Published in:

Schäffner, Christina. 2007. Politics and Translation. In: Kuhiwczak, Piotr and Littau, Karin
(eds) A Companion to Translation Studies. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 134-147.
ISBN 978-1-85359-957-6 (hbk), 978-1-85359-956-9 (pbk)

Christina Schäffner
School of Languages and Social Sciences
Aston University
Aston Triangle
BIRMINGHAM B4 7ET
UK

Email: C.Schaeffner@aston.ac.uk

Translation and Politics

Introduction

In an article on the enlargementof the European Union, the weekly European Voice (28 April
2005, p. 18) comments:

Not everyone is feeling so optimistic after Monday’s signing by Romania and Bulgaria of
treaties setting the terms for EU membership. “Everyone knows that Bulgaria, and especially
Romania, are not ready for EU accession,” says Austria’s Die Presse.

In article in The Economist (7 May 2005, p. 50) reports about problems caused for the FBI to
a shortage of Arabic translators. An article in the German wekly Der Spiegel (14 May 2005)
informs that a German publishing company decided to publish on the very same day both a
German and a Turkish translation of a Dutch book, written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and criticising
radical Islamist practises. In February 2004, a number of newspapers reported that the British
government had had dropped charges against Katharine Gun, an intelligence linguist who
had been arrested for leaking secrets about preparations for the conflict with Iraq. What all
these examples have in common is that they are related to thhe topic of translation and
politics.

Whether politics is viewed as struggle for power, or as the political institutions and practices
of a state, the associated social interactions are kinds of linguistic action, that is, types of
discourse, for example, parliamentary debates, broadcast interviews, written constitutions,
manifestoes of political parties. All these types of discourse have specific characteristic
features and fulfil specific communicative functions, such as persuasion, rational argument,
threats, promises. Politics and language are, thus, closely related. As Neubert (2005: 149)
argues, they “form a complex bond bracketing the political reality and its symbolic
representation.”

The relationship between language and politics has seen increasing interest within the last
two decades especially in the linguistic (sub-)disciplines of Critical Linguistics, Critical
Discourse Analysis, and Political Discourse Analysis (see Fairclough and Wodak 1997,
Chilton 2004, Chilton and Schäffner 1997), and also in the neighbouring disciplines of
rhetorics, philosophy, and sociology (e.g. Habermas 1981, Foucault 1971, Bourdieu 1982).
Critical Discourse Analysis and Political Discourse Analysis mediate between linguistic
structures as evident in a text and the social, political, and historical contexts of text
production and reception. Scholars study the textual or discursive manifestations of power
structures and ideologies and their specific linguistic realizations at lexical and grammatical
levels, with the aim of making visible the "ideological loading of particular ways of using
language and the relations of power which underlie them" (Fairclough and Wodak 1997:
258).

In an increasingly globalised world, processes of text production and reception are no longer
confined to one language and one culture. This applies to practically all spheres of human
interaction, and in particular to politics. The universality of political discourse has
consequences for intercultural communication, and thus for translation. Political
communication relies on translation, it is through translation (and also through interpreting)
that information is made available to addressees beyond national borders.
I have argued elsewhere (Schäffner 2004) that Political Discourse Analysis has not yet paid
sufficient attention to aspects of translation. Within the discipline of Translation Studies,
aspects of politics have been considered more frequently. This statement, however, needs to
be put in perspective, because the phenomenon of politics can be seen in a wider and in a
narrower sense. Concerning the narrower sense, i.e. translation of political discourse, we do
not have major monographs, and the keywords ‘politics’ and ‘political texts’ do not show up
in reference works (e.g. Baker 1998, Shuttleworth and Cowie 1997, Snell-Hornby et al.
1998). Political texts in translation have, however, been the object of study of a number of
scholars. In the wider sense, the activity of translation itself has been characterised as being
related to politics. For example, Alvarez and Vidal (1996: 2) define translation in general as a
political act, since translation is culture bound and “has to do with the production and
ostentation of power and with the strategies used by this power in order to represent the other
culture”. They argue that all the translator’s choices, from what to translate to how to
translate, are determined by political agendas. In this wider sense, then, politics is closely
related to ideology.

In this chapter, the issue of translation and politics will be looked at from three perspectives:
the politics of translation, the translation of political texts, and the politicisation of translation
(studies). The focus will be on how these three aspects have been covered in the discipline of
Translation Studies, although the presentation here can only be selective.

