Running head: TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 1
Translations of Political Speeches Into
English and Polish
Piotr Prokop
Leiden University
MA Linguistics
English Language and Linguistics
June 2018
Supervisor: Dr. Jill V. Jeffery
Second Reader: Dr. Dick Smakman
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 2
Abstract
The analysis of translation poses a number of challenges, ranging from establishing what
constitutes ‘good’ translation to assessing how felicitous a particular phrase is in a given
context. When this context is politics, and the translations analysed are political speeches,
there are even more factors to be considered. This paper analyses political speeches made in
English or Polish as well as their written translations in the other language. The data gathered
for the purpose of this paper is a set of six texts, three speeches and their translations. This
paper uses a multi-layered model of discourse analysis to investigate a number of specific
categories related to the layers of knowledge, agents and the text itself. The paper finds that
one of the speeches was created with the explicit aim to be translated into English, while the
other two are mainly focused on the audience that speaks the language of the source text.
Overall, the results of this paper suggest that comparing the linguistic aspects of a speech and
its translation can reveal potentially useful characteristic such as the intended target audience,
culturally-significant items or names whose full meaning is particularly difficult to render in
another language. The implications of this paper indicate that a similar analysis performed on
a much larger scale could provide findings that are more generalisable.
Keywords: translation, rhetoric, political argumentation, discourse linguistics
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 3
Table of Contents:
Title Page 1
1. Introduction 5
2. Background 6
2.1 Translation Theory.............................................................................................6
2.2 The Rhetoric of Political Speeches....................................................................9
2.2.1 Research on political rhetoric...................................................................10
2.3 The Model of Discourse Analysis....................................................................11
3. Data & Method 13
3.1 Data…..............................................................................................................13
3.1.1 Speeches in Polish and their translations..................................................14
3.1.2 Speech in English and its translation........................................................15
3.2 Method.............................................................................................................15
3.2.1 Trans-textual layer....................................................................................17
3.2.2 Agent layer................................................................................................18
3.2.3 Intra-textual layer.....................................................................................19
3.3 Procedure..........................................................................................................21
4. Results 22
4.1 Results of the First Reading.............................................................................22
4.2 Results of the Trans-textual Layer Analysis.....................................................23
4.2.1 Social symbolism......................................................................................24
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 4
4.2.2 Orders of indexicality...............................................................................25
4.2.3 Social and political context......................................................................26
4.3 Results of the Agent Layer Analysis................................................................27
4.3.1 Author and anticipated addressees............................................................28
4.3.2 Verticality status.......................................................................................29
4.4 Results of the Intra-textual Layer Analysis......................................................29
4.4.1 Syntax.......................................................................................................30
4.4.2 Rhetorical figures.....................................................................................31
4.4.3 Social, expressive and deontic meaning...................................................32
4.4.4 Word-oriented analysis.............................................................................33
5. Discussion 36
6. Conclusion 39
References 41
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 5
1. Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to provide a linguistic analysis of political speeches and their
translations. While there are multiple linguistic analysis done on political speeches, the
inclusion of their translations in a different language can provide valuable insight into the
impact of the translation process on the text and how it can lead to differences in the analysis.
This paper uses a multi-layered model of discourse-linguistic analysis to investigate how
political speeches lend themselves to an analysis of this type, and what differences does the
model show when comparing the source text and its translation. The issues present when
translating political speeches between English and Polish are primarily linked to adapting the
translation to a different audience, one which not only speaks a different language, but also
possesses different contextual knowledge and whose language puts different restrictions on
the rhetorical and stylistic devices that can be used. Due to the audience not speaking the
language of the original text, also known as source text, the goal of a translation is either to
adapt the text to the audience or vice versa. Examples of bringing the text to the audience
involve explaining the references to historical or cultural events which are generally assumed
to be obvious to the audience of the source text, but which the audience of the translation may
not be familiar with. The same strategy can be used for proper names, such as names of
institutions or offices. This is especially visible when said name does not yet have an official
equivalent in the target language, and it is thus the translator who provides the first equivalent.
In creating such equivalents, the translator has to keep in mind the administrative frameworks
from and to which they are translating, as some names may cause confusion or have negative
historical implications.
In this paper, the two languages investigated (English and Polish) do not belong to the
same language family, the former being a West Germanic language, and the latter West Slavic.
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 6
Thus one could expect a number of hurdles when translating a political speech which, due to
its nature, could employ rhetorical and stylistic techniques in the source language which
cannot be directly mapped to those used in the target language. One of the problems with an
analysis of this type is that political speeches are often interpreted rather than translated, e.g.
during a television broadcast, a practice which is undoubtedly sound, given that setting.
Interpreting, also referred to as oral translation, abides by a slightly different set of rules,
mainly due to the time constraint inherent in the process. Hence, it cannot be analysed and
assessed using the same criteria and to the same standards as a written translation.
Nevertheless, political speeches that do receive a written translation present an opportunity to
see how some of those issues are solved when time is not a factor and the author of the
translation can support themself with all the related materials to which they have access.
