CC BY
10Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 10 (2011 4) 1394-1409
УДК 070.15
The Calipari Case: Political Machinations and Journalistic Manipulations
Federico M. Federici*
Durham University, UK School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Elvet Riverside, DH13JT1
Received 3.10.2011, received in revised form 10.10.2011, accepted 17.10.2011
Drawing on critical discourse analysis, this article presents a case study showing the attitude in Italian newspapers towards the translation of sensitive source texts. The texts considered - predominantly a US military report from Iraq on the controversial shooting of the Italian security agent Nicola Calipari -refer to an event that had repercussions on a national and international level and thus represented a struggle between political powers (the United States and Italy, and the Italian government and media). The article reflects on the translation issues raised by the journalistic uses of the target texts, focusing on questions of manipulation and selectivity. It explores the relationship between a sensitive source text and biased manipulations of its target versions in the representation of a tragic event. When commenting on the US report, newspapers introduced further manipulations through their selection of passages in translation, thus contributing to an ideological use of the text and participating in a process of complex political machinations.
Keywords: Journalistic translation, critical discourse analysis, translational behaviour, translation effect, ideology, translating military report, politics of translation.
This article is part of a wider research project focusing on the use of translations by the Italian press. The observations presented here represent an initial test case-study of both online and printed press; it investigates the use of translated materials when reporting on an event in which the translations and the translation activities are part of the discourse. A joint committee of investigation was appointed to examine the circumstances in which the Italian security agent Nicola Calipari was killed by US soldiers on 4 March 2005, whilst escorting the newly-released journalist Giuliana Sgrena to Baghdad International Airport (BIAP). This
study aims to analyze the way in which Italian journalists commented upon the US report investigating Calipari's death. The incident was considered as a possible breach of the US Army Regulation 15-6 and was investigated by a US-led committee that issued a report (Vanjel, 2005)1 on 30 April 2005, initially posted on the MultiNational Corps-Iraq website then removed. This study examines a selection of Italian news reports - published between 27 April and 5 May 2005 - that commented on the US report by using translated extracts of the US English version.
The first section of this article introduces the main theoretical points of reference for this
* Corresponding author E-mail address: [email protected]
1 © Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved
study. The second gives an essential chronology of events from the kidnap to the publication of the US report and the release of the Italian military report. The third section contextualizes the Italian newspapers that published the texts analyzed in this article. The fourth section assesses the features of the US report - the main source text. The fifth section describes the manipulations of the source texts and offers a critical analysis of translation procedures adopted in the journalist articles. The article concludes with some remarks regarding the circumstances in which the journalistic manipulations appeared to be connected with the political machinations surrounding the Calipari Case.
1. Theoretical tenets of the article
In order to evaluate the way in which the texts were manipulated, this study adopts notions of critical discourse analysis and Baker's narrative theory (2006, 2009). The reflections offered focus on the constant "political" framing of reports in Italian media (sophisticatedly discussed in a case study by Vaccari, 2010). Adopted in a precedent study (Federici, 2010), this methodology allows researchers to ascertain the complexity of these uses of translation where the borders between source and target texts blur (see van Doorslaer, 2010). One of the tenets of the present analysis is the notion of a relational approach to text analysis. Such a notion focuses on the relations between a text and its context; specifically, the role that these relations play in the contextual meaning-making process. The active and passive nature of the relational approach are discussed with reference to Baker's (2009: 118) redefinition of causal emplotment (2006) as what "allows us to turn a set of propositions into an intelligible sequence about which we can form an opinion, and thus charges the events depicted with moral and ethical significance". In these framing activities, the relations can be external or internal and
they can be passive, thus allowing interpretations to emerge (Baker, 2009: 118) from readers' interactions with the text, or active, in which writers actively use discursive "moves designed to anticipate and guide others' interpretation of and attitudes towards a set of events" (ibid.). Fairclough (2003: 36) remarks that the "analysis of the 'external' relations of texts is analysis of their relations with other elements of social events and, more abstractly, social practices and social structures". In this perspective language is considered as the social structure in which all potential meanings can be realized, the social event is the text as a final product of the mediation of social practices. Such practices are defined as "a broader social dimension of discourse than ... various acts accomplished by language users in interpersonal interaction" (van Dijk, 1997a:5). Yet individual translators or newspapers editors frame their narrative actively within the social practices - as demonstrated in the Italian context by the examples below.
