Open Linguistics 2019; 5: 81–93 Nael F. M. Hijjo*, Surinderpal Kaur, Kais Amir Kadhim Reframing the Arabic Narratives on Daesh in the English Media: The Ideological Impact https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2019-0005 Received May 3, 2018; accepted December 30, 2018 Abstract: This paper discusses the dynamic role of translators in possibly promoting certain ideologies and political agendas by presenting stories through the lens of an ideologically laden meta-narrative. It compares the representation of ‘Daesh’ in the narratives of Arabic editorials and their English translations published by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). MEMRI is a pro-Israeli organization, widely cited by leading Western media outlets, especially in the US. The study adopts the narrative theory- informed analysis of Baker (2006) as its theoretical framework to examine how narrative is used to legitimize, normalize, and justify certain actions to the public. The findings suggest that through translation, MEMRI draws upon the meta-narrative of the War on Terror in furthering its ideologically laden agenda of terrorist Arabs and Muslims by publishing selective and decontextualized excerpts and mistranslation of concepts such as Daesh (داعش), Jihad (جهاد), and Jizya (جزية). Keywords: Ideology, ISIS, media narratives, MEMRI, translation, War on Terror. 1 Introduction Terror attacks and military conflicts have become one of the world’s primary concerns. This is because these attacks and conflicts are no longer localized, potentially affecting every nation. Conflict, which can be political, economic, religious, social, and even academic, has become a norm due to differences in interests among individuals and/or groups. Thus, both poles of a conflict seek to legitimize currently happening events and actions through a narration of stories that represent both point of views and in such a way that both goals are supported (Baker, 2006). Therefore, translation - as a way of communication across the globe where the international arena is concerned - enables both poles of a conflict to achieve their goals using the narration of various stories targeting the international sector. Translation, in this regard, is an accessible (re)framing device that inserts particular ideological loadings in the (re)construction and (re)negotiation of the source narrative. It is assumed that when one looks at the source text with different intentions, and from different perspectives, different interpretations of the text will arise (Al-Aqad, 2015). Accordingly, different translators produce differently translated texts and different readers of the same translated text suggest different interpretations (Ietcu-Fairclough, 2008). A translator is thus a text producer, albeit one that could produce a text differently from the original based on a set of assumptions and judgments on the cognitive environment of the target text user and culture (Hatim & Mason, 1997). However, such assumptions and judgments, represented in the translator’s systematic linguistic choices, are considered social and ideological settings of the text production and reception. Research Article *Corresponding author: Nael F. M. Hijjo, Foreign Studies College, Hunan Normal University, Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, Stellenbosch University, E-mail: nael_hijjo@yahoo.com Surinderpal Kaur, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya Kais Amir Kadhim, Foreign Studies College, Hunan Normal University Open Access. © 2019 Nael F. M. Hijjo et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Public License. Unauthenticated Download Date | 4/24/19 12:03 PM