2. Background
2.1 Translation Theory
Translation, according to Dictionary of Translation Studies (Shutteworth, 2014), is “an
incredibly broad notion which can be understood in many different ways”. It can be
understood as either the process or the product, which can further differentiate the types and
subtypes of translation. Being more specific, Jakobson (1959) outlines three types of
translation, namely intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotic translation. The first involves
explaining the meaning of the source text in the language of the source text. The second, also
called ‘translation proper’, is the “interpretation of verbal sign by means of some other
language” (Jakobson, 1959, p. 233). The final type, Intersemiotic, occurs when the verbal sign
from the source text are transformed in the target text into signs of a non-verbal sign systems.
The notions of source and target text are used not only in the domain of machine translation
(see Hutchins & Somers, 1992), but in the whole field of translation studies (House, 1997;
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 7
Munday, 2013). One of the reasons for doing so it to avoid any value judgement in calling the
texts the 'original text' and the 'translated text'.
The job of an interlingual translator is therefore to decode the text in the source
language and encode it in the target language. The extent to which the translator is successful
has been investigated from many perspectives, the most current one being concerned with
equivalence (Gutt, 2014). One of the primary problems of translation identified by Jakobson
(1959) is that there is rarely full equivalence between words in different languages. Jakobson
illustrates that by comparing the English word "cheese" to the Russian "сыр", which shows
that in English, 'cottage cheese' is still a cheese, but this is not the case for "сыр" in Russian
(Jakobson 1959, p. 233). The choice of how to render those items which do not have a full
equivalent in the target language depends primarily on the context. The notion of context is
one that is central to the whole concept of translation (House, 1997; Baker, 2006; Gutt, 2014),
and there have been many levels at which equivalence has been evaluated, such as at the level
of content (Kade, 1968), at five different levels simultaneously (denotation, connotation,
textual norms, pragmatics, form) (Koller & Henjum, 1992), with the audience response as the
frame of reference (Nida & Taber, 2003), or at the level of function (House, 1997; de Waard
& Nida, 1986). The equivalence at the level of function occurs when the part in the source
text and translated part of the text fulfil the same function (House, 1997; Gutt, 2014), though
the extent to which all possible function can be listed remains undecided (Svejcer, 1981;
Gutt, 2014). Due to it being considered the contemporary frame of reference (Gutt, 2014), it is
this functional approach that is used in this paper as the basis on which the translation is
evaluated and discussed. Moreover, all the texts analysed in this paper fulfil the same primary
function, but differ with respect to the primary and secondary audience, especially when
comparing a source text and a target text.
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 8
Depending on the form of the source text and the target text, one can distinguish
between the following four main types of translation (Kielar, 2003):
1. written-written translation
2. written-oral translation
3. oral-oral translation
4. oral-written translation
This distinction covers the basic one between translating and interpreting, where the
former deals in written texts and the latter in oral texts (see Neubert, 1981). The translations
gathered as data for this paper fit into the category of written-written translation, as all of
them have been completed in writing, even the one that has been subsequently presented
orally. One other aspect that can distinguish the translations of the political speeches is what
Grucza (1985) names the quasi-translatory properties of a text, i.e. a text that has been written
with the prior knowledge that it will be later translated or a text that is meant to be translated.
This property puts the translator as one of the targets, if not the primary target, of such a text.
As a result, the author of the primary text could alter the text in order to suit the needs of the
translator and the audience of the translated text. Such alteration often include additions
which explain connotations which may be unfamiliar to the audience of the translation
(Kielar, 2003).
This quasi-translatory aspect of translation is further mentioned in Kielar (2003),
where she provides an example of how translation of conventional phrases can display the
norms of a given social group. She provides an example by looking at the way the Polish
phrase “gospodarka nakazowo-rozdzielcza”, used during the communist period, has two
equivalents in English. The first is the more literal “a directive-distributive economy”, and the
other is the more globally-used “a centrally-planned economy” (p. 37). Kielar further explains
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 9
that the former equivalent was pushed by the Polish state, while the other was more
understandable to the English-speaking audience, and at the same time more direct in
describing the key aspect of that economic model.
2.2 The Rhetoric of Political Speeches
In everyday use, rhetoric refers to the use of language with aim to influence or
persuade the reader or hearer in a particular way. Sometimes referred to as a skill or an art,
rhetoric is generally understood to be an effective and persuasive use of speech or writing
(Rhetoric, n.d.). The development and codification of rhetoric dates back to Ancient Greece,
where it was Aristotle who defined it as “the ability of “seeing” the available means of
persuasion” (Kennedy, 1991, p. 13). Reisigl (2008) defines political rhetoric prototypically as
“rhetoric employed by politicians” (p. 97), though he recognised that such rhetoric can also be
produced by non-politicians.
When discussing modern presidential rhetoric, Zarefsky claims that “patterns of
rhetorical choice do tend to repeat across situations with the same central characteristics”
(Zarefsky, 2004, pp. 610-611). One could therefore ask to what extent are these patterns
reflected in different languages or in translations. He also points out that it is not easy to
pinpoint the audience of presidential rhetoric. Zarefsky (2004) argues that it is often not the
general public that is the audience, but other politicians or the media instead. He also proposes
that presidential rhetoric “defines political reality” through means such as naming the
contemporary issues and the environment thereof (Zarefsky, 2004, p. 611). One of the ways
this defining is achieved is through the creation of associations between known concepts and
the issues at hand. This phenomenon is of particular interest to this paper, as it can be
analysed by investigating how presidents name the issues they are discussing, what adjectives
they use in relation to these issues and how they themselves link the issues at hand to the ones
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 10
that invoke positive or negative connotations, also known as condensation symbols (see
Sapir, 1934; Zarefsky, 2009).