The politics of translation

Translation Studies is still a relatively young discipline, with roots in (applied) linguistics,
comparative literature, and Cultural Studies. Linguistics-based theories, dominant in the
1950s and 1960s, which saw translation as meaning transfer between languages and cultures,
did not explicitly study aspects of politics, ideology, and power. Since the mid-1980s, with
the development of Descriptive Translation Studies (e.g. Even-Zohar 1978, Toury 1995,
Hermans 1985, Lefevere 1992) and, more importantly, with approaches inspired by Cultural
Studies (e.g. Bassnett and Lefevere 1990, Venuti 1995), the complexity of the phenomenon
of translation has been recognised. The focus is now on social, cultural, and communicative
practices, on the cultural and ideological significance of translating and of translations, on the
external politics of translation, on the relationship between translation behaviour and socio-
cultural factors, on social causation and human agency. This also means that questions such
as the following are being asked: Who decides which texts get translated, and from and into
which languages? Where are the translations produced? Which factors determine the
translator’s behaviour? How are translations received? What is the status of translations, of
translating, and of translators in the respective cultures and systems? Who chooses and trains
translators, how many, for which language combinations?

All these questions are related to politics, i.e. a decision to encourage, allow, promote,
hinder, or prevent to translate is a political decision. Translators perform their work in socio-
political contexts and environments (cf. Toury’s concept of translation event as the social,
historical, cultural, ideological, etc. context of situation in which the act of translation, i.e. the
cognitive aspects of translation as a decision-making process, is embedded; Toury 1995:
249ff.). Studying these contexts in addition to the actual products (i.e. source texts and target
texts) allows for deeper insights into translation than focusing solely on the (linguistics
features of the) products.

In this respect, Lefevere’s concept of patronage (Lefevere 1992) is of relevance, which he

developed in his investigation into the role of power and ideology behind the production of
translations (or rewritings, in a wider sense). Patronage has (i) an ideological component,
which refers to the fact that literature should not be allowed to get too far out of step with the
other systems in a given society. This has consequences for the choice of topics and the form
of presentation. The (ii) economic component refers to the fact that a patron assures the
writer's livelihood by providing payment and similar support; and the (iii) status component
refers to the writer’s position in society. All three, interrelated, components are political in
nature, in that they are linked to power relations in society. Lefevere himself analysed
German translations of the Anne Frank diaries that were produced after the end of the Second
World War, and he argued that specific decisions for the German target text were made on
the basis of ideological and commercial deliberations (economic constraints of patronage).
For example, the original sentence’s reference to “no greater enmity in the world than
between Germans and Jews” had been modified to “there is no greater enmity in the world
than between these Germans and the Jews” (Lefevere 1992: 66). Lefevere sees the reasons
for this modification in the publishers’ aim to avoid any possible offence of the German
readership, i.e. a readership that had to come to terms with its involvement in the Nazi
atrocities.

Ben-Ari’s (1992) study into the translation of children’s literature from German into Hebrew
revealed similar features. She illustrates that, due to changed attitudes towards Germany after
the Holocaust and World War II, references to Germany and German culture in the source
texts were either omitted or changed in a systematic way in the Hebrew target texts, thus
revealing both ideologically motivated concerns of the translators and the publishers as well
as the political power of publishers and governments. Methodologically, Ben-Ari’s analysis
is linked to polysystem theory (Even-Zohar 1978) and norms (Toury 1995), with the aim of
discovering regularities in translators’ behaviour and ultimately translational norms.

Although Lefevere delevoped the concept of patronage first of all for literary translation, it
can equally be applied to all kinds of translation. Studies into the history of translation have
brought to light a number of issues about power relations that are linked to patronage. For
instance, the history of Bible translations is full of examples of material support for
translators. Martin Luther finding refuge at the Wartburg castle and the support of a German
duke, allowing him to translate the Bible into German, is just one example which shows how
a person in power acted as a patron. King James‘s role for the translation of the Bible into
English is another example (Nicolson 2003). Without any form of patronage, it happened that
translators were burnt on the stake for falsifying the word of God (see also Delisle and
Woodsworth 1995).

