Translation and Political Discourse

• Authors: Mátyás Bánhegyi
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The paper describes the text linguistic research of political texts in the field of Translation Studies and presents an overview of critical discourse analysis-based studies. First, the relationship between text, power and ideology and its implications on the role of translation are explored. This is followed by a review of a number of studies on the translation of political texts and on the power relations involved. The paper classifies such studies into the following six categories representing distinct research fields: translators' professional roles and politics; translators acting as mediators in situations of political conflict; translators' professional responsibilities and the strategies they apply; the inference of translators' own historical, social and cultural backgrounds; manipulation in the translation of literary texts and other text types; and critical discourse awareness in Translation Studies. The most recent studies in the above research fields and their results are also presented. It is concluded that these approaches exhibit quite varied research methods and their results are almost impossible to compare. With a view to the future development of this research field, it seems expedient to introduce a unified research theory, method and tool.

Keywords

EN

Translation Studies; critical discourse analysis; political discourse; ideology; power

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 6
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 139-158

Dates

online

2015-03-01

Contributors

author

Mátyás Bánhegyi

• Department of English Linguistics Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary

References

• Álvarez, Roman and Vidal, M. Carmen-Á;frica (eds.). 1996. Translation, Power,Subversion. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
• Baker, Mona. 1992. In Other Words. London and New York: Routledge.
• Baker, Mona. 2006. Translation and Conflict. A Narrative Account. London and New York: Routledge.
• Baker, Mona. 2007. Activist Communities of Translators and Interpreters. Paper presented at Translation, Interpreting and Social Activism 1st InternationalForum. Granada: University of Granada.
• Bánhegyi, Mátyás. 2009. The translator's ideology and the reproduction of superstructure. Working Papers in Language Pedagogy 3: 28-56.
• Bánhegyi, Mátyás. 2008. A Translation Studies oriented integrative approach to Canadian Political Discourse. Across Languages and Cultures 9(1): 11-107.
• Bassnett, Susan. & Lefevere, André (eds.) 1990. Translation, History and Culture. London: Pinter.
• Bednárová-Gibová, Klaudia. 2012. Non-Literary and Literary Text in Translation. Presov: Filozoficka fakulta Presovskej univerzity.
• Bell, Allan. 1991. The Language of News Media. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Bell, Allan. 1998. The Discourse Structure of News Stories. In Bell, Allan and Garrett, Peter (eds.), Approaches to Media Discourse, 64-104. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Bell, Allan and Garrett, Peter (eds.). 1998. Approaches to Media Discourse. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
• Calzada Pérez, Maria. 2007. Translating Conflict Advertising in a Globalised Era. In Salama-Carr, Myriam (ed.), Translating and Interpreting Conflict, 149-165. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.
• Chadwick, Brian. 2007. A ‘hip-hop‘ Translation of a Poem by the Russian Futurist Poet Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922). In Salama-Carr, Myriam (ed.), Translatingand Interpreting Conflict, 199-220. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.
• Chan, Red. 2007. One Nation, Two Translations: China's Censorship of Hillary Clinton's Memoir. In Salama-Carr, Myriam (ed.), Translating and InterpretingConflict, 119-131. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.
• Chilton, Paul and Schäffner, Christina (eds.) 2002. Politics as Text and Talk.Analytic Approaches to Political Discourse. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins.
• Chilton, Paul and Schäffner, Christina. 1997. Discourse and Politics. In van Dijk, Teun. A. (ed.), Discourse as Social Interaction, 206-230. Thousand Oaks, USA: Sage Publications.
• Conway, Kyle and Vaskivska, Tetiana. 2010. Consuming news translation: the New York Times online and the “Kremlin rules” experiment. Across Languagesand Cultures 11(2): 233-253.
• Cronin, Michael. 2003. Translation and Globalisation. London and New York: Routledge.
• van Dijk, Teun A. 1990 [1980]. La noticia como discurso: comprehension,estructura y producción de la información. Barcelona: Paidós.
• van Dijk, Teun A. 2003. Ideology and Discourse - A Multidisciplinary Introduction. http://www.discourses.org/download/articles/ (14 March 2014).
• Dimitriu, Ilenea. 2002. Translation, Diversity and Power. Current Writing 14(2): i-xiv.
• van Doorslaer, Luc. 2010. The double extension of translation in the journalistic field. Across Languages and Cultures 11(2): 175-188.
• Dragovic-Drouet, Mila. 2007. The Practice of Translation and Interpreting During the Conflicts in the Former Yugoslavia (1991-1999). In Salama-Carr, Myriam (ed.), Translating and Interpreting Conflict, 29-40. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.
• Fairclough, Norman. 1989. Language and Power. London and New York: Longman.
• Fairclough, Norman. 1995. Critical Discourse Analysis: the Critical Study ofLanguage. London and New York: Longman.
• Fisher, Walter. 1987. Human Communication as Narration: Towards a Philosophyof Reason, Value, and Action. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
• Foster, Ian. 2007. The Translation of William Le Queux's The Invasion of 1910: What Germany Made of Scaremongering in The Daily Mail. In Salama-Carr, Myriam (ed.), Translating and Interpreting Conflict, 169-182. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.