2.2.1 Research on political rhetoric. Practical research done in this area has
examined instances of political rhetoric in numerous contexts and using a wide range of
models and methods. Zarefsky (2009) examined political rhetoric in the context of strategic
manoeuvring. His analysis of the third Kennedy-Nixon debate concluded that the use of
strategic manoeuvring was extensive, and that there are some problems with regards to the
extent to which one can evaluate strategic manoeuvring in a political setting based on the
rules designed for a critical discussion (Zarefsky, 2009).
Reisigl (2008) uses what he called a “politolinguistic analysis of political rhetoric”
(p.97) to investigate a number of questions such as the naming of actors – individuals or
groups – the positive and negative traits that are attributed to said actors or the perspective
from which these points are presented. However, he admits that “there is no simple recipe of
how to conduct a politolinguistic analysis of political rhetoric” (Reisigl, 2008, p.100). Even in
the case of quantitative analysis, Reisigl (2008) says the measurement is always based on the
underlying theoretical definitions of qualitative categories.
A study by Krebs & Jackson (2007) approached political rhetoric from the perspective
of rhetorical coercion, and analysed the case of the Druze minority in Israel and the issues
regarding military service and citizenship. The model of rhetorical coercion seems to be
operating on the layers of pragmatics or dialectics. In this way, analysis done using the
concept of rhetorical coercion seems similar to the models based on strategic manoeuvring
and argumentation theory.
In general, it seems that the research in the area of political rhetoric and the
methodologies employed therein range from varied and heterogeneous to inconsistent and
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 11
idiosyncratic, a problem which manifests itself both when one wants to compare the results of
such analyses and when one seeks to chose the suitable approach for oneself. With that in
mind, the methodological framework used for the purpose of this paper is presented in the
following Section.
2.3 The Model of Discourse Analysis
The primary reason for the choice of the following model as the methodological
framework in this paper is that its focus is on the linguistic analysis of discourse, as opposed
to other types of discourse analysis, of which the most recognisable branch is critical
discourse analysis (CDA). The difference comes from a branch of discourse analysis that has
been developing in Germany since the 1980s called Diskurslinguistik, (discourse linguistics –
DL), and has been regarded as one of the most influential sub-disciplines in German discourse
analysis (for more on DL see Wengeler, 2005; Busse, 1987, 2008; Busse & Teubert, 2013).
Traditionally, discourse linguistics distanced itself from CDA by adopting a descriptive, rather
than critical approach (Busse, 1987; Wengeler, 2005; Spitzmüller & Warnke, 2011b).
One of the issues of DL has been the question of disciplinary boundaries. As discourse
is more than just language, discourse analysis should, in theory, extend beyond its linguistic
boundaries (Spitzmüller & Warnke, 2011b). However, a linguistic analysis of discourse, such
as DL, would be limited as to what it can achieve, as it would focus solely on the linguistic
component of discourse, and therefore would not be able to fully grasp its subject. Warnke &
Spitzmüller (2008) define the problems associated with traditional DL as
“underspecification” on the one hand, and “overgeneration” on the other. Discourse
linguistics is underspecified when it is focused too narrowly in its analysis and does not
provide the full possible and necessary analysis of the subject matter (Spitzmüller & Warnke,
2011a, pp. 15-16). Conversely, overgeneration occurs when an analysis is expected to yield
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 12
more and broader results than it is possible using the linguistic tools at one’s disposal (Warnke
& Spitzmüller, 2008).
The search for a solution to the aforementioned obstacles and to a general lack of
standardisation in the way linguistic discourse analysis was conducted (Warnke &
Spitzmüller, 2008) led to the creation of a multi-layered linguistic model of analysis (See
Section 3.2 for an overview of the model). The goal of this model is to provide a reliable,
valid and standardised model of analysis, rather than a theoretical model of discourse as such
(Warnke & Spitzmüller, 2008). In order to answer the issues faced by DL and others (see for
instance Reisigl, 2008), the model uses three different layers, each of them naming a different
extension of the linguistic object in order to exclude underspecificity and overgeneration
(Warnke & Spitzmüller, 2008, p. 23). This ‘multi-layered’ aspect also means that not all of the
elements need to be addressed and analysed at the same time. The choice of which elements
are to be examined follows from the initial step of the analysis, namely the “first reading1”.