2. Chronology of the events between 4 February and 4 May 2005
The events that took place between 4 February and 4 May 2005 are summarized as follows. On 4 February 2005, Giuliana Sgrena, a correspondent of Il manifesto in Iraq, was kidnapped in Baghdad. On 4 March, after long negotiations between the kidnappers and the Italian authorities, Ms Sgrena was released - it is not clear whether a ransom was paid. Sismi, the Italian secret service, sent a rescue team to facilitate the kidnappers' release of Ms Sgrena and to escort her back to Italy. At 20:50, in transit from the release point to BIAP, the rescuers and the journalist were shot at by US soldiers manning an access ramp to the motorway to the airport (Route Irish). Ms Sgrena and the driver of the vehicle, a Toyota Corolla, were wounded; Major General Nicola Calipari was killed. US
Blocking Point (BP) 541 had been set up on Route Irish in order to allow the US Ambassador, John D. Negroponte, to travel safely towards Camp Victory; the BP was in place and organized by 19:38 for a mission of 15-20 minutes. The battle captain at BP 541 enquired repeatedly if he could remove the BP, but his men were kept there until 20:50; the US ambassador had arrived at Camp Victory at 20:20.
On 8 March, US army Brigadier General Peter Vanjel was appointed as director of the committee of investigation. In its official press release, the American Forces Information Service stated: "The command is working closely with the US embassy, and Italian officials have been invited to participate" (AFIS, 2005a). The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced that the committee would include Italian representatives. On 11 March, US officials conducted an on-site forensic investigation and, two days later, on 13 March, two Italian representatives, Ambassador Cesare Ragaglini and General Pier Luigi Campregher joined US investigators in Baghdad. On 14 March, the joint investigative team inspected the site but came under attack and abandoned the in-depth joint forensic analysis. The same day, Fini - see below - was in the USA. By 25 March the Italian media were beginning to talk about the need for an Italian civil inquiry into the case.
On 29 April, the US Department of State and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a joint announcement stating that their joint committee had not reached consensus on its conclusions (US DPS, 2005/451; MAE, 2005). On the same day, CBS broadcast information, obtained from the Pentagon, that the US investigators had satellite images showing that the Toyota Corolla was driving at 96.6 kph when the shooting happened. On 30 April, the classified US official report was released with many omissions. On 1 May, AFIS announced:
"Calipari's death, according to a recently completed Army investigation, was wholly unintentional and not attributable to negligence by the [US] soldiers". At 1.25 am, a Greek student of medicine at Bologna University copied and pasted the classified US report from a PDF file into an MS Word document, thus restoring all the unprotected, missing information.
On 2 May, some Italian newspapers published the omitted names and details online2 and on 3 May the Italian report appeared, with some different interpretations of the same facts, yet allowing for an inquest prompting an inquiry by Italian magistrates, which would be completed in 2007.
3. Introduction: sources and analytical framework
When working on journalistic texts, it is a challenge - if not impossible - to distinguish translators from editors, page editors, and every 'writer' involved in the delivery of the news. Van Doorslaer (2010: 183) suggests that "in many concrete cases, it is not realistic to deconstruct a news message in order to determine which parts have been edited and which parts are likely to be the result of an interlingual translation act". Yet the Calipari Case brought to the forefront the translation issue, from the purely textual aspects of the US report extracts, to the galvanising of international laws into judicial actions. The news reports considered in this study were published in Repubblica, Corriere della Sera, Secolo d'Italia, L'Unita, and il manifesto. This study looks at the range of political or ideological thrusts that span the complex representations of the report on Calipari's death. When selecting the number of articles, newspapers with open ideological bias (Secolo and L'Unita), the two most-widely read national newspapers (Repubblica and Corriere della Sera), and Sgrena newspaper (il manifesto)
were chosen as representing different points of view.
The ideological bias or the perceived neutrality of the newspapers was a key factor in determining their selection. Founded in Rome in 1976, Repubblica, with approximately 3 million readers, has become one of the most widely read Italian newspapers (Audipress 2011) and does not claim any political affiliation intending to be a moderate democratic voice, although it is slightly left-wing. According to its declaration of 1876, Corriere della Sera "is an independent newspaper with a manifestly European mission, 'free from any political or economic biases, whether those imposed from without or arising from within' (Ugo Stille)"3; based in Milan, Corriere is moderate and slightly liberal (with approximately 3 million readers). Founded by members of the Movimento Sociale Italiano [Italian Social Movement] in Rome, Secolo d 'Italia has been the official newspaper of the right-wing party (the post-régime fascist party, MSI, and subsequently the Alleanza Nazionale [National Alliance], AN) since 1952. Its official publisher is the secretary of the party, during the Calipari case, Gianfranco Fini. Founded by Antonio Gramsci, since 1924 L'Unità has been the newspaper of left-wing parties, initially the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and lately of a broader left-wing audience (with approximately 400, 000 readers). Founded in 1969 as a monthly magazine, il manifesto became a newspaper in 1971 and defines itself as Italy's Communist newspaper.
Readers choose their newspapers according to the affinity they feel towards the main - explicit or implicit - ideological thrust of the newspaper (see Orengo 2005) This perceived shared mindset, or interaction, between newspaper and readers leads the readers - consciously or not - to become complicit in the journalists' bias. Readers often interact intuitively with
their preferred newspaper since "ideological representations are generally implicit rather than explicit in texts, and are embedded in ways of using language which are naturalized and commonsensical for reporters, audiences, and various categories of third parties" (Fairclough, 1995: 44-45; Bell 1991: 212-29). Fairclough's notion of external relations and Baker's narrative theory meet at the intersection where journalists become power brokers establishing a new narrative for their readers. The power and influence that newspapers exert over their readership is immense. In fact, "news reports [.] need to be analyzed in relation to elaborate social, political and cultural conditions and consequences" (van Dijk, 1997b: 4).