Institutions, associations, government bodies, etc. that provide funding for publications can
act as patrons. For example, the German institution Inter Nationes provides half the costing
of translations, and the French Ministry of Culture supports, assists and encourages the
translation of French texts. Governments and authorities being interested in promoting their
culture’s knowledge abroad, or in enhancing it by ensuring the import of ideas, has a long
tradition. Faiq (2000) illustrates this with reference to medieval Arab translators. He shows
that translation was made “part of government policy with its own budget and institutions”,
and that the Arab rulers had “recognised the importance of translation for spreading their new
faith and strengthening their new state” (Faiq 2000: 90).
The opposite to promoting translation is hindering translation, which links to the issue of
censorship. Censorship too can be studied with reference to Lefevere’s concept of patronage
since it is understood as ideological control by powerful institutions or individuals. That is,
institutions have the authority to exercise explicit censorship, preventing translations to be
published at all or only in a specific form. Within the Translation Studies literature, there are
quite a number of case studies into explicit censorship. The history of Bible translations can
be cited again, as can be cases of literary adaptations (e.g. Kohlmayer 1996, whose study of
the German translations and reception of Oscar Wilde’s comedies includes sections on the
ideologically determined translations for the German stage during the Nazi period). The
contributions in Burrell and Kelly (1995) too, reflect ideological and political aspects of a
religious, literary, and philosophical texts, whereas Gordon (2002) explains that the erasure
of segments in Hebrew translations of philosophical texts in English were performed in the
service of a Zionist identity politics.

Studies of translation policies under totalitarian regimes are dominant in this respect. Sturge
(2004), for example, is a detailed account of policies and publication patters in Nazi
Germany. Her study examines the discourse on translation in Nazi literary journals, reveals
practices of selection of texts for translation, and shows how foreign literature was viewed
through the prism of national identity formation. Rundle (2000) comments on the activity of
major publishers during Fascism in Italy in respect of Italian nation-building processes,
focusing on translation from English, i.e.original texts produced by the political antagonist.
Milton (2000) links the production of cheap and accessible literary translations for mass
readership, on the basis of an analysis of the publication record of the Clube de Livro book
club, to censorship and the official ideology during the military regime of 1964-1989 in
Brazil. Current projects in Spain and Portugal aim at ‘tracing’ patterns of censorship for
literature, theatre and films at the time of the dictatorships in the 20th century (e.g. Rabadan
2000). One such example is González Ruiz’s (2000) empirical study into the translation of
film titles into Spanish under the Franco regime, which reveals ideological manipulation to
promote Catholic values through censorship. Censorship is also the topic of a special issue of
the journal TTR (no. 2, vol. XV, 2002), with the majority of the papers devoted to literary
translation.
Censorship, ideological and political aspects play an important role for audiovisual
translation as well. Already the decision to dub, instead of providing subtitles, is a political
decision, since dubbing does prevent the audience from having access to the original text.
But not all cases of dubbing need to reflect censorship, since differences in political systems
and political traditions pose problems for translators as dubbers or subtitlers as well, as
illustrated by Chang (1998) in his analysis of the Chinese version of the British TV series Yes
Prime Minister.

The politics of translation also concerns translation directions, i.e. the choice of source and
target languages. The fact that English has become the dominant language in translation is
primarily a political fact. That is, both the power of the United States of America and the
legacy of the colonial power of the United Kingdom have made English a lingua franca for
various communicative contexts (e.g. lingua franca in former colonies, for commercial
purposes, for academic exchanges, cf. Stoll 2004). The inequality in translation directions has
led to the concept of less(er) translated languages, illustrated in Branchadell and West
(2005).

