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Fascinating Transitions in Multilingual Newscasts: A Corpus-Based Investigation of Translation in The News 1st Ed. Edition Gaia Aragrande
Newscasts: A corpus-based
investigation of translation in the news
1st ed. Edition Gaia Aragrande
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Fascinating Transitions
in Multilingual
Newscasts
A corpus-based investigation
of translation in the news
Gaia Aragrande
Fascinating Transitions in Multilingual Newscasts
Gaia Aragrande
Fascinating
Transitions
in Multilingual
Newscasts
A corpus-based investigation
of translation in the news
Gaia Aragrande
Department of Interpreting and Translation
Forlì Campus
University of Bologna
Forlì, Italy
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland
AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To my grandmothers, Luigianna and Mariagrazia: you inspire me daily
from wherever you are.
To the best parenting trio, my father, my mother and my step-father:
adulthood milestones are so much funnier with you.
Acknowledgements
The first acknowledgement surely goes to all the wonderful people that
contributed to the outcome of this project simply by being present and
flooding me with love, friendship and smiles: my messy, complicated
and loud extended family. I am particularly grateful to Martina and
Stefano for sharing their personal space with me and making me feel like
I always belong, to Maria Luisa for listening and offering her wisdom, to
Tommaso, Benedetta, Francesco, Luca, Tiffane and Chiara(s): I felt your
support all the way through and you never missed a chance to make me
smile (loudly). A special thank goes to Antonio, thanks for being there
in good and bad times.
I would also like to thank Prof. Silvia Bernardini and Prof. Monica
Turci from the University of Bologna and Prof. Rita Wilson from
Monash University: you provide an ongoing inspiration for my develop-
ment as a researcher as well as a human being, so thank you for teaching
me that integrity, hard work and kindness always pay off. Moreover, I
am particularly grateful to Adriano Ferraresi and Eros Zanchetta for their
vital and at times painstaking work on the AVNews Corpus.
vii
viii Acknowledgements
1 Introduction 1
References 9
ix
x Contents
Index 199
List of Figures
xiii
xiv List of Figures
xv
xvi List of Tables
The field of Translation Studies (TS) has dealt with news transla-
tion for at least 15 years (Valdeón, 2015) and from different analyt-
ical and methodological perspectives, such as Media Studies, Cultural
Studies, Ethnography and so on. Scholars who have met the challenge
of researching language transfer activities in the news agree that we need
to redefine and broaden our understanding of what translation means,
as obtaining information across geographical boundaries means not only
transferring them linguistically, but also, and necessarily, culturally.
Thus, as Bassnett and Bielsa observe, “[i]t would seem that in the
global media world, the very definition of translation is challenged and
the boundaries of what we might term translation have been recast”
(Bielsa & Bassnett, 2009, p. 2). Following Van Doorslaer’s claim that
“popular views of “translation proper” as a purely linguistic transfer are
not appropriate to explain the complex processes of change involved in
news text production” (Van Doorslaer, 2010, p. 186), this book intends
to contribute to the field of research by addressing the issue of multi-
lingual journalism and translation from a stance that endeavours to go
beyond the Jakobsonian notion of interlinguistic translation (Jakobson,
1959), eventually approaching it as an intercultural activity that implies
linguistic and cultural transfer as well as creativity (Katan, 2016). In
connection with this research question there is another one addressing
the attitude of networks and news people towards the term “transla-
tion”. In the course of this study, I will devote some space to the issue
of labelling language transfer activities within the news. I will do so by
engaging with ethnography (Chapter 2 and Sect. 3.3) and eventually
pondering whether an expansion of the definition of translation might
make news providers more aware of the complexities of translational
processes within the news.
Starting from the assumption that, on the one hand, news transla-
tion enables the communication of information at the global level, and,
on the other hand, journalism is an extremely persuasive and biased
carrier of information, we, as researchers, accept that news translation
is not an innocent means of linguistic transfer, but rather an accessory
to the shaping and disseminating of influential discourses within society
(M. Baker, 2013; Conway, 2011; Tymoczko & Baker, 2010). Thus, one
of the research questions that this book purports to address is whether
1 Introduction 3
and how can we access and deconstruct the multiple layers of meaning
that language transfer activities in the news embed. In doing so, my aim
is to contribute to bridging the existing gap between news translation
and communication and media studies, by analysing and deconstructing
multilingual news outputs as well as their contexts of production and
delivery.
