Article published in:
The Known Unknowns of Translation Studies
Edited by Elke Brems, Reine Meylaerts and Luc van Doorslaer
[Target 24:1] 2012
► pp. 103–125

Unknown agents in translated political discourse

| Aston University
This article investigates the role of translation and interpreting in political discourse. It illustrates discursive events in the domain of politics and the resulting discourse types, such as jointly produced texts, press conferences and speeches. It shows that methods of Critical Discourse Analysis can be used effectively to reveal translation and interpreting strategies as well as transformations that occur in recontextualisation processes across languages, cultures, and discourse domains, in particular recontextualisation in mass media. It argues that the complexity of translational activities in the field of politics has not yet seen sufficient attention within Translation Studies. The article concludes by outlining a research programme for investigating political discourse in translation.
Keywords: political discourse, political institution, recontextualisation, Critical Discourse Analysis, agency
Published online: 07 September 2012
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.24.1.07sch
References

References

Baker, Mona
2006 Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account. New York and London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Baumgarten, Stefan and Chantal Gagnon
2005 “Written Political Discourse in Translation. A Critical Discourse-Perspective on Mein Kampf”. Wolfgang Thiele, Joachim Schwend and Christian Todenhagen, eds. Political Discourse: Different Media—Different Intentions—New Reflections. Tübingen: Stauffenburg, 2005. 11–32. [Linguistik Band 34].Google Scholar
Bhatia, Aditi
2006 “Critical discourse analysis of political press conferences”. Discourse & Society 17:2–173–203.  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bielsa, Esperança and Susan Bassnett
2009 Translation in Global News. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Blackledge, Adrian
2005 Discourse and Power in a Multilingual World. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins. [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 15].  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Boéri, Julie and Carol Maier
eds 2010 Compromiso Social y Traducción/Interpretación—Translation/Interpreting and Social Activism. Granada: ECOS.Google Scholar
Calzada Pérez, Maria
2001 “A three-level methodology for descriptive-explanatory Translation Studies”. Target 13:2. 203–239.  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Ya-mei
2011 “The ideological construction of solidarity in translated newspaper commentaries: Context models and inter-subjective positioning”. Discourse & Society 22:6. 693–722.  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Chilton, Paul
2004 Analysing Political Discourse. Theory and Practice. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Conboy, Martin
2007 The Language of the News. London: Routledge.[ p. 124 ]Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman
1995 Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Longman.Google Scholar
2000 New Labour. New Language?. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
2006 Language and Globalization. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gagnon, Chantal
2010 “When text and translation production meet: Translation in the Prime Minister’s Office”. Christina Schäffner and Susan Bassnett, eds. Political Discourse, Media and Translation. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010. 164–177.Google Scholar
Gumul, Ewa
2010 “Explicitating Political Discourse”. Christina Schäffner and Susan Bassnett, eds. Political Discourse, Media and Translation. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 94–115.Google Scholar
Holland, Robert
2006 “Language(s) in the global news: Translation, audience design and discourse (mis)representation”. Target 18:2. 229–259.  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ilie, Cornelia
ed 2010 European Parliaments under Scrutiny. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins. [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 38].  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kang, Ji-Hae
2007 “Recontextualization of news discourse: A case study of translation of news discourse on North Korea”. The Translator 13:2. 219–242.  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Koskinen, Kaisa
2000 “Institutional Illusions: Translating in the EU Commission”. The Translator 6:1. 49–65.  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2008 Translating Institutions: An ethnographic study of EU translation. Manchester: St Jerome.Google Scholar
Le, Elisabeth
2010 Editorials and the Power of Media. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins. [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 35].  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Li, Juan
2009 “Intertextuality and national identity: discourse of national conflicts in daily newspapers in the United States and China”. Discourse & Society 20:1. 85–121.  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Loupaki, Elpida
2010 “Investigating translators’s strategies in rendering ideological conflict: The case of news translation”. Christina Schäffner and Susan Bassnett, eds. Political Discourse, Media and Translation. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 55–75.Google Scholar
Mossop, Brian
1990 “Translating Institution and ‘Idiomatic’ Translations”. Meta 35:2. 342–354.  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Okulska, Urszula and Piotr Cap
eds 2010 Perspectives in Politics and Discourse, Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins. [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 36].  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Patrona, Marianna
2011 “Neutralism revisited: When journalists set new rules in political news discourse”. Mats Ekström and Marianna Patrona, eds. Talking Politics in Broadcast Media. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins 2011 [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 42].  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rundle, Christopher and Kate Sturge
2010 eds. Translation under Fascism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schäffner, Christina
2010 “Political communication: Mediated by Translation”. Urszula Okulska and Piotr Cap, eds. Perspectives in Politics and Discourse, Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 255–278. [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 36].  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2012 “Press conferences and recontextualisation”. Alonso Araguas Iciar, Jesus Baigorri Jalon and Helen L. Campbell, eds. Ensayos Sobre Traduccion Juridica e Institucional, Granada: Comares. 69–83.Google Scholar
Schäffner, Christina and Susan Bassnett
eds 2010 Political Discourse, Media and Translation. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Valdeón, Roberto A.
2005 “The CNNenEspañol News”. Perspectives 13:4. 255–267.  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
van Doorslaer, Luc
2009 “How language and (non-)translation impact on media newsrooms. The case of newspapers in Belgium”. Perspectives 17:2. 83–92.[ p. 125 ]  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Weizman, Elda
2008 Positioning in Media Dialogue. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins. [Dialogue Studies, 3.].  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Weiss, Gilbert and Ruth Wodak
eds 2003 Critical Discourse Analysis. Theory and Disciplinarity. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth and Paul Chilton
eds 2005 A New Agenda in (Critical) Discourse Analysis: Theory, Methodology and Interdisciplinarity. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 13].  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 16 other publications

