosed that some of the TLT translations products were not done in line with the PoDEE. The reasons for these were deviations from the source language text (SLT) triggered by factors such as: literal translation, cultural differences between the SL and the TL and the inability of translators to manage these differences appropriately, to understand technical languages, lack of terminology consistency within the media house, the translators’ inadequacies in the grammar of SL and TL as well as his inability to grasp the contextual meanings. These factors led to undertranslation, overtranslation, mistranslation and ambiguities. Chapter Four of this study presents this issue in detail and proposes some possible solutions.