Central to and extremely functional in this aim is the application of
Corpus Linguistics (CL) or rather Corpus-based Discourse Analysis to
cross-linguistic analysis of the news. Indeed, the Corpus-based Discourse
Analysis approach (P. Baker, 2006; Baker & McEnery, 2015; Baker et al.,
2008; Partington, Duguid, & Taylor, 2013) allows researchers to roam
freely between multilingual texts without being indebted to the binary
Source Text (ST)— Target Text (TT) dichotomy, which is understand-
ably a feature of more traditional areas of TS, but, as pointed out above,
seems to be rather restrictive when it comes to news translation. Indeed,
the application of discourse analytical and corpus linguistics tools is
of paramount importance in understanding how the surface-level real-
ization of a discourse, i.e. language, actually influences other spheres
of reality and society in a deep and powerful manner. Journalism and
the discourses it shapes and promotes surround and impact people’s
existence.
While suggesting a method to investigate what happens when the
same news item is carried across spaces and culture, I look at the process
of recontextualization as explained by Reisigl and Wodak (2009), who
state that if an element is transferred into a new context it “(partly)
acquires a new meaning, since meanings are formed in use” (Riesigl
& Wodak, 2009, p. 90). Therefore, I claim that what happens during
the processes of news diffusion, and thus in news translation, is indeed
adding new meanings and consequently ascribable to the concept of
recontextualization.
I have named this mixed theoretical and methodological approach
“ convergence framework”, a term that is inspired by the increasingly
pervasive phenomenon of media convergence (Flew, 2009; Jenkins, 2006;
Quandt & Singer, 2009) and that employs a convergence of theories
and methods (e.g. TS, CL, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), compar-
ative analysis) to address the complexities of multilingual journalism
4 G. Aragrande
(Sect. 3.1.1) and the BBC (Sect. 3.1.2) as main representatives of these
two national contexts, providing a brief overview on these broadcasters’
history, their aims and corporate structures. Second, I will focus on a
pan-European broadcaster, i.e. Euronews (Sect. 3.2), as representative of
the supranational context of diffusion of the news. The description of the
sources informing the AVNews Corpus is fundamental in order to under-
stand the corpus structure and the relationship that the sub-corpora
entertains with each other.
Finally, in keeping with the convergence framework, Chapter 3
also presents multiple perspectives on journalism in different contexts,
providing justifications for the choices made regarding the case studies
showcased in the following chapters (Chapters 5–7). Indeed, through the
“Informal conversation with news professionals” Sect. 3.3, it is possible
to actively engage with ethnography and Discourse Analysis (DA) as
methodologies and let insights from the latter inform the interpretation
of the results from the corpus or the comparative analysis.
Section 3.3 will therefore report about translational practices in each
of these networks, by using first-hand sources of information or by
reviewing the existing ethnographic work about them or a mix of the
two. Indeed, while there is an extensive body of research revolving
around translation practices at the BBC (s., for example, Aktan &
Nohl, 2010; Baumann, Gillespie, & Sreberny, 2011; Podkalicka, 2011;
Valdeón, 2005) and some studies have been carried out in the past about
Euronews linguistic policies (s., for example, Baisnée & Marchetti, 2006;
Machill, 1998; Valdeón, 2009), the same cannot be said about RAI ,
in which scholarly attention has predominantly focused on translation
practices within the film industry. I therefore try to address this gap
by including in this chapter some reports about informal interviews, I
had the chance to conduct in 2015, with some translators/interpreters
working at Rainews (RAI rolling news channel) and with a Chief Editor
at the BBC . Unfortunately Euronews has so far denied any informal
interview or contact with their so-called “language journalists” (Baisnée
& Marchetti, 2006), therefore I resorted to the abovementioned studies
to investigate the network’s linguistic practices. The insights from the
interviews will be completed and compared, when possible, with the
existing body of research, so that any hypothesis regarding language
6 G. Aragrande
References
Aktan, O., & Nohl, A.-M. (2010). International trans-editing: Typical inter-
cultural communication strategies at the BBC World Service Turkish Radio.