During this step, the reader assumes the position of a “naive reader” (cf. Fix et. al., 2003), and
marks any linguistic form which appear to be meaningful. Warnke & Spitzmüller (2008)
defend this seemingly vague focus by saying that the tiered process of further analysis
precludes any possibility of arbitrariness. This first reading is holistic in nature, and the
elements found to be characteristic of a text are classified as either a variation or a
confirmation of known expressions (Warnke & Spitzmüller, 2008, pp. 24-25). The first
reading highlights the aspects that are to be investigated by means of multiple, selective
readings with the emphasis put on a single element. In the process of the first reading, the
native-speaking competence of the reader is assigned the status of a reference competence,
which corresponds in automated speech analysis to the reference corpus (Warnke &
1 Erstlektüre. Author’s own translation.
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 13
Spitzmüller, 2008). They also point out that due to discourse linguistic always having to
include questions of semantic nature, the smallest unit of the linguistic system that can be
marked as characteristic has to have at least morphemic status. After the first reading is
complete, the model splits into three layers of analysis, trans-textual, agent and intra-textual,
their respective phenomenal realms being knowledge, actors and texts (Spitzmüller &
Warnke, 2011b). Each of those layers is further sub-divided into analysis oriented towards a
specific element. With the first reading complete, the subsequent readings allow for selecting
one particular feature from the full model and comparing how it has been realised in the
original text and the translation. At this stage, any significant changes or deviations between
the two text that have been noted are singled out, their implications for the translated text and
possible reasons for their presence are discusses in the next Chapter.
3. Data & Method
Section 3.1 describes the speeches selected for analysis, gives an overview of who
delivered them and under what circumstances. Section 3.2 presents and describes the model
used to analyse said data, together with all the components relevant for the purpose of this
paper. Section 3.3 outlines how the methodological model was applied to the data.
3.1 Data
In order to investigate the differences in the analysis of political speeches and their
translations, three speeches were selected for the purpose of this paper. The speeches and their
translations to the other language (English or Polish) result in six texts in total (135 Congr.
Rec.; Bush, 2001; Dubiński, 1999; Duda, 2015a, 2015b; Transcript of President Bush’s
Address, 20012). The speeches selected present different contexts in which the translation
occurred, as well as different audiences at which the translations are targeted. The first speech
2 See References: Source Material
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 14
was targeted at an English-speaking audience, and was translated by a different entity than the
one responsible for the source text. The second speech and its translation are delivered to the
same audience, with both texts authored by the same entity. The last speech is targeted at a
Polish-speaking audience, its translation is not, but both texts come from the same source.
This results in the data set consisting of six texts in total, three source texts, one in English
and two in Polish, and their three respective translations.
3.1.1 Speeches in Polish and their translations. Two of the analysed speeches which
were originally delivered in Polish are the speeches made by Lech Wałęsa and Andrzej Duda.
The speech of Lech Wałęsa, chairman of Solidarity3, was given on November 15, 1989 to a
joint meeting of the United States Congress. The speech was internationally significant, as
Wałęsa was the first non-head-of-state to give such an address. Though Wałęsa delivered his
speech in Polish, he was accompanied by an interpreter who consecutively delivered the
English version of the speech. It is this version that is included in the data as the translation of
Wałęsa’s speech. As both the speech and the translation are produced by Wałęsa and his
translator, and not a translator working for the Congress or a news outlet, the two can be seen
as a single author, since they are on the same side of the linguistic situation. The fact that the
speech was given by a non-head-of-state and a person at the heart of the collapse of the
Warsaw pact makes this speech particularly relevant for both Polish and American audience,
as it was a historical moment in the history of the Cold War and modern international
relations.
The other speech is the inaugural speech made by Andrzej Duda on August 6, after
winning the 2015 presidential election in Poland. The speech was delivered before the Polish
National Assembly, a name given to the joint session of both chambers of the Polish
3 Polish: Solidarność
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 15
parliament. The transcript of this speech as well as its English version come from the official
website of the Polish president, meaning that the authorship of those two texts belongs to one
side of the linguistic situation. The reason for selecting this speech is that it is a relatively
recent one, given in a similar context to the one described in Section 3.1.2, but whose
translation comes from the same institution as the source text.
3.1.2 Speech in English and its translation. The speech delivered originally in
English is the one given by George W. Bush, the then President of the United States, on
September 20, 2001, as a direct result of the September 11 attack had happened nine days
prior. The speech was an address to a join session of the US Congress, and in it president
Bush presented the government’s response to the attack. While the original text was created
by the Bush administration, the translation was not, it was done by the receiving party i.e. the
audience. The speech was an important event internationally, as it marked the beginning of the
international military campaign known as the War on Terror. The speech was interpreted into
Polish live on television, though for the purpose of this paper, a written translation is used.
