News Translation and Intertextuality in the British and International Press, 1600–1960s

“This is an absorbing collection of essays, offering a substantial range of press translation studies ranging across three centuries and multiple continents. The volume features cutting-edge discussions on intertextual movement of ideas across space, time and language barriers, extending and expanding our understanding of the transnational movement of news across multiple regions and cultural spaces. It is a welcome addition to international translation and press studies.” (David Finkelstein, University College London, UK)

“Spanning 350 years and diverse cultural contexts – from British, Irish and American to French, Polish, German and Persian news – this groundbreaking volume brings together a rich array of original studies on news translation and intertextuality. By synthesizing research on these core practices, the volume uncovers the hidden connections and agendas shaping news production, offering vital insights for historical linguists, news historians, translation scholars, and anyone intrigued by the global dynamics of information and public discourse.” (Birte Bös, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany)

This book examines how translation and other forms of intertextual exchange have contributed to the telling of British and international print and manuscript news. In its focus on the press from the seventeenth century until the 1960s, this contributed volume enhances our understanding of both the historical role and use of translation, as well as the interplay of reporting strategies of the same news topic in different domains, languages and geographical settings. The focus on translation and intertextuality reflects the need to understand historical news as a transnational, translingual, inter-genre phenomenon in which news writers and editors were constantly seeking out and adapting both the contents and language of other texts and publications for their own journalistic purposes. Its contributors cover manuscript news and Italian avvisi, print newssheets, propaganda pamphlets and state-run newspapers, dailies, weeklies, magazines, and the specialised press, in settings that bring new insights to the transnational and comparative histories of both British and international news domains.

Matylda Włodarczyk is Professor of English Historical Linguistics at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

Nicholas Brownlees was Professor of English Language and Translation at the University of Florence, Italy until his retirement in 2023.

Chapter 5 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.