South Africa’s image as translated in Dutch-language media

Abstract

This contribution first explores the position of Journalistic Translation Research within the discipline of Translation Studies and, subsequently, describes the relevance of relating it to imagological approaches. It presents a case study that analyses how journalistic discourse in current Dutch-language newspapers (both from the Netherlands and Belgium) represents South Africa(ns). Five recurring images and topical fields are distinguished. They do not only build the imageme, i.e. the imagological range of presentations for South Africa(ns) in Dutch-language journalistic representations, but also confirm the constructed character of national and cultural image-building.