Fernández, Fruela
2020. Tool-box, tradition, and capital: Political uses of translation in contemporary Spanish politics. Translation Studies 13:3 ► pp. 352 ff. Crossref logo
Gao, Fei
2020. Making sense of nationalism manifested in interpreted texts at ‘Summer Davos’ in China. Critical Discourse Studies ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo
Gu, Chonglong
2019. Mediating ‘face’ in triadic political communication: a CDA analysis of press conference interpreters’ discursive (re)construction of Chinese government’s image (1998–2017). Critical Discourse Studies 16:2 ► pp. 201 ff. Crossref logo
Havumetsä, Nina
2020. Instances of translatorial action: a journalist as a translating reporter of speech. Perspectives 28:3 ► pp. 440 ff. Crossref logo
Liang, Linxin & Mingwu Xu
2019. An exploratory study of Chinese words and phrases. Babel. Revue internationale de la traduction / International Journal of Translation 65:1 ► pp. 96 ff. Crossref logo
Pan, Feng
2019. Translation: the basics. Perspectives 27:5 ► pp. 778 ff. Crossref logo
Schäffner, Christina
2012. Intercultural intertextuality as a translation phenomenon. Perspectives 20:3 ► pp. 345 ff. Crossref logo
Schäffner, Christina
2015.  In Follow-ups in Political Discourse [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 60], ► pp. 205 ff. Crossref logo
Schäffner, Christina
2015. Speaker positioning in interpreter-mediated press conferences. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 27:3 ► pp. 422 ff. Crossref logo
Schäffner, Christina, Luciana Sabina Tcaciuc & Wine Tesseur
2014. Translation practices in political institutions: a comparison of national, supranational, and non-governmental organisations. Perspectives 22:4 ► pp. 493 ff. Crossref logo
Valdeón, Roberto A.
2015. Fifteen years of journalistic translation research and more. Perspectives 23:4 ► pp. 634 ff. Crossref logo
Valdeón, Roberto A.
2019. Ad hoc Corpora and Journalistic Translation Research: BBC News and BBC Mundo's Coverage of Margaret Thatcher's Death and Funeral. Across Languages and Cultures 20:1 ► pp. 79 ff. Crossref logo
Wang, Binhua & Dezheng Feng
2018. A corpus-based study of stance-taking as seen from critical points in interpreted political discourse. Perspectives 26:2 ► pp. 246 ff. Crossref logo
Yu, Hailing & Canzhong Wu
2018. Images of the Chinese government projected in its work reports: Transformation through translation. Lingua 214 ► pp. 74 ff. Crossref logo
Zhang, Meifang & Hanting Pan
2015. Institutional power in and behind discourse. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 27:3 ► pp. 387 ff. Crossref logo
Zheng, Lingqian & Wen Ren
2018. Interpreting as an influencing factor on news reports: A study of interpreted Chinese political discourse recontextualized in English news. Perspectives 26:5 ► pp. 691 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 14 november 2020. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.