Journal of Intercultural Communication, 24. https://www.immi.se/intercult
ural/nr24/nohl.htm.
Baisnée, O., & Marchetti, D. (2006). The economy of just-in-time tele-
vision newscasting: Journalistic production and professional excellence at
Euronews. Ethnography, 7 (1), 99–123. https://doi.org/10.1177/146613810
6064588.
Baker, M. (2013). Translation as an alternative space for political action. Social
Movement Studies, 12(1), 23–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2012.
685624.
Baker, P. (2006). Using corpora in discourse analysis. Continuum. http://public.
eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=436216.
Baker, P., & McEnery, T. (2015). Corpora and discourse studies: Integrating
discourse and corpora. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Baker, P., Gabrielatos, C., KhosraviNik, M., Krzyżanowski, M., McEnery, T.,
& Wodak, R. (2008). A useful methodological synergy? Combining critical
discourse analysis and corpus linguistics to examine discourses of refugees
and asylum seekers in the UK press. Discourse & Society, 19 (3), 273–306.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926508088962.
Baumann, G., Gillespie, M., & Sreberny, A. (2011). Transcultural journalism
and the politics of translation: Interrogating the BBC World Service. Jour-
nalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism, 12(2), 135–142. https://doi.org/10.
1177/1464884910388580.
Bielsa, E., & Bassnett, S. (2009). Translation in global news. Abingdon:
Routledge.
Conway, K. (2011). Everyone says no: Public service broadcasting and the failure
of translation. London: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Flew, T. (2009). Democracy, participation and convergent media: Case studies
in contemporary online news journalism in Australia. Communication,
Politics & Culture, 42(2), 87–109.
Jakobson, R. (1959). On linguistic aspects of translation. In L. Venuti (Ed.),
The translation studies reader (2nd ed., pp. 138–143). London: Routledge.
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture. New York: New York University Press.
Katan, D. (2016). Translation at the cross-roads: Time for the transcre-
ational turn? Perspectives, 24 (3), 365–381. https://doi.org/10.1080/090
7676X.2015.1016049.
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Machill, M. (1998). Euronews: The first European news channel as a case study
for media industry development in Europe and for spectra of transnational
journalism research. Media, Culture & Society, 20 (3), 427–450. https://doi.
org/10.1177/016344398020003005.
McLuhan, M. (1994). Understanding media: The extensions of man (1st MIT
Press ed.). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Palmer, J. (2009). News gathering and dissemination. In M. Baker & G.
Saldanha (Eds.), Routledge encyclopaedia of translation studies (2nd ed.,
pp. 186–189). London: Routledge.
Partington, A., Duguid, A., & Taylor, C. (2013). Patterns and meanings in
discourse: Theory and practice in corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) (Vol.
55). John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.55.
Podkalicka, A. (2011). Factory, dialogue, or network? Competing translation
practices in BBC transcultural journalism. Journalism: Theory, Practice &
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Quandt, T., & Singer, J. B. (2009). Convergence and cross-platform content
production. In K. Wahl-Jorgensen & T. Hanitzsch (Eds.), The handbook of
journalism studies (pp. 130–143). New York: Routledge.
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In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods for critical discourse analysis (2nd
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10.1556/Acr.11.2010.2.3.
