Investigating multilingual audio-visual and written news: theoretical and methodological convergence.

This paper addresses the theoretical and methodological issues that arise with research into multilingual audio-visual and written news. In particular, the idea of a convergence of methods will be expounded in order to describe a suitable theoretical framework for this kind of research. The three fields of studies that particularly contribute to the analysis of the news in different languages and cultural contexts are those of Critical Discourse Analysis, Corpus Linguistics and Translation Studies. In this respect, the term convergence covers a twofold methodological function. Firstly, it establishes a clear intertextual connection with the well-known and namesake phenomenon of media convergence which we have been witnessing during the past decade. Secondly, as a metaphor, it describes how the aforementioned theoretical-methodological inputs converge into an organic framework that allows the researcher to gain multiple perspectives on written and audio-visual news, on their contexts and languages, and on the discourses and narratives they envisage, promote and finally deliver to their audiences. In this sense the term convergence includes the concept of methodological synergy and it expands on it, in that contributions by different research fields all point to and actively bestow on the understanding of multilingual news discourse and of the meaning making activity of translation in this context.