Translation and interpreting occur practically on a daily basis in bi- or multilingual countries,
although this phenomenon has not yet seen substantive research. Feinauer (2004) for
example, commented on government initiatives to translate health care texts into a variety of
ethnic languages in South Africa. In contrast to such encouraging developments, Kofoworola
and Okoh (2005) explain that the many different worldviews and cultural traditions in
Nigeria pose huge problems for translation. Political conflicts and mistrust between ethnic
groups are barriers to translation activities. Direct translations between Yoruba and Haussa,
two of the three main languages that function as lingua franca, do not (yet) exist. English
therefore often functions as an intermediary language for translation. A more extreme case is
reported by Kuhiwczak (1999) who illustrates how in ex-Yugoslavia, nationalists turned
translation into a tool which helped to separate, using interpeters at meetings to “prove that
communities which once happily used a common language are now so deeply divided and
distinct that they need to be interpreted to each other and the outside world” (Kuhiwczak
1999: 221).
Revealing the (often hidden) power structures and the asymmetrical cultural exchanges
involved in translation is a main concern of approaches to translation that have been inspired
by postmodern and postcolonial theories. In the context of translating into or out of the
language(s) of the former coloniser, concepts such as hybridity, intercultural space, space-in-
between, hybrid identity have been frequently used (e.g. Tymoczko 1999, Niranjana 1992,
Spivak 2000, Robinson 1997). Power has become a keyword in postmodern translation
theories, and scholars have also studied translators’ engagement to resist and subvert power,
as illustrated in Álvarez and Vidal (1996), Tymoczko and Gentzler (2002), Venuti (1998),
the special issue of The Translator on Translation and Minority, 1998, edited by Venuti).
One specific topic in this respect of power is translation and gender, addressed, for example,
in Simon (1996), von Flotow (1997), Godard (1990). All these publications operate with the
key concepts power, resistance, identity, ideology (Leung 2002 speaks of an ‘ideological
turn’ in Translation Studies), but the examples they use rarely belong to the domain of
political discourse. The intention of postmodern theories is rather to show that power
hierarchies are inherent in any translation event, independent of topics, genres, cultures, and
time.

With regard to political discourse, the politics of translation has been discussed in the context
of institutions. For example, with reference to the role of translation in bilingual Canada,
Mossop (1990) argues that translation from the Canadian federal government masks cultural
differences. This is confirmed for legislative texts by Lavoie (2003) and for political texts by
Gagnon (2003). Translation policies in international, multi- or supra-national organisations
(such as the United Nations, NATO, UNESCO, the European Union) need to cater for
communication needs of a multitude of addressees. The translation policy of the institutions
of the European Union (EU), for example, is determined by the EU’s language policy, which
stipulates, in Council Regulation No. 1, the principle of multilingualism, which means that
everybody has the right to use their own national language in communicating with the EU
institutions. This equality of languages has consequences for translation, although only the
official languages of each member state are catered for (Spain has recently campaigned to
have EU documents translated into regional languages, such as Catalan and Basque). The
enlargement of the EU has made the enormity of the translation tasks obvious and has
resulted in changes in the actual translation activities. Due to the sheer impossibility to
provide translators (let alone interpreters) for all possible language combinations, new
procedures have been introduced, such as pivot translation and relay interpreting, limits have
been set on the length of texts, and not all types of texts get translated into all languages. All
legal acts such as treaties, directives and regulations are translated into all official languages,
but as long at the drafting process is going on, documents are only translated into a smaller
number of specified languages. Not all texts translated for and in the EU-institutions belong
to the category of political texts, but their production is determined by institutional and
political constraints (on translation policy and practice in the EU-institutions see, for
example, Arthern 1994, Volz 1993, Tosi 2002, Wagner et al 2002, and the special issue of
Perspectives 9:4, 2001).

The principle of equal authenticity of all languages and texts in the EU-institutions has led to
the phenomenon that translation, although a huge enterprise, is not explicitly mentioned in
the Council Regulation No 1 (and neither in the draft EU constitution). Instead, the reference
is to “language versions”, i.e. translations are invisible. This political aim of equal
authenticity results in specific linguistic features of the various language versions, as
illustrated by Seymour (2002) and Koskinen (2000, who speaks of an ‘illusion of identity’).

Multilingual but equally authentic political texts play an important role in diplomatic
negotiations. The authentic versions often exist only in a small number of languages, e.g. the
authentic texts of the UN Charter are Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, and those
of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 are English, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish.
Since such texts are usually linguistically and politically negotiated texts, i.e. the different
language versions are the result of a mixture of parallel multilingual text production and
translation, they reflect specific syntactic and lexical features. As with the texts produced in
the EU-institutions, once published, it is impossible to identify one text as original source
text. This has been illustrated, for example, with reference to the Helsinki Final Act
(Schäffner 1995), manifestoes for the elections to the European Parliament (Schäffner
1997b), legislative “Eurotexts” (Schütte 1993), and “hybrid” texts in the context of the EU
(Trosborg 1997).

