Abstrakt: | This monograph focuses on pragmatic aspects of simultaneous interpreting, and is
therefore intended both for translation scholars and for linguists interested in interlingual
transfer of pragmatic meaning. Efforts have been made to avoid dense, strictly
scientific language and the use of unexplained specialist terminology in the hope that
the book might also appeal to practicing interpreters and interpreter trainees, although
it should be noted that its character is descriptive rather than prescriptive. The main
problem under discussion is how simultaneous interpreters handle face-threatening
acts and impoliteness directed by politicians at their opponents, and the authentic
material under analysis comes from plenary debates of the European Parliament,
which are routinely interpreted into all the official languages of the European Union.
Chapters 1–4 are meant to set the scene. Chapter 1 presents the European Union
as a multilingual institution, with a special focus on its translation and interpreting
services. Chapter 2 zooms in on the latter, considering such features of plenary debates
of the European Parliament that have direct consequences for interpreting, and also
including an overview of existing research on interpreting for the needs of various
EU bodies. Chapter 3 provides the pragmatic background to the study, shedding light
especially on the crucial notions of “face,” “facework,” “face-threatening acts” and
“impoliteness,” while Chapter 4 reviews existing research on facework performed by
interpreters in various settings and interpreting modes.
The author’s empirical contribution is presented in Chapter 5, which scrutinises
Polish interpretations of British Eurosceptics’ plenary speeches, in particular ones that
fiercely attack and possibly offend the speakers’ political opponents. Five speeches
undergo detailed discourse analysis covering all identifiable aspects of facework as
performed by the original speaker and the interpreter, whereas a considerably larger
corpus of source texts and the corresponding interpretations is analysed both qualitatively
and quantitatively in terms of personal reference and impoliteness. The interpretations
are searched, first and foremost, for signs of interpreting strategies at play
during transfer of face-threatening input. Many of these strategies result in mitigation
of the originally intended impoliteness. Chapter 6 develops this topic, endeavouring
to find multifarious explanations of the pronounced trend towards mitigation by the
interpreter within the wide framework of modern translation studies. Both this chapter
and the final conclusions devote much attention to avenues for future research that
would offer some possibilities of triangulating and complementing the results of the
present study. |