Translators and interpreters of the European Parliament: Do they have a role in the debate?

Résumé du document

The European Union is an international organization based on multiculturalism and multilingualism, which implies the presence of different ideologies. The texts we are studying are taken from a debate at the European Parliament, about women's rights in Afghanistan. This is quite a hazardous topic. The role of the European Parliament is merely to pass legislations and to follow the aims of the European Union, which include the respect of Human Rights and democracy in the world. Its purpose is to find a solution in order to make Afghanistan review a law which goes against the international conventions. Translating for the European Union involves two qualities: transparency and democracy. In this contingent atmosphere, translators and interpreters have to translate the ideas and ideologies present in the source text. First of all, they have to be invisible and objective. But it seems that this point is quite hazardous, and it often happens that ideology takes an important turn, giving them a role in the debate. However, their task remains different. Is there a huge difference between interpretation and translation?

Extraits

[...] “Women are fighting and deserve all the support and all the protection of their country.”[iii] “Women are worthy of a support and worthy of a support of their State.”[iv] This example reflects what has been said before. A difference between both kinds of translations already starts to emerge on a linguistic level, for translation on a lexical one, and for interpretation on a structural one. Finally, as translators and interpreters of the EU, they need to respect its ideology, as well as the ideology evoked through the debate. [...]

[...] They use a lot of reductions, even deletions as it has been seen earlier and they can play on distance and proximity easily. They are consequently freer than translator in terms of lexical features. This permits them to reformulate sentences, changing a little the ideology of the text. To do so, they can, for example, insist on a particular point thanks to repetitions, like in Antonio Tajani interpretation where “reaction” is repeated as well as and adding metaphors: “Playing their full role”[xvii] “”participer d'une manière equitable”[xviii] The most striking touch of the interpreter remains the addition of “that country” at the end of the translated text whereas it was not mentioned at all in the source text. [...]

[...] But it would also show that translating or interpreting is not only to give exactly the same information. On the contrary, the interpreter or the translator would have a role and will unconsciously or consciously share his point of view through language. Consequently, language is a way to express ideology but it also contains its own ideology. For example, an idea expressed by an English speaker would contain fewer words than a French one, and, consequently, would be less precise as well. What is explained in several words cannot be exactly transcript in a few terms. [...]

[...] Consequently, what Matthew Leung[xiii] has argued seems to be true. Language can clearly be considered as an ideology in itself. Translators and interpreters both have a role in the debate. They can change the ideology of the source text thanks to several techniques. But their agency in doing so is quite confused. Language is an ideology. Consequently, a translation would be considered as a different text, contrasting with the invisibility the interpreters and translators need to show. Throughout the analysis, a distinction between both kinds of translations emerges. [...]

[...] The interpreter is expressing his ideology here. Translators and Interpreters' first role is to translate ideas and debates in a very strict way to avoid any appearance of their own ideology and respecting the one of the EU at the same time in the discourse. However invisible and objective they try to be, language does not always permit them to stick to the text, and even, to the ideology expressed. Interpreters and translators have the ability to think. They have to stick to several ideologies in the same time: the EU's ideology, the speaker's ideology, the topic's ideology and their own ideology. [...]