Such multilingual texts in the fields of politics and diplomacy can be interpreted differently
for specific political or ideological purposes. For example, the authentic texts of the
Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin signed in 1971 were in English, French and Russian.
Political motivations were the reason for the production of two different German translations,
one East German and one West German text. The paragraph dealing with the relations
between West Berlin and the Federal Republic of Germany says that the ties will be
developed. Ties (French liens) had been translated as Verbindungen in the East German and
as Bindungen in the West German version, with Verbindungen denoting relations that are not
so tight as those denoted by Bindungen (see Kade 1980: 57ff.). Although neither of the two
German versions was a politically valid document, political decisions and practical steps
were nevertheless justified with reference to the wording (i.e. Bindungen or Verbindungen).
That is, translations were used to achieve specific political and ideological purposes.

As said above, studies into the politics of translations have primarily dealt with literary texts,
revealing power hierarchies and (more or less) hidden ideological agendas. It has become
obvious, that the relationship between ideology and translation is multifarious. In a sense, it
can be said that any translation is ideological since the choice of a source text and the use to
which the subsequent target text is put is determined by interests, aims, and objectives of
social agents. As Hatim and Mason (1997: 146) say:

The translator acts in a social context and is part of that context. It is in this sense
that translating is, in itself, an ideological activity.

The social conditioning of translation events is reflected in the linguistic structure of the
texts, and ideological aspects are thus particularly prominent in political texts. In other
words, the politics of translation is more specific when it comes to the translation of political
texts.

The translation of political texts

Translation scholars interested in political topics, have looked at specific features of political
language, at individual political texts and/or genres, and at the socio-political causes and
effects of particular translation solutions.
Newmark (1991), for example, devotes an entire chapter on ‘the translation of political
language’, with a focus on lexical aspects. For example, he characterises political concepts as
“partly culture-bound, mainly value-laden, historically conditioned and […] abstractions in
spite of continuous efforts to concretise them” (Newmark 1991: 149). He also mentions,
albeit briefly, pronouns, political jargon, euphemisms, metaphors, neologisms, acronyms and
euphony, and collocations as characteristic features of political language, and gives advice to
translators how to deal with such problems, noting that for political texts, “the translator’s
neutrality is a myth” (Newmark 1991: 161). Political concepts have often been the focus of
analysis, since concepts not only evolve historically but they cannot be understood without
linking them to the total historical process. With reference to political texts of the former
Soviet Union, Markstein (1994: 105) speaks of a “propagandistic linguistic nomenclature”,
i.e. words whose meanings have been ideologically determined and which are a “code for
insighters”. Knowledge of culture-specific and sensitive aspects of political concepts, of
associated values and attituted, as well as knowledge of political phenomena in source and
target culture are thus listed as decisive elements of translation competence for political
communication by Ivanova (2004).

Moving from a less specific label of ‘political language’ to the label ‘political text’ raises the
problem of definition. ‘Political text’ can best be understood as an umbrella term covering a
variety of text types, or genres, which fulfil different functions due to different political
activities. Their topics are primarily related to politics, i.e., political activities, political ideas,
political relations. Although one can make a distinction between institutional politics and
everyday politics, it is predominantly institutional politics and the associated genres (e.g.
parliamentary debates, speeches by politicians, political documents) which have been looked
at from the point of view of translation. Such analyses of political texts have tackled specific
phenomena, either in one individual text or in a series of interrelated texts. Translated
political speeches are one genre that has been the basis of analyses. Using a conference
address by Tony Blair, Aldridge (2001), for example, identifies humour, biblical references
and narratives as potential translation problems. Stage (2002) compared three Danish
versions of a speech by the former American president Bill Clinton, i.e. the speech had been
interpreted simultaneously, subtitled for television, and subsequently translated for
newspapers. Her study reveals potentials and constraints in these three different types of
interlingual transfer. Al-Harrasi (2001) studied the treatment of ideological metaphors in
translated political speeches from Arabic into English. Using a corpus of speeches by the
Sultan of Oman, he shows that the translation choices for particular metaphors helped create
an image of the speaker of the source text. Shunnaq (2000) looked at repetitive and emotive
expressions in Nasser’s political speeches, arguing that ‘repetition’ and ‘emotiveness’ are of
“paramount significance in translating Arabic political discourse” into English (Shunnaq
2000: 207). Hatim and Mason (1997) analysed a translated political speech by the late
Ayatollah Khomeini, which is characterized as a ‘hybrid genre’, appearing to be part-
political, part-religious sermon, and part-legal deontology. Their study reveals variation of
tenor, cohesion, transitivity, and style-shifting.

