Language plurality as power struggle

Abstract

For this paper, heterolingualism or language plurality will be considered as the presence in a single text or in a social environment of both French and English, Canada's official languages. Language plurality will here be studied from an institutional viewpoint: the influence of the Canadian government on the translation of political speeches. The first part of this article will establish that political speeches are written in a bilingual environment where the official languages are often in contact. This bilingualism, however, is homogenised when it comes to speeches translation and publication. Therefore, the second part focuses on the speeches' paratextual features and third looks at the speeches textual features.

A place for oral history within Translation Studies?

“…Oral sources have provided valuable insight into the personal lives and professional careers of translators (e.g., Whitfield 2005;, institutional translation processes (e.g., Gagnon 2006;, the interpretation process and the experiences and feelings of interpreters involved in historic trials (e.g., Takeda 2010), the literary translation process and publisher expectations (e.g., Simon 1989), and the motivations, intentions and strategies of translators reflecting on their work (e.g., Asadi and Séguinot 2005;Ladouceur 2006). Interviews are also a particularly common feature of sociological and ethnographic approaches to translation studies (e.g., Buzelin 2007;Córdoba Serrano 2007Koskinen 2008;Leblanc 2013).…”

Participatory Detection of Language Barriers towards Multilingual Sustainability(ies) in Africa

“…As Gagnon defines it, any text is political "if it involves power or resistance" or if it "contain[s] some form of power struggle" [77,78]. Language biases condense many of those power struggles.…”

Identifying political and ideological bias in translated newspaper articles

“…In several countries the interaction between Political Science and Translation Studies created prolific new research areas and trends in the recent 20 years as described in the literature reviews in Bánhegyi 2010Bánhegyi , 2011aBánhegyi , 2011bBánhegyi and 2014. As attested most recently, for example, by Chilton and Schäffner (2002), Calzada-Pérez (2003), Schäffner (2004), Baker (2006), Gagnon (2006), Bánhegyi (2006), Baker (2007), Salama-Carr (2007), Munday (2007), Baker (2010), Conway (2010), Inghilleri and Harding (2010), Baumann, Gillespie and Sreberny (2011), Valdeón (2012), Guillaume (2016a), Guillaume (2016b) and Zanettin (2016) -with respect to bilingual national contexts and international contexts -, translation may play a prominent role in, and be a vital vehicle and means of, communication aimed at publishing and publicising political agendas as well as maintaining political power. In this respect, translation itself may easily become a political tool.…”