2
Multilingual News Discourse
and Translation, Towards a Theoretical
Approach
One of the salient features of capitalist society […] is the relentless drive
towards de-differentiation and declassification in everything from broad-
casting (reality TV where the mundane dissolves into the spectacle) to
warfare (video arcades and drone strikes). The incessant flows of images,
ideas, products and people that have both driven and be driven by glob-
alizing practices call into the question the usefulness and pertinence
of classificatory paradigms from another age. (Cronin & Simon, 2014,
p. 126)
[t]he genre that is dominant in the target culture defines to a great extent
the reader’s horizon of expectation with regard to the translated work that
tries to take its place in that target culture. If it does not conform to the
demand of the genre that dominates the target culture its reception is
likely to be rendered more difficult. (Lefevere, 1992, p. 92)
[…] a broadcast news translator has one or two hours to produce one
news item with sound on tape, i.e. the completion of translation, voice-
over recording and film editing. When major international news breaks,
the multi- tasks are expected to be completed possibly within 30 minutes,
or less than 10 minutes for translation only. (Tsai, 2005, p. 62)
The degree of identifiability of the STs in its/their TTs may also vary.
As we shall see in the course of this book, there are cases in which transla-
tion is made explicit, e.g. through voice-over or direct quoting; however,
it is not uncommon to listen to or watch a news report recounting an
international issue or event that does not quote any source. This of course
complicates the process of detecting translational processes inside the
report itself.
Tsai depicts the interpreter/translator as a fundamental figure in the
newsroom, in charge of many duties that go well beyond the linguistic
transferral of information. As a matter of fact, according to Tsai, the
interpreter/translator acts as filter and gatekeeper, making choices about
what to include and exclude in the report, what to add as background
information and how to frame the issue at hand. From the observation
of these characteristics, Tsai draws another line of comparison between
audio-visual news translation and interpreting, i.e. the stress-factor.
Indeed, she points how four main factors impinge on the broadcast news
translator’s psychophysical health, i.e. time, the type of STs, the type of
translation processes in place and the space available for broadcast (Tsai,
2005, p. 67).
The type of STs and of translation processes highlight two interesting
aspects about international news broadcasting. Tsai (2010, p. 180) indi-
cates as prominent source materials for translated news reports two sets
of informative channels, one of which is “official”, by which she means
press agencies’ audio-visual materials or television archives, and one,
“unofficial” sources i.e. mainly Internet-based. Among the sources in the
latter category, she does not refer to UGC (User-Generated Content),
which is a phenomenon that has been gaining popularity in the mass
media over the last decade. The translational strategies employed to
translate such a variety of materials imply choices at the linguistic and
journalistic level, which lead Tsai to state that “[…] news translators
are expected to play the role of journalists rather than translators” (Tsai,
2010, p. 181).
One can conclude that the status of the STs in news translation
is comparable to that of news agencies’ bulletin or press releases, i.e.
raw material to be deconstructed, re-elaborated, and re-packaged in the
newsroom by a team of journalists, translators/interpreters (or both),
20 G. Aragrande
editors, sound and video or sound operators, etc. Tsai points out how
this reworking process in the newsroom is just one of the many filters
through which information passes, concluding that:
[a]s news passes through various gatekeepers before reaching the foreign
desk of a national broadcaster like FTV, it would be difficult to trace
the author(s). Given the minimal significance of source text authorship
to the news translator and the audience, such efforts seem irrelevant and
redundant. (Tsai, 2010, p. 184)
STs are then a (already reworked) starting point from which the news
report develops, the way in which the latter evolves depends very much
on the news values and the news angles, which the network under
consideration intends to employ in order to deliver information and their
stance to the audience. That is to say that the recombination, repackaging
and recontextualization of the various news sources through editing and
translation is not at all a random process, quite the opposite.
There are two other important factors at play when considering jour-
nalism’s sources, or news’ STs and their status in the newsroom, namely
technology and media convergence. Media convergence is a phenomenon
“involving the interconnection of information and communication tech-
nologies, computer networks and media content” (Flew, 2017) and it is
often seen as one of the main consequences media digitization and popu-
larization of the web. These two factors have significant consequences
not only for the translation of such texts, but also for journalism as a
whole, in particular Berkowitz, referring both to television and online
news, points out:
has complicated questions about which sources count and what degree of
sourcing is sufficient. (Berkowitz, 2009, p. 112)
Not having clear and defined news sources inevitably complicates the
picture, and news media convergence is creating networks and cross
references that open up a dynamic and dialogic relationship between
journalist/translators and sources. Hence, this dynamism and dialogue
should be mirrored in the respective disciplines of TS and JS. As a matter
of fact, translation theories that have been applied to the study and inves-
tigation of news translation cannot be taken per se as the only parameter
and/or tool to analyse translational processes in the journalistic context.