Calzada Pérez (2001) applies a three-level model to the analysis of translated speeches in the
European Parliament (Spanish – English). Her analysis, carried out through surface
description, illocutionary explanation and (socio-political) perlocutionary explanation,
reveals a broad variety of translational shifts which were intended to help target texts to be
more readable, thus contradicting Koskinen’s (2000) findings of target texts mirroring source
texts in their linguistic structure. Calzada Pérez’s analysis combines descriptive translation
studies, critical discourse analysis, and cultural studies. Critical discourse analysis combined
with descriptive translation studies is also the methodological basis for the analysis of
various English (and French) translations of Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Baumgarten (2001) and
Baumgarten and Gagnon (2005) explain how ideological factors shaped the textual make-up
of translations. Among the translation strategies revealed are “omission of sensitive political
material, an overall flattening of the rhetorical style, shifts in register and the non-translation
or adulteration of some linguistic features” (Baumgarten and Gagnon 2005: 29). These
strategies were found in translations that had been produced by translation agents who
sympathised with National Socialist ideology, thus highlighting that the “interplay of open
censorship and political attitudes leads to subtle divergences from the original on the textual
surface of the translations” (Baumgarten and Gagnon 2005: 16f).

Political texts have also been studied from the point of view of interpreting. For example,
Wadensjö (2000) explores the interpreter’s performance in an interpreter-mediated political
interview with the former Russian president Boris Yeltsin, which was broadcast live on
Swedish radio. She examines a variety of divergences between the original Russian and the
interpreter’s Swedish version. Based on an interactionistic approach to interpreter-mediated
encounters, her study suggests that the “interpreter’s performance is affected first and
foremost by the nature of the assignment and the communicative genre”, i.e. by the
“conventions of ‘news interview talk’” (Wadensjö 2000:233). Baker (1997) explores the
effects of psychological and cultural constraints on interpreter strategies in political
interviews. She uses as a case study a televised interview with Saddam Hussein, broadcast by
the British channel ITN in 1990, i.e. at the tense period after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and
before the start of the first Gulf War. She illustrates possible “implications of the use of
certain strategies in terms of reinforcing cultural stereotypes, constructing a convenient
image of the enemy, and enabling or obstructing an understanding of the other’s points of
view and priorities” (Baker 1997: 112).

The link between political and legal aspects had already been hinted at above with reference
to politically-relevant texts produced and translated in and for the EU-institutions. In a wider
context, Garre (1999) looks at legal concepts with regard to human rights in translation. She
argues that inconsistencies in Danish translations of international human rights texts can
create confusion and uncertainty as to how such texts are to be understood.

In my own research on political discourse and translation, I have commented on the

importance of political background knowledge for text comprehension (or lack of such
knowledge on the part of translators), for example in the context of German unification and
also in the wider context of the revolutions in Eastern Europe in 1989/1990 (illustrated in
translated speeches and/or essays of politicians, writers and intellectuals, see Schäffner 1992,
1993, 1997a, Schäffner and Herting 1994). Other issues of concern have been political
effects to the choice of specific translation solutions, especially with reference to British-
German relations in the context of European integration (e.g. Schäffner 1997c on a political
dispute in 1994 caused by the choice of ‘hard core’ for ‘fester Kern’ in the English
translation of a German document; Schäffner 2002 on the more or less subtle differences in
the English and German versions of the Blair/Schröder paper, which reflected ideological
phenomena and an awareness of political sensitivities in the two countries; and Schäffner
2001 on the role of translation in distorted media presentation of political information). Mass
media play an important role in disseminating politics and in mediating between politicians
and the public, and translation is highly relevant in this context as well. In the media,
however, political discourse in translation appears mostly in ‘fragmented’ form, with the
translations often done by journalists themselves (see, for example,
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/ctccs/research/tgn/ on an ongoing research project on
Translation in Global News).

