Pragmatic Competence in Political Discourse Interpreting

Abstract

The paper aims to give a comprehensive account of translation strategies for English-Ukrainian interpretation of Joseph R. Biden’s speech in Poland. Political speeches serve as a multi-purpose tool, shaping people’s consciousness and reinforcing political practices and firmly held beliefs. Therefore, the appropriate translation methods are needed to retain such a communicative effect on the recipient audience. Political discourse interpreting requires a high level of pragmatic competence, and interpreters must have the skills and knowledge to effectively convey the speaker’s intended meaning in a culturally and linguistically appropriate way.  The current research is based on the semiotic and communicative-pragmatic approaches to the study of political discourse interpreting. In this regard, the comparative method and contextual analysis proved efficient in comparing the source language text with the target one. The study results show that interpreting political discourse sets to provoke similar reactions in the source and target text addresses. The studied speech in English is abundant in stylistic devices and expressive means to exert a pragmatic effect. It has been proven that linguo-stylistic features are retained in the interpreted message by incorporating formal correspondences and various transformations. The interpreter of the political speech in question has the ability to adjust the language, style, and delivery of the interpreted message to fit the cultural and linguistic context of the target audience.