This paper explores translation of speech representation in news by comparatively analyzing how direct speech in CNN.com news articles is translated. Starting from a discussion of the relationship between direct speech and translation, the study explores the parallel processes of recontexualization in both direct speech and translation. Then by drawing on Thompson's discussion of the four dimensions of choice for the reporter, namely "voice," "message," "signal," and "attitude," an analysis is carried out of direct speech in CNN.com news articles and their Korean translations. The analysis suggests that the form, meaning, and discourse function of direct speech is shifted as a result of the translation process.
By using such translation methods as gist translation, explicitation, specification, ommission, addition, and domestication, the meaning and message of direct speech is transferred in the target text to ensure readability, accessibility and informativity for the target readers. In the target text, direct speech is transferred into direct or indirect speech and indirect speech is changed into direct speech. Other formal, semantic, or functional shifts include the transformation of partial quotation into full sentential quotation, the transfer of sentential quotation into partial quotation, different paragraph divisions in representing direct speech, changes in the reporter's evaluation of the reported message as a result of the shift in the use of the reporting verb. The findings suggest that translation of direct speech in news discourse involves complex processes of reformulating the anterior text in terms of the context in which it is relayed.