3.2 Method
In order to analyse the data described in the previous Sections, the methodology needs
to be on the one hand relevant to the data set, but on the other hand sufficiently clear that the
analysis, though qualitative in nature, retains its objective aspect and that could therefore be
possibly replicated. With this in mind, the methodological framework chosen is based on
Diskurslinguistische Mehr-Ebenen-Analyse4 (DIMEAN) model (Warnke & Spitzmüller, 2008;
Spitzmüller & Warnke, 2011a). A more detailed analysis of the model, its history, connection
to other methodologies and possible application can be found in Czachur (2011) and Girnth
(2015). The model with all of its categories is presented in the table below:
4 discourse-linguistic multilayered analysis. Translated by Spitzmüller & Warnke, 2011b
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 16
Table 1: Layers and categories of the DIMEAN model. Compiled from Spitzmüller & Warnke (2011b)
Layers of Analysis
Sub-layers Categories
Trans-textual Layer
Discourse-oriented Analysis
Intertextuality/intermediality, Schemata (frames/scripts), Discoursesemantic protofigures, Topoi, Social symbolism, Orders of indexicality, Historicity, Ideologies/mentalities, Social and politicalcontext
Agent LayerRoles of interaction
Author, Anticipated addressees
Discourse positions
Social stratification/power, Discourse communities, Ideology Brokers, Voice, Verticality status
MedialityMedium, Forms of communication, Areas of communication, Text patterns
Intra-textual Layer
Text-oriented Analysis
Visual text structureLayout/design, Typography, Text-picture relations, Materiality/text carriers
Macrostructure: text subject
Lexical Fields, Metaphorical fields, Lexical lines of opposition, Topic development, Text strategies/text functions, Text type
Mesostructure: subjects in parts of text
Proposition-oriented Analysis
Microstructure: propositions
Syntax, Rhetorical figures, Metaphor lexemes, Social, expressive, deontic meaning, Presuppositions, Implicatures, Speech acts
Word-oriented Analysis
Single-word unitsKeywords, Stigmatised words, Names, Ad-hoc formations
Multi-word units
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 17
The categories selected for analysis come from all the three layers. These are: Social
symbolism, Orders of indexicality, Social and political context, Author, Anticipated
addressees, Verticality status, Syntax, Rhetorical figures, Social, expressive and deontic
meaning, Keywords, Stigmatised words, Names and Ad-hoc formations. In the following
Sections, each of the categories is explained, together with the reason for why it was chosen,
with the categories grouped according to the layer in which they are situated. The reason for
not selecting some of the other categories, even though they would appear to be somewhat
relevant at first, is that they would not contribute to the comparative analysis of the original
text versus the translation, merely describe the similarities between the two. Other categories
that have not been selected, such as those concerning the visual representation of the text,
seemed not directly relevant to the nature of the data.
3.2.1 Trans-textual layer. The first layer, trans-textual, deals with question of what is
being talked about in the society at large and who belongs to that society (Warnke &
Spitzmüller, 2008, p. 39). This trans-textual level of analysis goes beyond the level of text
linguistics and into the realm of discourse linguistics. The aspects of the trans-textual layer
which are relevant to this paper are Social symbolism, Orders of indexicality, and Social and
political context.
Social symbolism covers items such as conventionalised register choices, the access to
discourse through the knowledge of social-symbolic meanings, and collective symbols, such
as metaphors and synecdoches, which are well-suited for contextualisation due to their place
in certain discourse communities (Warnke & Spitzmüller, 2008, p. 41).
The category of Orders of indexicality covers the collective agreement over what is
perceived to be ‘good’ and ‘bad’ language use. The perception of the ‘good’ language use
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 18
includes those linguistic actions that symbolise and facilitate social success or affiliation to a
particular group (Warnke & Spitzmüller, 2008, pp. 41-42).
When it comes to the category of Social and political context, the model does not
explicitly state what is to be investigated. Instead, it points out that many analyses focusing on
this aspect tend to study the context generated by the influential media. A possible issue with
this type of analysis is that it has the potential of taking into account only the corpora
generated by the media, resulting in a tautological confirmation that the general discourse is
what the media say it is, based on the data from the media (Warnke & Spitzmüller, 2008). In
order to avoid this issue, for the purpose of this paper, the source of the social and political
context comes from the world of academia or official opinion polls, rather than from the
media or media-related publications.
3.2.2 Agent layer. Warnke & Spitzmüller (2008) point out in the layer of Agent Layer
that in the social sciences, there are many methods for analysing this particular aspect of
discourse. For the purpose and the linguistic scope of this paper, it is therefore important to
focus only on those aspect which are directly reflected in the language. To that end, the
categories pertinent to this paper are Author, Anticipated addressees and Verticality status.
The two categories of Author and Anticipated addressees describe more than just the
basic interaction roles of sender and receiver. The category examines both vertical and
horizontal relations between the agents, distinguishing between different types of both text
producers and text recipients, with the former consisting of authors, principals and animators,
and the latter addressees, bystanders and eavesdroppers (Warnke & Spitzmüller, 2008, pp. 33-
34). Since these two categories are closely related, the analysis in this paper combines the
two categories and thus the results are also presented jointly. This is especially relevant when
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 19
discussing translations, as the source text might, and indeed often does, target a different
audience than the target text.
Another aspect that can influence the translation of a political speech is the difference
in the stratification of knowledge between the agents, here called Verticality status. This
category explores the hierarchical layers of knowledge and the subsequent affiliations of the
agents to different communities, both of which can vary between the addressees of the source
text and the target text.