In Italy, the US report on Calipari's death became a political issue that opened ideological debates exacerbated by the publication of an already ideologically biased ST. The text corpus here includes many texts that purport to be functional (i.e. they seek to report the unfolding events) and others that take the form of editorials.4 The categories adopted to analyze the manipulations in the TT belong to descriptive translation studies, adopting definitions of translation procedures provided by Taylor (1998), Newmark (1988), and partly by Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/1995). The apparently logical argument of the ST sought to persuade the readers of its plausibility, whereas the commentators in the news reports sought rather to criticize its authority. The commentators' shifting narratives introduced biased renderings, as if they felt compelled to invalidate the reading proposed by the ST because it was so persuasive and in order to challenge it, they needed to manipulate it. This study deconstructs the manipulations as far as plausible, in order to consider their possible functions and to comment on the way in which the translation procedures have altered the meaning-making process. The alterations in the TT have
contributed to shifting form and content of the ST in a new "causal emplotment" that interpreted the US report, often without questioning its most disputable components.
4. The US report: structure, findings, and inconsistencies
The US report is a hybrid text: a military report that also representing the findings of a joint diplomatic investigative team that also includes civilians. The style of the US report is influenced by the discourse of a military inquiry in a way that tends towards legitimizing its evidence, which becomes a content perceived as an unchallengeable authority (see Federici, 2010: 121-25). When rendering the US report translators should have taken these ideological premises into full account. The issue is then whether the meaning-making process might have been mediated by the translators' or journalists' ideology. Thus, Fairclough's notion of the text's external relations, which assumes that the "analysis of relations of texts to other elements of social events includes analysis of how they figure in Actions, Identifications, and Representations" (2003:36), is of key importance in this article. In terms of internal relations, the rhetoric of the US report is that of a logical description of an efficient, clear, short and unquestionable set of facts provided by the officer-author. Conversely, the articles concerned with the US report seem to be examples of texts in which the internal relations are framed by the journalists' perspectives, altering translation procedures and tactics.
However, the text reflects military style and provides a legitimization of one single perspective of the events, as shown by Federici (2010) consideration that the journalistic selection led to various interpretations of the US report. The journalists' "choice[s] [had] implications promoting and legitimating one or
the other narrative" (Baker 2009: 119). Events are presented as facts, ambiguous data is omitted (also in the complete version), and uncertain findings become statements of fact. The 42-page long US report is divided into five sections. Its author, General Vanjel, does not mention the names of the Italians in the joint committee, he refers to the international investigative team but the Italians are not a necessary part of it, legally speaking (2005: 2, 8). The first section provides all the background information available to the appointed investigators: the incident, the environment in which it took place, the constraints and limitations of the investigation, and a paragraph on the internal structure of the investigation (ibid: 1-3). The second section focuses on the statistical data concerning the operational situation in Baghdad, with specific reference to Route Irish, at the time of the incident; it also provides data on the most common forms of insurgent attacks, and the training and experience of the US soldiers involved in the event and their various duties (ibid: 4-11). The third section analyzes and describes the (previously secret) procedures Traffic Control Points (TCP) and BPs. It implicitly points out the limitations of the training given to US soldiers for manning BPs, namely that they are instructed to "see and do", without specific Standard Operational Procedures (SOP); it describes the peculiarity of BP 541 (ibid: 12-22).5 The fourth section (ibid: 23-39) describes the circumstances; full details of times are given until 20:50 when Calipari's car was seen approaching; no precise time is given in section 4.F in which the "Post-Incident Events" are examined (ibid: 31-33). The fifth section assesses the Italian commanding officers' failure to coordinate the rescue operation resulting from the fact that the Italian command considered the rescue mission to be "a national issue" and did not inform the ally (ibid: 40-42).
The report claims a univocal perspective on the circumstances; this perspective assumes a universal status, thus hegemonizing the view of the results (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985; Fairclough; 2003: 45-46). Essential points analyzed in The US report, such as training procedures, operational experience, fundamental differences between patrol routines, TCPs, and BPs that require different skill and training for the soldiers, are all contentious. Nonetheless, they were passed over with little comments by the Italian press, possibly because the persuasive style of the report suggests that its description of the sequence of events accurately reflected those that took place. Even when the entire report was available without the omissions, its ambiguities were not commented upon. Section I.1 establishes that "the Soldiers involved were actually manning a former Traffic Control Point, but executing a blocking mission" (Vanjel, 2005:1). The US soldiers were manning a hybrid position for which they had neither specific SOP nor training. The classified Section III.B of the report explains the distinctive features and operations of a TCP and a BP (2005:12). This explanation weakens the US position in legal terms yet the US report dismisses it with recommendations on the assumption that it is an internal problem that did not affect the event.6 The report contains ambiguous avowals of the soldier's limited practical knowledge, experience, and training in manning a flying BP. The report adds the soldiers' sworn testimonies, unavailable to the Italian investigators, thus legitimizing its own content by referring to other voices not represented. Italian journalists ignored the incongruence until it was underlined by the Italian report. The inconsistencies of the US report authorize one reading of the text. The genre and the discourse are so effectively used that they elude challenge. Italian newspapers did not challenge the text; they dealt with the report
from other ideological perspectives, as we shall see below.