Instead, they should be considered and integrated with JS theories and
other analytical tools such as CL and DA. These could inform news
translation research and help understanding both translation processes
and choices, thus inaugurating a fruitful synergy between these fields of
studies, which hopefully will prove to be beneficial to both sides of the
equation.
What is now worth discussing is the fact that JS’ scholarship rarely
focuses on the inter- or intra-linguistic transfers that occur in news-
rooms on a daily basis, confirming the hypothesis that translation is
considered as a necessary and routinized activity in the journalistic field.
Nonetheless, especially since globalization started to exert a considerable
pressure on the ways news are shaped and constructed, academia as well
as journalism educators and practitioners have begun to be more aware of
cultural specificity and what this entails in a globalized and international
communication network.
Wahl-Jorgensen and Hanitzsch describe JS as an “extremely diverse
scholarly occupation” (Wahl-Jorgensen & Hanitzsch, 2009, p. 7),
pointing out how this field of studies
Both these definitions of discourse are relevant to this book, since they
highlight the importance, in journalism, of the interaction of text and
context, and the underlying power struggle that is expressed through
language. Therefore, we would be able to consider journalism as an
object of study and analyse it in order to disclose discourses and power
relationships and/or structures, viewing “news production and dissem-
ination as creating new forms of power, as well as forms of access to
representation” (Conboy, 2004, pp. 3–4). Such a view establishes a direct
link to DA and CDA, which are particularly relevant to this study, as we
shall see in Sect. 2.2.
In order to account for the inter- and multidisciplinarity of JS,
Wahl-Jorgensen and Hanitzsch (2009) provide a detailed account of the
evolution of JS following a series of subsequent “turns”, a metaphor
used to describe also shifts within the field of TS (Munday, 2010).
The “Empirical Turn” during the 1950s essentially focused on media
impact on audiences, by using quantitative methods and experiments,
but academic attention was also addressed to “the news people and their
2 Multilingual News Discourse and Translation … 23
are not accepted by the audience, who has to comply and meld with
the agenda. In order to be successful in setting their agenda, mass media
resort to techniques that essentially play on psychological concepts such
as “need for orientation”, i.e. people’s habit to turn to the media when
trying to understand new situations and/or environments (Coleman
et al., 2009, p. 152), and “obtrusive issues”, i.e. familiar issues which
are not very likely to be high in the mass media agenda setting opposed
to “unobtrusive issues” which are “most likely to become important to
people if they are high on the media’s agenda” (Coleman et al., 2009,
p. 153). The combination of uncertainty and relevance clearly enhances
audiences’ need for information and mass media can set their agenda in a
more effective way. Conversely, if relevance and uncertainty about a topic
are low, then media agenda-setting effects tend to be weak (Coleman
et al., 2009).
Alongside agenda-setting issues, JS scholars have described and theo-
rized news values for two main reasons: first to answer the question “what
is news?” and secondly to provide a set of values, that could both guide
and justify news selection, thus making that of news values a relevant
field of inquiry within JS (O’Neill & Harcup, 2009, p. 163). Often
described as a “slippery concept” (O’Neill & Harcup, 2009, p. 162),
news values can shed light and partially explain what is included in and
what is excluded from in the news, for this reason, within the tradition
of Media and JS, they have been put into lists and taxonomies following
a bottom-up approach (Bednarek & Caple, 2014; Clark, 2007).
There are many taxonomies of news values, the first and maybe most
influential was suggested by Galtung and Ruge in 1965, who listed
12 main and interrelating news-selection criteria: frequency, threshold,
unambiguity, meaningfulness, consonance, unexpectedness, continuity,
composition, reference to elite nations or people, reference to people
and to something negative (Galtung & Holmboe Ruge, 1965, p. 70).
