During my MA in Chinese-English Translation and Interpreting, I had the opportunity to study a variety of modules aligned with my interests and career aspirations.
As part of my course, I have taken optional modules in liaison, consecutive, and simultaneous interpreting, which take place in the state-of-the-art Newton Interpreting Suite facility. In the booth, I regularly interpret speeches by heads of state or from international conferences for assessment preparation. Through this practice, I have come to realise the serious consequences that word choice in English has when interpreting speeches of political figures. This has challenged my interpretations to find a diplomatic and neutral word that accurately represents politicians' language.
Although my course is translation and interpreting-focused, I had the chance to study an optional module, "Introduction to Discourse Analysis", which seemed a perfect fit for my thinking in interpreting class. This module required me to analyse word choice beyond sentence level, and the wider impact that word choice has.
One evening, I was brainstorming assignment ideas with the news on in the background. As I sat listening to the TV, I noticed something that made me look up from my laptop. The tagline read: Donald Trump and President Zelenskyy. I realised I was not just watching political commentary but an ultimate display of political power through language. I thought - this was the perfect piece of discourse to analyse! I watched on, typing notes on body language, keywords, displays of power, politeness strategies and Trump’s branded adjective GREAT. There, the title was born ‘Power, (Im)politeness and Great Television’.
In the following weeks, I performed critical discourse analysis of the interaction between Trump and Zelenskyy concerning language and power. I investigated how both presidents’ language use was representative of existing power structures in global politics. My research found that:
Trump
- Linguistically asserts power through pronouns, misrepresentation and nukespeak.
- Dominates the conversational floor via interruptions and bald on-record declaratives to threaten Zelenskyy’s face.
- Uses power to linguistically control narratives about global politics and his Ukrainian counterpart.
Zelenskyy
- Navigates the power asymmetry via politeness strategies to preserve face.
- Expresses gratitude to appeal to Trump’s positive and negative faces.
- Maintains diplomacy with a face-saving formal tone to address the power imbalance.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed conducting this research due to its political significance. More broadly, it has made me more aware of how language choice is critical, especially concerning the speeches of politicians. I believe that my improvement in translating and interpreting module marks in semester two was a consequence of being able to analyse and justify my word choices more clearly, thanks to this module.
I would thoroughly recommend enquiring about the full range of module options available both within LCF and across the Faculty. Throughout both my degrees at Liverpool, LCF have offered me a wide spectrum of modules in Chinese history, politics, archaeology, film, translation, interpreting, and subtitling as well as traditional language learning classes. The interdisciplinary nature of courses at LCF has broadened my perspective, allowing me to study a range of topics, making me a more versatile translator.
My advice: take that optional module!
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Any modules mentioned are subject to change.