5. The US Report: structure, findings and inconsistencies
Repubblica
The ethical challenge and the role of translation seem to be at the centre of several concerns expressed in the articles of Repubblica that overtly refer to translation problems (Bonini, 2005b: 1; D'Avanzo, 2005: 1, 4). On 3 May, Bonini comments on the US Report by providing a set of biased extracts from the translation and an ideological analysis. Such attitude shows how translators "are embedded in a context and as such are points of contact and connection, although they can also, paradoxically, be points of resistance and conflict" (Maier, 2007: 255). Bonini points out that for the Americans the 'responsibility' for the events on 4 March is bound to two circumstances. The first relates to the driver, Mr Carpani:
"Il signor Carpani guidava troppo veloce, era impegnato in troppe cose che lo distraevano, compreso guidare e contemporaneamente parlare al telefono, viaggiare su una strada bagnata, prestare l'orecchio a possibili minacce, provare a raggiungere l'aeroporto piu velocemente possibile, in un'atmosfera di intensa eccitazione all'interno della macchina" (pagina 36). (Bonini, 2005c:1)
[Literal translation. Mr Carpani was driving too fast, he was dealing with too many things that distracted him, including driving while talking on the phone, travelling on a wet road, listening to possible threats, trying to reach the airport as fast as possible, in the atmosphere of intense excitement inside the car. (page 36).]
Mr Carpani was driving faster than any other vehicle observed by the soldiers that evening. He failed to stop for the spotlight since he was not expecting a roadblock. Additionally, he was dealing with multiple distractions including talking on the phone while driving, the conversation in the back seat, trying to listen for threats, driving on a wet road, focusing on tasks to be accomplished, the need to get to the airport, and the excited and tense atmosphere in the car. (Vanjel, 2005:36)
Bonini's modulations, faster than any other vehicle rendered as too fast and multiple distractions as too many things that distracted him, are discourse manipulation. In his view, the US army affirms that the Italians are entirely to blame for the incident. When compared to Bonini's rendering the ST appears more neutral, conceding points and offering explanations for the situation. Bonini uses the US data in order to blame the way in which the Italian government, forced to negotiate a ransom, then failed to communicate this operation to their ally.7 Bonini's intentions imply a criticism of the Italian government and its handling of the situation. Bonini's article continues with a critique that he had initiated on 15 April 2005, when commenting on the NBC leaks. His comments suggest that the NBC leak coloured his subsequent reading of the report, thus creating another causal emplotment for his readers. Yet he had accepted the US representation of the facts and criticized the Italian chain of command that did not let the US forces in Iraq know what was going to happen. Even though Bonini deems the vehicle's speed to be irrelevant evidence after such a massive mistake in coordination has been made, he still focuses on the issue of the speed. His transedition (to use Stetting's term, 1989) embeds in his article a discourse aimed at undermining the idea of an American plot against the Italian
rescuers that had circulated among left-wing newspapers. Bonini addresses this issue in order to discredit this conspiracy theory by stating that the plot-idea was a clever cover-up by the Italian government.
On 30 April, the journalist D'Avanzo examined the Italian government's manipulations of the translation of the Joint Announcement. Criticizing the behaviour of the Italian government for its dubious purposes, D'Avanzo underlines the importance of translations in situations similar to the Calipari incident since even a very sensitive document such as the Joint Announcement could be manipulated. Among the articles here analyzed, D'Avanzo's criticism of the ministerial translation is unique in pointing out that the ministerial rendering of the Joint Announcement gives rise to explicit questions regarding the translation. Using Maier's (2007: 254) apt expression, D'Avanzo draws the translators "into unanticipated conflicts". If one considers the Joint Announcement in greater detail, it seems quite probable that it was written in English - see the Italian unidiomatic use of evidenze instead of prove - and was manipulated in a specific and unnecessary fashion:
On March 13, the Italian representatives arrived in Baghdad and joined the American investigators as full participants in the investigative process, collecting statements and forensic tests based on the procedure applicable to the investigation. The work, carried out in a spirit of strong mutual cooperation, was intense and fruitful.
The joint investigation is now completed.
The investigators did not arrive at shared final conclusions even though, after examiningjointly the evidence, they did agree on facts, findings and recommendations on numerous issues. The investigators reported
to their respective national authorities in accordance with national regulations and procedures.