3.2.3 Intra-textual layer. This layer is further sub-divided into three levels of
analysis, text-oriented, proposition-oriented and word-oriented. The category of text-oriented
analysis takes the broadest view of the text. It concerns both the overall thematic division of
the text and the division of text into parts. Warnke and Spitzmüller call this the macro- and
meso-structure of the text, respectively. However, they acknowledge that in some cases, this
division can hardly be possible (Warnke & Spitzmüller, 2008, p. 29). The layer of
proposition-oriented analysis focuses on syntactical and semantical analysis of particular
phrases or sentences as a whole (Warnke & Spitzmüller, 2008, p. 26). Word-oriented analysis,
the final level in the intra-textual layer, focuses on single and multi-word units. It analyses not
only single words as such, but also particular word collocations, as they are an integral to the
proper understanding of the text, or in this case, its translation.
The analysis of Syntax can also be used to establish the relation the author has with
the text. Elements of note include particles or adverbs that show the context and the attitude of
the author. Another important feature is elision, as by omitting particular elements of a
sentence, the author highlights the elements that are already known or are obvious to the
interlocutors. The category of Rhetorical figures is understood as more than just ornamental
forms, but as significant linguistic patters such as additions, omission, conversion or
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 20
substitution (Warnke & Spitzmüller, 2008). They are used for both stylistic and pragmatic
reason. On the one hand, they can be used to show the skill of the author, which can impress
the reader and thus achieve its stylistic goal. On the other hand, rhetorical figures can serve to
add, highlight or even omit parts of the message. When analysing translations, one could also
look for additions, elements not present in the source text but introduced to the translated text.
The necessity of these additions can help in establishing the differences in both stylistic and
pragmatic aspects. This is supplemented by the category of Social, expressive and deontic
meaning, which “deals with contextual, in general propositionally constituted meanings of
expressions5” (Warnke & Spitzmüller, 2008, p. 28). Elision and rhetorical figures both play a
role in the analysis, as their use has the potential to vary to a large extent between the original
text and the translation. The category Deontic meaning is also particularly relevant here, as
they way it is realised can have a significant influence on how the translated text impacts on
and is interpreted by the target audience.
Single and multi-word units are another elements of the analysis, and in some areas
they are the ones analysed in most detail. They are classified according to the following four
categories: Keywords, Stigmatised words, Names and Ad-hoc formations. The first category,
Keywords, is understood as words that “express the self-understanding and the ideals of a
particular group/epoch6” (Warnke & Spitzmüller, 2008, p. 26). Stigmatised words are used to
negatively describe i.e. stigmatise people, objects or facts, which has the inherent effect of
self-appreciation by depreciating others. The category of Names is described as items that
help in locating the text or discourse in a particular semantic field. Ad-hoc formations, the
fourth category, refer to the context-bound temporary formations, which can highlight the
5 Es handelt sich dabei um kontextuell, in der Regel propositional konstituierte Bedeutungen von Ausdrücken. Author’s own translation.
6 das Selbstverständnis und die Ideale einer Gruppe/Epoche ausdrücken. Author’s own translation.
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 21
perspective of the author. Warnke & Spitzmüller (2008) also point out that some of these
elements might be “cross-classified”, i.e. placed into more than one category (p. 26). The
study of those elements in the context of a text and its translation can show what changes have
been implemented on the level of a single specific word. Especially when it comes to Ad-hoc
formations, the changes in the translation could be linked back to some of the other categories
described in this Chapter such as the Anticipated addressees or Social symbolism.
3.3 Procedure
With all the selected categories mentioned in the previous Section, the procedure of
the analysis is the following. The analysis starts with the first reading, during which any and
all noteworthy aspects are highlighted and used as a justification of which categories should
be selected for analysis. These aspect include but are not limited to specific keywords,
sentence patterns, particularly salient metaphors or references. The choice of the categories
also depended on the general genre of the texts as well as the time, place and manner in which
they were delivered or, in the case of translations, the context in which the translation was
created. For each category, the data is given a reading with specific attention paid to that
category. Every occurrence of a structure, word or phrase which corresponds to a given
category is evaluated with respect to the above-mentioned methodological model and the
relevant theory summarised in Chapter 2. This results in 13 different readings, one for each
category, and the first reading (Erstlektüre), for a total of 14 readings. The finding of these
readings are presented in the next Chapter, and are organised according to the three layers in
which each category is located, preceded by the initial findings of the first reading.
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 22
4. Results
The analysis is spread over three different layers, Trans-textual, Agent Layer and
Intra-textual, with the results grouped accordingly and preceded be the results of the first
reading.
4.1 Results of the First Reading
This part of the analysis provides a general overview of the data, serving as a starting
point of the overall analysis. Those particular elements which seemed specific to the data or
were otherwise noteworthy influenced the choice of the other categories for analysis.
Taking all the texts into account, the first visible feature was the frequent use of
repetitions and anaphora. In the speech made by president Bush, a number of sentences
started with “Americans have” or “America has”. In the introductory part, after the initial
greetings, the phrase “We have seen” is repeated four times in the span of six sentences. In the
Polish translation, this has been rendered using three different phrases, namely “Byliśmy
świadkami” (“we were witnesses”), “Mogliśmy dostrzec” (“we could see”), “Widzieliśmy”
(“we saw” or “we have seen”). Moreover, the main part of the speech was divided into three
sections, and this division was introduced by a recurring phrase “Americans are asking [...]”.
