Does Translation (Ex)Change Everything? A Framework for Political Translation

Abstract

The paper focuses on the translation of the political discourse, embedding linguistic and cross-cultural perspectives. The choice is motivated by the fact that in the first decades of the new millenium we have witnessed an exponential increase in the quantity, quality and urgency of this discourse within the international political sphere. The political discourse can be said to unearthen the hidden agenda of the contemporary large-scale crises: the financial crisis, shifts of power, terrorist attacks, etc. In this light, the question arises: Does translation objectively and accurately reflect the strategies in the discourse of political leaders, and the problematisation of supranational identities such as the European one (more specifically, referring to membership to the European Union)? Answers to such questions are attempted starting from the premise that the translation of the political discourse or political translation (Trosborg, 1997; Biel, 2017) is an emerging sub-type of institutional translation struggling to assert its own identity. Keywords: political discourse; political translation; hiding and highlighting strategies