4. Il 13 marzo i rappresentanti italiani sono arrivati a Baghdad e hanno affiancato gli investigatori americani, partecipando pienamente alle fasi istruttorie, raccogliendo, sulla base delle procedure applicabili all'indagine, dichiarazioni e perizie. Il lavoro, che si e svolto in un clima di grande collaborazione reciproca, e stato intenso e proficuo.
5. L'indagine congiunta si e ora conclusa.
6. Gli investigatori non sono pervenuti a conclusioni finali condivise sebbene, dopo aver esaminato congiuntamente le evidenze, essi abbiano condiviso fatti, deduzioni e raccomandazioni su numerose problematiche. Gli investigatori riferiranno ora alle rispettive autorita nazionali in conformita con i regolamenti e le procedure del proprio Paese.
('Joint Announcement By The Department Of State And The Italian Ministry Of Foreign Affairs')
The Italian Dichiarazione Congiunta [Joint Declaration] was divided into points, a secondary detail but which demonstrates some reorganization. The document was written with a US perspective; this is linguistically evident, the Italian representatives arrive and do not go to Baghdad. The joint work had been intense and fruitful whereas in Italy the representatives had officially complained that they were denied access to first-hand evidence. Point 6 was altered in Italian: "they did agree on facts, findings, and recommendations on numerous issues" was rendered with "abbiano condiviso fatti, deduzioni e raccomandazioni su numerose problematiche"
[they did agree on facts, deductions and recommendations on numerous issues]. By the lexical reduction of the concrete findings into the abstract and indirect deduzioni, the Italian government subtly implies that the case was not closed. This is a serious issue that changes the whole legal perspective in which the Calipari case and its joint investigation had been viewed. The findings that, for US authorities, did not lead to any further legal process or action against possible guilty parties become deductions acquired by the Italian magistrates to open an Italian judicial inquiry into the case. Translators then became visible and active manipulators enabling a new narrative to emerge; Italian justice could play a role within the new narrative, the role it had seen denied by the US report.
Corriere della Sera
On 3 May, when the Italian report on the incident was also published, Corriere della Sera devoted a page to the Italian magistrates' report in parallel with a translation of the US report. This translation, by Maria Serena Natale, is the only accredited translation found in the selection of newspapers chosen for this study. Corriere chose to print extracts from the two reports in parallel with no editorial comment or analysis; the translation is therefore not analyzed here (see Federici, 2010). Although almost impeccable and in sharp contrast to the widespread manipulations in other newspapers, even the Corriere showed an element of bias in some of the commentaries by its journalists; Caretto (2005:5) criticizes the US report and considers it a justification rather than an inquiry. Caretto emphasizes how the US report insists on the fact that the driver and Sgrena did not release their witness statements on site, as if this act might be considered an admission of responsibility; in his spin on the US report, Caretto is critically analysing the authority of the US report.
Secolo d'Italia
This newspaper, close to the government, favours a legitimization of the ambiguous position assumed by the Italian government. The value assumption is that the US report might be right on the essential points, provided that it concedes the need for further investigation.
The news report is framed in the same ideologically tilted perspective. Some inaccurate comments on the US report are given by paraphrases of the ST: Diamante's article of 3 May recounts the gunner's action as a precision manoeuvre: "mollo il riflettore che teneva puntato sulla macchina e lascio partire due raffiche, una delle quali uccise Calipari e feri la Sgrena e l'altro agente del Sismi al volante dell'auto" [he dropped the spotlight and fired two bursts, one of which killed Calipari and wounded Sgrena and the other Sismi officer driving the car] (Diamante, 2005:2). The US report described the gunner's movement as two distinct actions. Diamante's modification represents a different event by simplifying the whole idea that one burst was shot as a warning, followed by a second on the arrival at the Alarm Line. The manoeuvre seems to be a precise action in which the gunner takes aim before shooting, whereas the time and sequence of the bursts are crucial yet unclear points. The article also underlines that communication with the ambassador's escort functioned poorly "con problemi definiti 'intollerabili in un momento cosi delicato' che lasciarono gli uomini della compagnia A senza comunicazioni" [with problems defined "intolerable in such a delicate moment", that left the men of A-Company without communication]. When the language of the US report is scrutinized, such a condemnation is nowhere to be found, nor does the adjective intolerable appear in the text. The translation procedure in Diamante's article is an amplification that leads to an overtranslation of the subtext.8
L'Unita
Many of the passages from the US report appealed to those who wanted to put a political spin on the event and L'Unita is no exception. Rezzo (2005a:3) frames the reported speech of the Italian driver (an intertextual reference) by sarcastically commenting on items in the US classified report: "With regard to the driver, he might even have been competent, but according to the Americans." (Rezzo's quotations below are juxtaposed to extracts from the US report):
"non aveva l'abitudine di controllare il tachimetro". Sarebbe stato proprio lui a riferire al telefonino di sfrecciare verso la rampa a 120-130 chilometri all'ora.
