Description
Interpreted and translated political talk: President Putin’s speeches on the coronavirus outbreak
Elena Alafuzova
MA ‘Translation: Greek, English, Russian’
The paper attempts to show how meaning-transfer may shape the image of a political leader. It analyses translated and interpreted English versions of four of President Putin’s speeches on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak delivered at the beginning of the pandemic (March-June 2020). The study focuses on pragmatic phenomena like power distance (impersonality), building trust in the power of the state, the conceptual metaphor of WAR in regards to the virus, which shape citizen roles and the image of the President. The analysis demonstrates that while the official written translations attempt to follow the source speech of the President as closely as possible in most respects, high-exposure interpreting introduces more changes to the text. They may entail a more positive public image of the President and the authority he represents. The oral mode of interpreting seems to favour pragmatic variation which the written translated of the same discourse does not assume. The study confirms that the channel of communication is highly significant in shaping power on the political stage.
