Translation strategies in political speeches : a case study of Ukrainian translation of president Joseph R. Biden’s inaugural address

Abstract

: Th e paper deals with a comprehensive study of translation strategies in English--Ukrainian translation of President Joseph R. Biden’s inaugural address. Political discourse is characterized by its unique features triggering a considerable interest in applied linguistics and translation studies. In brief, political speeches are oft en delivered by politicians to communica-te their messages to the public. Th ey mainly operate as a tool of persuasion, imposing political ideas, beliefs, and practices crucial in constituting a political community. Translating political speeches can posit serious problems due to their unique features as a special text genre. Appropriate translation methods are needed to ensure a higher quality political speech translation and its adequacy. It has been decided that the best methods for the proposed study were discourse and comparative analyses combined with generalization. Th e translation techniques employed in the translation of Joseph R. Biden’s inaugural address into Ukrainian include lexical, grammatical, and complex transformations. A comparative analysis of the linguistic means used by both American president and the translator has demonstrated that the source text submitted for translation undergoes interlin-gual changes to create the text with the same communicative intent in the target language. Syntactic translation transformations are the most dominant ones, followed by lexical and grammatical. Such changes in the translation of the American President’s inaugural address are necessary for better conforming to existing cultural norms and soothing out social, religious, and political diff erences in English and Ukrainian cultures. Th us, translation is not simply an act of faithful reproduction but, rather, deliberate and conscious creation of secret linguistic and pragmatic codes.