Both of those features were also present in the translation, their respective Polish equivalents
being “Ameryka była” or “Ameryka” plus verb in the past tense, due to there being no wholly
symmetric equivalent for the English Perfect tenses in the Polish language, and either
“Amerykanie pytają” or “Amerykanie zadają sobie pytanie” for the phrase “Americans are
asking”.
In addition, a significant number of sentences started with the conjunction “And”, a
feature that was present across all the texts. The number of such sentences for each speech
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 23
were as follows: 15 for the speech by president Bush, 16 for president Wałęsa and 4 for the
then President-elect Andrzej Duda.
The repetitions found in the speech of Lech Wałęsa include the opening phrase “We
the people”, in Polish “My naród”, a phrase that is further analysed in the later Sections. This
speech also contained a number of sentences in the source language split into two shorter
sentences in English, a feature not present as often in the other speeches. Furthermore, some
of Wałęsa’s sentences had their syntax altered in the English version in a noticeable manner, a
feature discussed in the next Chapter.
In Andrzej Duda’s speech, the first item that stands out it the way the word
“Rzeczpospolita” is rendered into English. The word comes in the official full name of the
country, “Rzeczpospolita Polska”, which in English is rendered as the “Republic of Poland”.
In this vein, wherever the office of the President of Poland is mentioned, “Rzeczpospolita” is
rendered as “Republic of Poland” However, the word is also used in the Polish language in
other contexts, as shown in president Duda’s speech: “[…] współdziałać dla dobra
Rzeczpospolitej”, in the English version: “[…] in cooperation for the benefit of Poland”. In
the Polish version, the word is used instead of the more common and everyday word
“Polska”, which would be symmetrical with the use of “Poland” in English. In the target text,
the choice between the two English translations of “Rzeczpospolita”, one being “Republic of
Poland” and the other “Poland”, appears to be a conscious one, and is further analysed in the
following Sections.
4.2 Results of the Trans-textual Layer Analysis
The analysis conducted with respect to the trans-textual layer investigated the
categories of Social symbolism, Orders of indexicality, and Social and political context.
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 24
4.2.1 Social symbolism. With respect to the first category, the register of the speeches
was overall high and formal, in both the source and target texts. The only exception was found
in the Polish version of the speech by Lech Wałęsa, where some of the noun phrases are too
long and elaborate to be considered prototypical, formal Polish. Examples of such instances
include “fakt podstawowy i najważniejszy”, translated into English as “the fundamental, most
important fact”, “pojęcie Stanów Zjednoczonych” (the name of the United States), the
sentence “Oto słowa, od których chcę zacząć moje przemówienie.” (“With these words I wish
to begin my address.”) or the repeated use of the phrase “ruch o nazwie Solidarność” (“The
movement called Solidarity”). The possible reason for the use of these constructions is
outlined in the Discussion Chapter.
In his speech after the September 11 attack, George W. Bush makes a reference to a
very particular piece of American history, stating that “Americans have known wars, but […]
they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941”. This is a clear and
explicit reference to the attack on Pearl Harbor, one of the defining historical moments of
World War II. By mentioning it, this reference serves as a link between the September 11
attack and the attack on Pearl Harbor, making them both a symbol of the American history.
Lech Wałęsa’s speech begins with the phrase “My naród”, which in the translation is
“We the people”, a direct and deliberate reference to the Preamble of the US Constitution and
to the American social symbolism in general. This is further evidenced in the following
sentences: “I do not need to remind anyone here where these word come from”, the
implicature being that Lech Wałęsa is specifically referencing the American constitution in his
addressing the US Congress to show solidarity and like-mindedness. Conversely, the
corresponding phrase in Polish “My naród” does not entail such symbolic connotations in the
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 25
Polish language or culture, further supporting Wałęsa’s point of focusing his speech on the
American audience.
Another piece of social symbolism referenced by Lech Wałęsa is his jumping over the
fence in Gdańsk shipyard. The jump itself is given a full paragraph of context and is included
in the speech as a metaphor for the beginning of the Solidarity movement and ultimately, the
end of communism in Poland. This is therefore a highly symbolic act in the Polish history, the
significance of which and the possible reason for it being mentioned by Lech Wałęsa is
described in the next Chapter. Wałęsa also mentions “the solemn pledges […] in Yalta”, a
reference to the Yalta Conference of 1945, another symbol in the Polish history, a symbol
Wałęsa himself described as “the second greatest national catastrophe, following the one of
1939”. With regard to its symbolic significance and impact on the Polish view of history,
Wałęsa makes the following remark: “The awareness of this tragedy was doubly bitter, as the
Poles realized that they had been abandoned by their allies. The memory of this is still strong
in the minds of many.”, a clear indicator of the significance of that event.
In his speech to the National Assembly, Andrzej Duda mentions the previous Polish
president Lech Kaczyński, who died in 2010 in a plane crash. The details surrounding the
plane crash had been the subject of a controversy up to and including the 2015 presidential
elections in Poland. The deliberate reference to “the President who is no longer with us today”
by the then President-elect is a display of the political issues he considers to be important.
This reference is also analysed in the category of Social and political context.