[Literal translation. "he did not have the habit of checking the speedometer". He is alleged to have said on the mobile that he was speeding towards the ramp at 120-130 kph]
Though not in the habit of checking his speedometer, Mr Carpani estimated his speed at 70-80 kph as he exited off of Route Vernon, heading towards the on-ramp to Route Irish. [...]. As the car approached the on-ramp to Route Irish, Mr Carpani was on the cell phone updating Mr Castilletti on their position and reporting that everything was going fine. (Vanjel 2005:30)
Rezzo seems to paraphrase the US report yet with a double conversion he renders the speed expressed in kilometres, 70-80 kph, in the US report as 120-130 chilometri all'ora [120-130 kph], then he continues:
La luce interna dell'auto era accesa e il finestrino lato guida era abbassato per poter sentire i rumori esterni. Nel sedile posteriore si trovavano Sgrena e Calipari. L'atmosfera
era di eccitazione per la liberazione dell'ostaggio, ma c'era tensione perché la missione doveva ancora essere conclusa. (Rezzo, 2005:3)
[Literal translation. The internal light of the car was on and the driver's window was open in order to listen for external sounds. In the rear there were Sgrena and Calipari. The atmosphere was of excitement for the liberation of the hostage, but there was tension because the mission had to be completed]
The courtesy light in the car was on and had been since picking up Ms Sgrena in the Mansour District of Baghdad. [...]. Additionally, Mr Carpani had his side window halfway open to listen for possible threats. [...]. Ms Sgrena and Mr Calipari were in the rear of the car talking to each other. [...]. The atmosphere in the car was a mix of excitement over the recovery of Ms Sgrena, and tension from the tasks yet to be completed [...]. (Vanjel, 2005:30)
Rezzo provides a reduction of possible threats>rumori esterni, thus implying the internal weakness of the US report whose details are focused on blaming the Sismi officer. Rezzo's framing contextualizes annexes that he could not read in a discourse that treats as universal his particular interpretation of the ST. The US report affirms: "More importantly, while sworn statements were provided by all the key U.S. personnel involved in the incident, the Italian personnel provided only unsworn statements as they are not required under Italian law to swear to statements until appearing before a judge" (Vanjel, 2005:2). Rezzo's implications and assumptions, sarcastically framed, attempt to impose his representation in an action of
legitimization - an "acknowledgement of the legitimacy of explanations and justifications for how things are and how things are done" (Fairclough, 2003:219) - of his own perspective. Rezzo achieves a legitimization through an act of poor translation. Whilst legitimizing his position on an incorrect detail, Rezzo avoids confronting the US mistrust of the Italian officers, which is the assumption of the original discourse. Rezzo's article suggests that he is giving a partial and inadequate reading; his ideological text seeks to remind the readers that there is no truth in the US report, and that they must wait for the Italian investigators' report, yet the power of the report is not challenged.
Migone (2005:27) comments on the legality of the Rules of Engagement (ROE) which, according to the US report, were fully respected:
These rules, never defined in detail, often make victims mainly among Iraqi civilians, and sometimes among allied forces; for these reasons they have been contested by a substantial part of Congress and of the US media. They are rules, admitting that they are rules, and behaviours which could be normal in a situation of war, yet they are completely opposed to the actions of collective security foreseen by the Charter of the UN in addition to the Constitutional Dictate of some countries, including Italy.
Critically, Migone's comments shifted from the US report to its legitimization of ROE that the report defended - his editorial becomes almost a critical discourse analysis. Migone's comments did not alter the ST but used paraphrases of it by commenting on its substantial weaknesses in a broader context. The article deals with the major political intentions behind the preliminary inquiry, and the implicit assumptions of the language of its writers. The issue of jurisdiction refers to the
premises on which the "respected ROE" do not legally apply in the current "atmospherics" in Iraq.
Another facet of the "atmospherics" is discussed in Fontana's "L'Italia accusa" [Italy accuses]. This article discusses the most fundamental differences between the US report and the Italian representatives' report (Fontana 2005: 3). He emphasizes that that for the Italian committee, the translation issue lay in the US report: "The U.S. considers all of Iraq a combat zone" (2005: 4). Its rendering, "gli Stati Uniti considerano l'intero Iraq zona di combattimento", as Fontana shows, was a concern for the Italian government. If Iraq is a combat zone, Italian troops are at war. The Italian Constitution does not allow Italy to wage war; thus the government was involved in a serious unconstitutional act (see Davidson 2008). The problem for the Italian representatives was also to translate this passage 'legally', to legitimize in their translation the ideology for going to a combat zone (to war?).