More recent taxonomies (O’Neill & Harcup, 2009) put emphasis on the
recent issues of media convergence and media meta-discourse, and on the
power of the market in the news selection process, meaning that “news
must be selected and packaged in a format that is audience-oriented and
commercial by being entertaining and reflecting popular tastes” (O’Neill
& Harcup, 2009, p. 166). It is important to keep in mind that these
28 G. Aragrande
lists and taxonomies “must remain open to inquiry rather than be seen
as closed set of values for journalism in all times and places” (Zelizer,
2004, p. 55). News values are neither universal nor fixed in time, but are
on the contrary liable to changes either diachronically or synchronically.
Especially relevant for news translation is the synchronic dimension of
news values. When international news breaks, the relevant news values
may change according to the places in which that particular event is
reported, which, in actual fact, is an aspect of localization. The same
event may be relevant for different reasons in different places, jour-
nalists/translators, when selecting a particular news event, must then
have clear in their minds why they are doing that and which aspects
to prioritize and which to ignore or downplay.
News selection criteria and agenda-setting issues are not only relevant
to news translation and hence TS, but also to other fields of studies such
as CDA. Moreover, I would like to stress once again how international
news and mass media are strongly influenced and shaped by two main
and closely intertwined forces, the market and technology. The inter-
play between these two forces cannot be ignored in the context of news
translation, and this feature of news translation makes it very similar
to translation within the advertising industry, with the difference that
marketizing is something desirable and aimed at within advertising and
the same cannot be said about the news (Caimotto, 2007, p. 26).
[O]ne way that discourses are constructed is via language. Language (both
as an abstract system: phonetics, grammar, lexicon etc. and as a context-
based system of communication) is not the same as discourse, but we
can carry out analysis of language in texts in order to uncover traces of
discourses. (P. Baker, 2006, p. 5)
Now, thus you know what New-England is, as also with the
commodities and discommodities thereof: now I will shew you a little
of the Inhabitants thereof, and their gouernment.
For their Gouernors they haue Kings, which they call Saggamores,
some greater, and some lesser, according to the number of their
Subjects.
The greatest Saggamores about vs can not make aboue three
hundred Men, and other lesse Saggamores haue not aboue fifteene
Subjects, and others neere about vs but two.
Their Subjects aboue twelue yeares since were swept away by a
great & grieuous Plague that was amongst them, so that there are
verie few left to inhabite the Country.
The Indians are not able to make vse of the one fourth part of the
Land, neither haue they any setled places, as Townes to dwell in, nor
any ground as they challenge for their owne possession, but change
their habitation from place to place.
For their Statures, they are a tall and strong limmed People, their
colours are tawny, they goe naked, saue onely they are in part
couered with Beasts Skins on one of their shoulders, and weare
something before their priuities: their Haire is generally blacke, and
cut before like our Gentelewomen, and one locke longer then the
rest, much like to our Gentelmen, which fashion I thinke came from
hence into England.
For their weapons, they haue Bows and Arrowes, some of them
headed with Bone, and some with Brasse: I haue sent you some of
them for an example.
The Men for the most part liue idely, they doe nothing but hunt and
fish: their wiues set their Corne and doe all their other worke. They
haue little Houshold stuffe, as a kettle, and some other Vessels like
Trayes, Spoones, Dishes and Baskets.
Their Houses are verie little and homely, being made with small
Poles pricked into the ground, and so bended and fastned at the
tops, and on the sides they are matted with Boughes and couered on
the Roofe with Sedge and old Mats, and for their beds that they take
their rest on, they haue a Mat.
They doe generally professe to like well of our comming and
planting here; partly because there is abundance of ground that they
cannot possesse nor make vse of, and partly because our being
heere will bee a meanes both of reliefe to them when they want, and
also a defence from their Enemies, wherewith (I say) before this
Plantation began, they were often indangered.
For their religion, they doe worship two Gods, a good God and an
euill God: the good God they call Tantum, and their euill God whom
they feare will doe them hurt, they call Squantum.