Politicisation of translation

As said above, politically relevant documents, e.g. relevant for decision-taking or for
implementing practical political steps, which are produced in international or multinational
organisations (such as United Nations, EU) usually exist in several languages. Such texts are
the result of translation activities, even if the label ‘translation’ may not be used but replaced
by ‘language versions’. When such texts are put to use for political purposes (i.e. ‘the
politicisation of translation’), the different language versions may give rise to different
political interpretations or activities. The Resolution 242 of the UN Security Council,
adopted in 1967, is a case in point. The English version of the text speaks of ‘withdrawal of
Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict’, whereas the other
language versions have more specific references to territories, e.g. the French text says
’retrait des forces armées israéliennes des territoires occupés lors du récent conflit’. The
(non-)use of a definite article allows for two different readings, i.e. withdrawal from some of
the territories or withdrawal from all the territories. That is, a language specific phenomenon
produced considerable controversy, and moreover, resulted in different, politically-motivated
interpretations of this multi-lingual resolution.

Many countries have more or less official translation services which usually operate under
the auspices of the foreign ministries. They produce translations, e.g. of speeches or press
releases, predominantly for information purposes, i.e. they serve embassies, diplomats,
governments, and the media. Such texts are increasingly made available on the Internet. It
may, however, also be the case that translations are intended for propaganda purposes and/or
for the transfer of political ideologies to other cultures. For example, the works by Marx and
Engels (especially The Communist Manifesto), Lenin, and Mao Zedong have been translated
with the intention of making their ideas more widely known, spread their ideology, and thus
inspire the working classes in their struggle. It was quite common in eastern European
communist countries during the time of the Cold War that speeches delivered at the
Congresses of the Communist Parties and related important documents (e.g. five-year plans,
party manifestoes) were translated into the languages of the other Eastern European countries
for immediate publication in daily newspapers. Translations into ‘Western’ languages,
especially English, French, Spanish, were published in brochures and distributed via the
embassies.

Translations, as products, are thus used as tools for political action, i.e., they are politicised.
Such a use of translations for more or less hidden political action is not confined to political
texts in a narrower sense. For example, Kadric and Kaindl (1997) illustrate how, as a result
of textual shifts, the Asterix translations into Croatian reinforced negative feelings towards
the former war-time enemy Serbia. Issues like this have recently been discussed in the
context of translation and ethics (see, for example, the special issue of the journal The
Translator, vol. 7, no.2, 2001).

It is in the context of cultural studies inspired translation theories that aspects of power,
asymmetry in cultural exchanges, ethics, and the engagement of translators have been
discussed in a forceful and committed way. An example is the work by Venuti (1995, 1998),
who defines translation as a socio-political practice and who recommends a translation
method of ‘foreignization’ in order to respect and represent the ‘otherness’ of the foreign
text, language and culture. Translation, via a method of foreignisation, thus becomes a form
of political action and engagement (on the scope and limitations of engagement in respect of
translation cf. Tymoczko 2000). Engagement on the part of translators themselves can also
take forms that go beyond linguistic choices for the target text. Baker (2004), for example,
comments on commitments and political activities of recently established networks of
translators. For example, the constitution of the network ‘Translators for Peace’ states:

The Association was established by the undersigned promoters in order to publish, as far as
possible in every language and by whatever channel, every message against: war in general;
and in particular, against the use of war as a means of resolving international disputes.
(http://www.traduttoriperlapace.org/index.htm).

Such networks of translators are voluntary organisations, and their activities, too, are
examples of what can be called politicisation of translation. During the time of the Cold War,
the political role of translators working in communist countries was stressed as well, albeit
the political context and the underlying ideology was very different from the new networks.
For example, translator training in the former German Democratic Republic stressed that an
awareness of the social mission and commission and acting in conformity with ideology of
the communist party were essential elements of the professional profile of socialist
translators and interpreters (see, for example, the contributions in Lenschen 1998, on the
political context in which literary translators in East Germany worked). Such a focus on
communist ideology was extended to the discipline itself, with translation studies being
defined as belonging to the social sciences, and thus governed by principles of Marxist-
Leninist epistemology. In other words, the discipline itself was put into a political context
and thus politicised.

To sum up: the relationship between translation and politics is manifold, as can be revealed
by studies of translations as products as well as by exploring the socio-political conditions in
which translations are produced and received (see Chesterman 1998 on causal models of
translation). Translation, as product and as process, can highlight sociocultural and political
practices, norms, and constraints, which can be of particular relevance in the field of political
discourse. Analysing political discourse in translation can yield many detailed and useful
insights into the intricate political scenery of our increasingly globalised world. Exploring the
interrelationship of the politics of translation, the translation of political texts, and the
politicisation of translation (studies) could thus make a significant contribution to an
emerging Critical Translation Studies.

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