il manifesto
In this newspaper, the US report is mentioned only in the leaks that the Pentagon's sources gave to CBS (Polo 2005:1). A nationalistic thrust - in a Communist newspaper - entered the debate because these events could be considered as a criticism against a liberal and right-wing government that made international and national mistakes which weakened the image of the country. Consistently, Andrea Colombo's article "Scontro con gli Usa" [Clash with the USA] emphasizes the rupture between USA and Italy on the official findings described by the US report (Colombo, 2005:2). Colombo underlines that Italy should have re-established its role as a sovereign country, allied but not subordinate, to the USA, when the second investigation was completed. All the information from the leaks or the US report is commented on with an informed
readership in mind. On 4 May, Portelli's article 'Diavoli e Polvere' [Devils and Dust] still discusses the CBS source which declared that the speed of the Toyota was 96.6 kph, as reported by Sergeant Michael Brown. It is interesting how, at that point, the journalists were referring to each other's articles and not to primary sources, illustrating van Doorslaer's (2010: 182) point that "most rewriting in the journalistic field is more problematic, however, as far as the status of a(n) (identifiable) source text is concerned". Even with the ST there, Portelli's article provides figures given by Repubblica and not as found on the US report (2005:1, 4). The speed of 50 mph in the US report, because of repeated conversions, is exaggerated: it is not 80 kph but 60 mph, yet once again converted into 96.6 kph - as given by CBS (see Rezzo, 2005:3). The mystifications about the speed came from such ideologically invasive and biased sources that not even the US report was taken into account.
When the complexity of relations between texts, meaning, and interpretation are considered, the process of meaning-making can become exponentially complex in translation when two ideological systems meet or clash. In translation, the representation of the world, according to what Fairclough calls social structure, becomes a mediation between two social structures, that of the SL and that of the TL, each one carrying an ideological thrust. In the case of newspapers, a translation is then mediated once more. The Calipari Case is an emblematic example of the effects that underpin the use of translation in the transfer of news emphasized by Schaffner and Bassnett (2010: 8) "Mass media enable communication across languages and cultures, but in doing so, they can privilege specific information at the expense of other information, and they can also hinder and prohibit information from being circulated". Yet translation can be seen as a screen for journalistic editing, as with
the analysis of the US report on Calipari's death. This is an ideologically written ST; the authors' intentions are visible and the style does not need to be amplified by manipulating the rendering. The assumptions of the ST stimulated journalists to adopt translations to analyze principally the "unsaid" of the ST without conveying the "said". They created a new set of assumptions on the role of military secrets, on undisclosed information or simply on undelivered information. Translations, if not translators, became visible and aimed at achieving an impact with redoubtable ethical implications. Baker (2011: 290) puts it very effectively, it is the largely invisible and least glamorous aspects of translators' and interpreters' work that can often have the greatest impact on the lives of those around them, and hence require them to approach every assignment not just as a technical but as a primarily ethical challenge, one that calls on us to recognize the humanity of others and treat them accordingly.
This section has considered whether such ethical approach was adopted in the journalistic use of translations.
6. Concluding remarks: machinations and manipulations
Although individual journalists who wrote these articles might or might have not been responsible for translating the extracts from the US report, they did not acknowledge any translators. Nor did they acknowledge a translation; their authorship of the article lets the reader assume that the journalists' information is first-hand, contrary to the reality pointed out by Schaffner (2004: 120) that "it is very frequently the case that reactions in one country to statements that were made in another country are actually reactions to the information as it was provided in translation". The publication of the US report was postponed because "Italy wanted to insert a sentence that would be a formal wish
to let the Italian magistrates shed full light on the event, but the USA said no" (Bianconi, 2005:2). This mediation of the ST was needed in order to transform the discourse of findings into deductions for an in-depth civil and legal inquiry:
Al termine degli accertamenti gli italiani avevano proposto di chiudere il rapporto dichiarando che "si è ritenuto di non poter accertare le responsabilité". Un tentativo di mediazione [...] respinto pretendendo la piena assoluzione dei componenti della pattuglia in modo da non lasciare alcuno spiraglio anche al lavoro della magistratura. (Sarzanini, 2005:6)
[Literal translation. At the end of the examination of the evidence, the Italians proposed to conclude the report by saying "it was not possible to ascertain the responsibilities". This was an attempt at mediation that was denied by assuming the full absolution of the patrol members so as not to leave any space for the work of [Italian] magistrates]
As the mediation failed, journalists had to look for other options to leave room for the ideological representations of the interaction between US and Italian authorities. This article has not ventured to explore the moral and ethical implications of the approaches chosen by translators and journalists; however, it is clear that consciously or unconsciously they have significantly altered the ST by favouring or foregrounding interpretations that suited their preconceptions regarding the event. Nonetheless, in February 2007, Judge Sante Spinaci decided that the trial in absentia of the US soldier could proceed; in October 2007, the Italian court dismissed the charges against
the private after ascertaining that members of multinational forces in Iraq were under the exclusive jurisdiction of the country that deployed them there.