For their dealing with vs, we neither feare them nor trust them, for
fourtie of our Musketeeres will driue fiue hundred of them out of the
Field. We vse them kindly, they will come into our Houses sometimes
by halfe a douzen or halfe a score at a time when we are at victuals,
but will aske or take nothing but what we giue them.
We purpose to learne their language as soone as we can, which
will be a meanes to do them good.
Apparell.
1 Monmoth Cap. 4 Paire of Shooes.
3 Falling bands. 2 Paire of Sheets.
3 Shirts. 7 Ells of Canuas to
1 Wast-coat. make a bed and
1 Suit of Canuase. boulster.
1 Suit of Frize. 1 Paire of Blankets.
1 Suit of Cloth. 1 Course Rug.
3 Paire of Stockings.
Armes.
1 Armor compleat. 1 Bandilier.
1 Long peece. 20 Pound of Powder.
1 Sword. 60 Pound of Lead.
1 Belt. 1 Pistoll and Goose shot.
Tooles.
1 Broad Howe. 1 Broad Axe.
1 Narrow Howe. 1 Felling Axe.
1 Steele Handsawe. 1 Gimblet.
1 Whipsawe. 1 Hatchet.
1 Hammer. 2 Frowes.
1 Shouell. 1 Hand-Bill.
1 Spade. 1 Grindstone.
2 Augres. 1 Pickaxe.
4 Chissels. Nayles of all sorts.
2 Percers stocked.
Houshold implements.
1 Iron pot. 1 Spit.
1 Kettel. Wooden Platters.
1 Frying pan. Dishes.
1 Gridiron. Spoons.
2 Skellets. Trenchers.
Spices.
Sugar. Cinnamon.
Pepper. Nutmegs.
Cloues. Fruit.
Mace.
Also there are diuers other things necessary to bee taken ouer to
this Plantation, as Bookes, Nets, Hookes and Lines, Cheese, Bacon,
Kine, Goats, &c.
The names of the most remarkable
places in New-England.
The old names. The new names.
Cape Cod. Cape Iames.
The Harbor of Cape Cod. Milford Hauen.
Chawum. Barwick.
Accomack. Plimouth.
Sagoquas. Oxford.
Massachusets Mount. Cheuit Hils.
Massachusets Riuer. Charles River.
Totan. Famouth.
A great Bay by Cape Anne. Bristow.
Cape Tragabig sanda. Cape Anne.
Naembeck. Bastable, so named by King
Charles: But by the new
Planters now called Salem.
Aggawom. Southampton.
Smiths Iles. Smiths Iles.
Passasaquack. Hull.
Accominticus. Boston.
Sassanows Mount. Snowdon hill.
Sowocatuck. Ipswich.
Bahanna. Dartmouth.
A good Harbor within that Sandwich.
Bay.
Ancociscos Mount. Shuters hill.
Ancocisco. The Base.
Anmoughcawgen. Cambridge.
Kenebecka. Edenborow.
Sagadahock. Leth.
Pemmayquid. S. Iohns towne.
Segocket. Norwich.
Mecadacut. Dunbarton.
Pennobscot. Aberden.
Nusket. Low mounds.
Monahigan. Barties Iles.
Matinack. Willowbies Iles.
Metinacus. Haughtons Iles.
But whosoeuer desireth to know as much as yet can be discouered, I
aduise them to buy Captaine John Smiths booke of the description of
New-England in Folio; and reade from Fol. 203. to the end; and there
let the Reader expect to haue full content.
Finis.
SOME BRIEF COLLECTIONS
&c.
Some brief collections out of a
letter that Mr. Higginson sent to his friends
at Leicester.
