Source text ideological load modulates ideological shifts in interpreting right-wing and left-wing political discourse, but interpreters’ political orientation does not

Abstract

As the public sphere is undergoing a process of ideological radicalization, simultaneous interpreting has been explored as a potential factor in shaping multilingual political debates. This paper investigates the notion of ideological shift between source texts and target texts in interpreting – the weakening or strengthening of ideologically loaded language in political discourse. Research paradigms from Interpreting Studies and Critical Discourse Studies are combined to conduct an experimental study in which political speeches controlled for their ideological orientation are interpreted by experienced interpreters working in the English – Polish language combination. Additionally, the participants’ political views are measured using the euandi 2019 questionnaire – a valid and reliable tool situating interpreters on the political spectrum. Initial assessment of linguistic strategies employed in target text renditions using tools of the Discourse-Historical Approach is followed by a quantitative analysis. The results indicate that highly ideologically loaded source texts, regardless of their ideological orientation, are shifted more often than those with a less salient ideological load. The political orientation of the interpreters themselves appears to have no significant effect on the presence of ideological shifts in target texts. These results contribute to the growing body of knowledge on interpreter agency and the pivotal role of the process of interpreting on discourse co-construction.