Role of Translation in Geopolitical Agenda:Translator’s Turns and Manipulation

Abstract

The problem of translation used for geopolitical agenda, translation as a means of mind manipulation has long been of substantial interest to translation scholars. This article focuses on conscious and unconscious types of manipulation in translation and aims to show their manifestation in political discourse. On the one hand, nominalizations, euphemisms, politically correct vocabulary and metaphors make a translator or an interpreter choose between multiple interpretations. It brings him/her to unconscious choice. On the other hand, translators sometimes deliberately omit some parts of the text or change the order of the original. It means that a translator/interpreter consciously makes this or that decision concerning what part or parts of the source text are ideologically relevant and should be brought into “due” perspective in translation and which are to be left out, and is therefore instrumental in shaping public opinion.