satire, Mona Baker

Decoding Daesh: Why is the new name for ISIS so hard to understand?

February 27, 2015 Mona Baker Articles, Translation

By Alice Guthrie on 19/2/15 Arabic translator Alice Guthrie investigates ‘Daesh’, the new name for ISIS recently adopted by several world leaders because it delegitimises the group’s activities. But how can a new name undermine a terrorist organisation? And why do the English-speaking media find the name so difficult to understand? Over the last few months, there has been a

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Alice Guthrie, Daesh, ISIS, Khaled al-Haj Salih, satire

The Limits of Satire

January 18, 2015 Mona Baker Translation

Tim Parks The New York Review of Books What does satire do? What should we expect of it? Recent events in Paris inevitably prompt these questions. In particular, is the kind of satire that Charlie Hebdo has made its trademark—explicit, sometimes obscene images of religious figures (God the father, Son, and Holy Spirit sodomizing each other; Muhammad with a yellow

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cartoons, Charlie Hebdo, freedom of expression, Joe Sacco, satire, Tim Parks