THERE are certainly expected here the next spring the coming of
60 familyes out Dorcettershire,[5] who have by letters signified so
much to the Goverour to desyre him to appoint them places of
habitations they bringing their ministers with them. Also many
families are expected out of Lincolnshire[6] and a minister with them,
and a great company of godly Christians out of London. Such of you
as come from Leister, I would counsell you to come quickly and that
for two reasons. 1st, if you linger too long, the passages of Jordan
through the malice of Sathan, may be stopped, that you can not
come if you would. 2dly, Those that come first speed best here, and
have the priviledge of choosing choice places of habitations. Little
children of 5 years ould may by setting corne one month be able to
get their owne maintenance abundantly. Oh what a good worke
might you that are rich do for your poore brethren, to helpe them with
your purses onely to convey them hither with their children and
families, where they may live as well both for soule and body as any
where in the world. Besides they will recompense the cost by helping
to build houses and plant your ground for a tyme; which shall be
difficult worke at the first, except you have the helpe of many hands.
Mr. Johnson out of Lincolnshire and many others, have helped our
godly christians hither to be employed in their worke, for a while, and
then to live of themselves. We have here about 40 goats that give
milke, and as many milch kyne; we have 6 or 7 mares and an horse,
and do every day expect the coming of half a score mares more, and
30 Kyne by two shipps that are to follow us.[7] They that come let
them bring mares, kyne, and sheepe as many as they can: Ireland is
the best place to provide sheepe, and lyes in the way. Bring none
that are in lambe, nor mares in foale; for they are in more danger to
perish at sea. Of all trades carpenters are most needful, therefore
bring as many as you can. It were a wise course for those of abilityes
to joyne together and buy a shipp for the voyage and other
merchandize. For the governour would that any man may employ his
stocke in what merchandises he please, excepting only beaver
skins, which the company of merchants reserve to themselves, and
the managing of the publique stocke. If any be of the mynde to buy a
shipp my cousin Nowell’s[8] counsell would be good. Also one Mr.
[Beecher] a very godly man and the master of the ship we went in,
and likewise one Mr. Graves the master’s maite dwelling in Wapping
may herein staund you in stead. The payment of the transportation
of things is wondrous deare, as 5l a man and 10l a horse and
commonly 3l for every tunne of goodes: so that a little more than will
pay for the passage will purchase the possession of a ship for all
together.
No man hath or can have a house built for him here unlesse he
comes himselfe, or else send servants before to do it for him. It was
an errour that I now perceive both in myselfe, and others did
conceive by not rightly understanding the merchaunts meaning. For
we thought that all that put in their money into the common stocke;
should have a house built for them, besides such a portion of the
land; but it was not so. They shall indeed have so much land allotted
to them when they come to take possession of it and make use of it,
but if they will have houses they must build them. Indeed we that are
ministers, and all the rest that were entertained and sent over and
maintained by the rest of the company, as their servants, for such a
tyme in such employments, all such are to have houses built them of
the comyanies charge and no others nor otherwise. They that put
money into the stocke, as they do a good worke to helpe forwards so
worthy a plantation, so all the gayne they are likely to have, is
according to the increase of the stocke at 3 years end, by the trade
of beaver, besides the lands which they shall enjoy when they will.
All that come must have victualls with them for a twelve month, I
meane they must have meale, oatmeale and such like sustenaunce
of food, till they can gett increase of corne by their owne labour. For,
otherwise, so many may come without provision at the first, as that
our small beginnings may not be sufficient to maintayne them.
Before you come be carefull to be strongly instructed what things
are fittest to bring with you for your more comfortable passage at
sea, as also for your husbandrey occasions when you come to the
land. For when you are once parted with England you shall meete
neither with taverns nor alehouse, nor butchers, nor grosers, nor
apothecaries shops to helpp what things you need, in the midst of
the great ocean, nor when you are come to land here are yet neither
markets nor fayres to buy what you want. Therefore be sure to
furnish yourselves with things fitting to be had before you come; as
meale for bread, malt for drinke, woolen and linnen cloath, and
leather for shoes, and all manner of carpenters tools, and a good
deale of iron and steele to make nails, and lockes, for houses, and
furniture for ploughs and carts, and glasse for windowes, and many
other things which were better for you to think of them than to want
them here.
Whilst I was writing this letter my wiffe brought me word that the
fishers had caught 1600 basse at one draught, which if they were in
England were worth many a pound.
NOTES