Discovering the role of rhetorical devices in the text of a political speech through back-translations to improve the translation process

Abstract

Politics has always been important for civilized societies. It is an amazing tool for rulers aiming to manipulate the masses by the sole magic of words. Thus, the power of language is the most helpful and efficient way of implementing political goals and revealing specific ideologies. The aspect of internationality in – either written or oral – political texts requires translations into different languages in that a better understanding of political texts worldwide is possible through better translations. This study aimed to examine the most common rhetorical devices used in political speeches and find out how the translators of the texts of political speeches deal with these devices in their translation process. To this end, lexical, semantic, syntactic and grammatical aspects of the texts of political speeches including rhetorical elements were identified, and an evaluation was done with respect to the quality and the accuracy of the translations to find out whether it was possible through using back-translation method in the light of theories of translation studies and some back-translation guidelines. The sample political text was a speech delivered by one of the ex-Presidents of the U.S.A. Barack Obama, who was also known as a great orator with his eloquent speeches, at Ebeneezer Baptist Church. The research participants were the senior students of the Department of Translation and Interpretation at Trakya University in Turkey. The feedback given to the students when the research was completed were thought to contribute to the prospective translation practices of the students upon rhetorical devices.