A Study of Communication Miscarriage in News Translations

Translation of messages from one language to another has been a daunting task to translators. There has been observed problems in communicating messages through translation especially from English to Hausa on the broadcast media in Sokoto, Nigeria where the electronic media (radio and television) mostly use the two languages to transmit messages to diverse audiences. Such audiences rely heavily on the translated news messages to respond to certain issues contained in the messages. The aim of this paper is to study some English-Hausa news translations on the Rima Radio Sokoto medium. The objectives are to: determine whether or not there is communication miscarriage in news translation in the radio medium, examine the nature of the translation in the medium, and determine how translation errors if any, can be addressed. Qualitative research method was employed via identification, description and interpretation of ten (10) extracts of news translation from English into Hausa, which form the data for the study. Among the findings of the study were that: there were numerous errors in the translation as identified in the data analysed and that, the errors identified were those of misrepresentation of forms, poor vocabulary and use of direct translation method where it was inappropriate. From the findings, it was recommended that the errors of communication miscarriage can be addressed through training and retraining of translators. It can therefore, be concluded that application of various theoretical concepts to the study of translation appears relevant in assessing translation as well as in carrying out better translation of messages to avoid communication miscarriage.