The political machinations by the Italian and US governments become even more significant if one considers their importance in the Italian debate on the war in Iraq. The debate reopened at the end of April 2005 when Berlusconi's government also underwent a cabinet reshuffle. According to the government's critics, Italian soldiers had been deployed in Iraq against the Italian constitution, despite the government's assurances that it was a peacekeeping mission under UN approval. The opposition rejected any participation in the war in Iraq. The majority of Italians opposed the war in Iraq; many demonstrations took place against the invasion in 2003; they continued when the Italian contingent was sent on the peace mission. Although Italy had sent the Carabinieri, an army corps trained in policing and conducting police activities (including in Italy), their patrolling service was in a "combat zone" (Vanjel, 2005:4). The Italian troops were mainly perceived as soldiers by the Italian public. This partially explains how the Italian report had to carefully reword the legal translations of the Iraqi situation as described in the US report. These political circumstances suggest an explanation for the manipulations of the US report in moderate and left-wing newspapers: they decided to overtranslate or overinterpret passages so as to stress the US guilt and the Italian government's submission
1 Henceforth this military report investigating Calipari's death will be referred to as the US report.
2 Initially, the Italian magistrates could not legally use the restored information as the US declined formal international requests to name the US soldier who fired the shots.
3 All literal translations in English from the Italian are mine unless otherwise stated.
4 It may however be argued that the practice in Italian newspapers has blurred the distinction between reporting and commenting (cf. Travaglio 2006; Biagi and Mazzetti 2006: 74-123).
5 All the descriptions of the procedures adopted to man a road block belong to a single genre, as understood by Fairclough (2003:216) as "a way of acting in its discourse aspect [...] [g]enres can be identified at different levels of abstractions: highly abstract 'pre-genres' such as Narrative or Report, which generalize over many different forms of narrative and report at a more concrete levels, disembedded genres [...], and situated genres which are tied to particular networks of social practices". The description of the manned positions of TCPs and BPs show that they are disembedded genres, which are
to the USA. Conversely, right-wing Italian newspapers read the same events and documents with overtranslated or overinterpreted passages in order to support the government.
The ST, as a political item, was subjected to a deliberate action of propaganda; it was used, stretched, and abused across the entire spectrum of Italian parties without ever seeming to be the object of an in-depth analysis. The US report is a text whose 'external relations' to social events and structures - respectively the military action, the international relations between USA and Italy, and their alliance in the intervention in Iraq - were based upon ambiguity and uncertain legality. The structure of the US report shows internal relations shaped by the social practices of the US forces imposing their ideology by the logic of appearances, thus asserting an unquestionable power of judgment. The journalists' articles lacked structural coherence, as demonstrated not only by the overt undertranslations or overtranslations of the ST but also by the fact that they relied on and referred to sources which never appeared consistent. The Sismi rescue team was performing a secret action; it should have informed the Coalition Forces of the mission; taking its chances, the Italian government was aware of the dangers of secrecy. When the rescue success was transformed into a tragedy, parties and opposite political sides joined in considering Calipari a hero (as, indeed, in many respect he was) and transformed the case into propaganda for opposing objectives.
situated in the particular context of the military discipline. As subgenres, TCPs and BPs are different from the abstract genre and also from each other, but, interestingly, training in the different procedures does not mirror the differences between the genre and its subgenres.
"Flying, or immediate, checkpoints are conducted when specific intelligence indicates that a checkpoint will hinder the enemy's freedom of movement at a specific time and place. They are conducted immediately and often with little or no planning. [...]. Although not a TCP mission, the mission given to 1-69 IN to block Route Irish on 4 March 2005 fell into this category" (Report, 2005:15).
Sismi covered itself against any governmental blame, according to Bonini, by stating that they had been working in total agreement with the government; later, Gianni Letta, the deputy Prime Minister, in charge of coordinating the entire rescue operation, created the idea of secret service plot.
In relation to this subject, the most explicit part of the US report reads (2005:29): "The 1-76 TOC had two means of communicating with 4th Brigade, its higher headquarters: Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP)2 and FM. The 1-76 FA Battle Captain was using only VOIP to communicate with 1-69 IN, but experienced problems with VOIP, therefore losing its only communication link with 1-69 IN, other than going through 4th Brigade. [...]. As a result, the Battle Captain was unable to pass updated information about the blocking mission either directly to 1-69 IN, or to 4th Brigade. He did not attempt to contact 4th Brigade via FM communications. [...]. Fourth Brigade, in turn, could not pass updated information to its major command, 3ID. [...]. Likewise, 3ID had no new information to pass to its subordinate command, 2/10 MTN. Finally, 2/10 MTN was thus unable to pass updated information to its subordinate command, 1-69 IN".
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Дело Калипари: махинации политиков и манипуляции журналистов
Ф.М. Федеричи
Университет Дарэма, Школа современных языков и культур Великобритания, Дарэм, DH13JT, Элвет Риверсайд
В данной статье рассматривается case-study, изучающее отношение итальянской прессы к некоторым переводным источникам. Исследуются вопросы перевода, связанные с языковыми средствами манипулирования и затронутые журналистами в профессиональной деятельности.
Ключевые слова: перевод журналистов, критический дискурс-анализ, переводческое поведение, переводческий эффект, идеология, перевод военных отчётов, политика в области перевода.
