Errors in News Translations

Errors in translations on the broadcast media which bring about distortion of messages have been a problem in many language communities which depend on the translated messages to respond to certain information. The objectives of this work are to determine the errors in news translations which lead to distortion of messages to the audience, who is responsible for the errors in translations, why the errors occur, how often they occur and solution to the problem. Sample survey through questionnaire and content analysis are methods employed in the conduct of the research. Sample survey and content analysis are used in the research. Primary sources of the data include journalists, lecturers, civil servants and translators who are regular listeners of the news programme in both English and Hausa. Results obtained show that errors in news translations do occur; translators are responsible for the errors; the errors occur due to lack of adequate training and retraining of the translators; the errors often occur and the effect is that the audience are misinformed due to the distorted messages contained in the translations of especially, information containing figurative expressions.