• Fowler, Roger. 1985. Power. In van Dijk, Teun A. (ed.), Handbook of DiscourseAnalysis. Vol. 4: 61-82. London: Academic Press.
• Gagnon, Chantai. 2006. Language Plurality as Power Struggle, or: Translating Politics in Canada. Target. 18(1): 69-90.
• Hatim, Basil and Mason, Ian. 1990. Discourse and the Translator. London: Longman.
• Hatim, Basil and Munday, Jeremy. 2004. Translation: An Advanced ResourceBook. London and New York: Routledge.
• Hernandez Guerrero, Maria José. 2010. Translated interviews in printed media - A case study of the Spanish daily El Mundo. Across Languages and Cultures 11(2): 217-232.
• Katan, David. 1999. Translating Cultures: An Introduction for Translators,Interpreters, and Mediators. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.
• Kuhiwczak, Piotr. 2007. The Grammar of Survival. How Do We Read Holocaust Testimonies? In Salama-Carr, Myriam (ed.), Translating and InterpretingConflict, 61-73. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.
• Lakoff, George. 1973. Hedges: A study in meaning criteria and the logic of fuzzy concepts. Journal of Philosophical Logic 2: 458-508.
• LeBaron, Michelle. 2003. Bridging Cultural Conflicts: A New Approach for aChanging World. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Maier, Carol. 2007. The Translator's Visibility: the Rights and Responsibilities Thereof. In Salama-Carr, Myriam (ed.), Translating and Interpreting Conflict, 253-266. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.
• Newmark, Peter. 1989. Introductory Survey. In Picken, Catriona (ed.), TheTranslator's Handbook. 2nd edition. 1-26. London: ASLIB.
• Nikolaou, Paschalis. 2007. The Troy of Always: Translation of Conflict in Christopher Logue's War Music. In Salama-Carr, Myriam (ed.), Translating andInterpreting Conflict, 75-95. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.
• Nord, Christiane. 1997. Translating as a Purposeful Activity. FunctionalistApproaches Explained. Manchester: St Jerome.
• Palmer, Jerry. 2007. Interpreting and Translation for Western Media in Iraq. In Salama-Carr, Myriam (ed.), Translating and Interpreting Conflict, 13-28. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.
• Pym, Anthony. 1992. Translation and Text Transfer - An Essay on the Principlesof Intercultural Communication. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
• Pym, Anthony. 2000. Negotiating the Frontier. Translators and Intercultures inHispanic History. Manchester: St Jerome Publishing.
• Schäffner, Christina. 1998. Hedges in Political Texts: A Translational Perspective. In Hickey, Leo (ed.), The Pragmatics of Translation, 185-202. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
• Schäffner, Christina. 2003. Third Ways and New Centres - Ideological Unity or Difference? In Calzada-Pérez, Maria (ed.), Apropos of Ideology: TranslationStudies on Ideology. Ideologies in Translation Studies, 23-41. Manchester: St Jerome.
• Schäffner, Christina. 2004. Political Discourse Analysis from the point of view of Translation Studies. Journal of Language and Politics. 3(1): 117-150.
• Schäffner, Christina and Adab, Beverly. 2001. The Idea of the Hybrid Text in Translation: Contact as Conflict. Across Languages and Cultures. 2(2): 167-180.
• Schelesinger, Philip and Lumley, Bob. 1985. Two Debates on Political Violence and the Mass Media: The Organisation of Intellectual Fields in Britain and Italy. In van Dijk, Teun A. (ed.), Discourse and Communication, New Approaches tothe Analysis of Mass Media Discourse and Communication, 324-349. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.
• Seleskovitch, Danica. 1983. Faut-il sauver les langues nationals? Role de la traduction et de l'interprétation. Traduire. 116. 5-6.
• Stetting, Karen. 1989. Transediting. A New Term for Coping with the Grey Area between Editing and Translating. In Caie, Graham, et al. (eds.), Proceedingsfrom the Fourth Nordic Conference for English Studies, 371-382. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen.
• Tang, Jun. 2007. Encounters with Cross-cultural Conflicts in Translation. In Salama-Carr, Myriam (ed.), Translating and Interpreting Conflict, 135-147. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.
• Trosborg, Anna. 1997. Text Typology and Translation. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins.
• Tymoczko, Maria. 2000. Translation and Political Engagement. The Translator. 6(1): 23-47.
• Tymoczko, Maria. 2003. Ideology and the Position of the Translator: In What Sense is a Translator ‘in between‘? In Calzada-Pérez, Maria (ed.), Apropos ofIdeology: Translation Studies on Ideology. Ideologies in Translation Studies, 181-202. Manchester: St Jerome.
• Tymoczko, Maria. 2006. Translation: ethics, ideology, action. The MassachusettsReview47{3): 442-461.
• Tymoczko, Maria and Gentzler, Edwin. 2002. Introduction. In Tymoczko, Maria and Gentzler, Edwin (eds.), Translation and Power, i-xxviii. Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press.
• Valdeón, Roberto A. 2007. Ideological Independence or Negative Mediation: BBC Mundo and CNN en Español's (translated) Reporting of Madrid's Terrorist Attacks. In Salama-Carr, Myriam (ed.), Translating and Interpreting Conflict, 99-118. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.
• Venuti, Lawrence (ed.). 1992. Rethinking Translation: Discourse, Subjectivity, Ideology. London: Routledge.
• Wadensjö, Cecilia. 1998. Interpreting as Interaction. Harlow, Essex: Addison Wesley Longman.
• Williams, John. 2007. Ferdinand Freiligrath, William Wordsworth, and the Translation of English Poetry into the Conflicts of Nineteen Century German Nationalism. In Salama-Carr, Myriam (ed.), Translating and Interpreting Conflict, 183-198. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/ausp-2015-0011