4.2.2 Orders of indexicality. Analysis within the category of Orders of indexicality
yields the following results about the language choice. As first spotted in Section 4.1, the each
speech contains a number of sentences which start with the conjunction “and”. This is a
feature that would not be considered part of the ‘standard’ English, and is said to be generally
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 26
avoided in writing. The 15 cases of sentences starting with “and” in the speech by president
Bush have been translated into Polish in the following four ways: wholly omitted (11 cases),
changed in the Polish version to mean ‘but’ (Polish: ale) (1 case), used to join two clauses (1
case) or is rendered by the Polish equivalent conjunctions “i” or “a” (2 cases). Similarly, the
English version of Lech Wałęsa’s speech contained 16 instances of “and”, with the following
Polish equivalents: wholly omitted (9 cases), used to join two clauses (4 cases), or the two
sentences are instead joined by a comma (3 cases) In the speech by Andrzej Duda, the English
version contains four sentences beginning with “and”, while the corresponding Polish
sentences are equivalent in this manner in only 1 case, namely “I to naprawdę w wielu
obszarach” (“And this necessity applies to many areas”). Out of the other three cases, two are
the cases where ‘and’ joins two clauses, and thus does not start a new sentence, and one is a
case where it was wholly omitted. In this case, there are two sentences, just as in the English
translation, but there is no conjunction between them: “And I will note the following” is the
English version, while the Polish version is simply “Ja powiem tak”, which would be directly
translated as “I [will] say this”.
4.2.3 Social and political context. When it comes to the category of Social and political
context, the analysis needed to be based on sources outside of the realm of the media. The
analysis of the context of the three speeches is thus the following. The speech made by
president Bush was a response to the September 11 attack, an act whose reverberation are yet
to be fully understood and assessed. Nevertheless, the analysis of the employee attitudes by
Ryan et al. (2003) showed that “contrary to suggestions in the popular press, no evidence was
found of widespread effects on employee attitudes. On the other hand, the public polls
showed that the people were indeed affected in a profound way (Ryan et al., 2003, p. 654).
Through his speech, given in November 1989, Lech Wałęsa provides the American Congress
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 27
with his view of the way the Polish revolution of the 1980s is viewed by those who have
started it. In Poland, the context of the speech of Lech Wałęsa, given in November 1989,
which deals with the inception of the Solidarity movement and the beginning of the end of the
communist period in Poland, is summarised on the basis of public opinion research as the
spirit of pluralism in the nation, not in the government, with massive support for the Solidarity
movement” (Mason, 1985, p. 33-34). Moreover, it is the rise of the Solidarity-lead revolution
in Poland, and not the fall of the Berlin Wall, that for many Polish people is the beginning of
the end of the communist period in Poland, leading ultimately to the collapse of the Soviet
Union (Ornatowski, 2015). Taking this into account, the fact that the leader of Solidarity was
invited to address the US Congress was seen by many as a landmark event in the Polish
history.
When it comes to the context of Andrzej Duda’s 2015 speech, there is not a breadth of
academically-researched data on the social and political context, most likely due to the event
having occurred relatively recently. Nevertheless, the available information on the context
surrounding the 2015 presidential election in Poland states that there was a visible pro- and
anti-systemic dichotomy and a deep aversion towards Bronisław Komorowski, the other
candidate in the second round of the election (Olszanecka-Marmola, 2015, pp. 89-90). This
dichotomy is evidenced, for instance, in the mentioning of the plane crash of the previous
president, a topic of many divisive and emotional debates in the political sphere. However, the
polls conducted by the Centre for Public Opinion Research (Polish: Centrum Badania Opinii
Społecznych) in February 2015 suggested that it was Komorowski who was slightly favoured
to win the election (Cybulska, 2015).
4.3 Results of the Agent Layer Analysis
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 28
In the Agent layer, the three categories of analysis are Author, Anticipated addressees
and Verticality status.
4.3.1 Author and anticipated addressees. As outlined in Section 3.2.2, the categories
of Author and Anticipated addressees are addressed simultaneously. In president Bush’s
speech, he is the author of the text, the anticipated addressees being primarily the
Congressmen to whom he was speaking, and secondarily to all citizens of America, since the
issue addressed in the speech concerns the future of the country. The Polish translation of this
speech has been created not by G.W. Bush, nevertheless, he serves as the Author of that text
as well, the main reason for that being that the first person personal pronouns clearly refer to
him, the President of the United States. The anticipated addressees change between the
original text and the translation. As the translation of Bush’s speech is in Polish, it is targeted
at a Polish-speaking audience interested in American and global news, an audience which, to
a sufficiently large extent, does not overlap with the audience of the source text. Similarly, the
source text of Andrzej Duda’s speech is first targeted at Polish Members of Parliament, but
also at all Polish citizens. The English translation of that speech is therefore not aimed at the
Polish audience, since they would not need the translation, but at any non-Polish speaking
person who is affected by or interested in Polish affairs. The speech of Lech Wałesa, however,
has the same anticipated addressee as its translation. Even though Wałęsa is speaking in
Polish, he is addressing the US Congress, as does the consecutively-delivered English
translation. Wałesa makes this abundantly clear in his opening remarks: “I stand before you as
the third foreign non-head-of-state invited to address the joint Houses of Congress of the
United States” This means that even though the join Houses of Congress cannot be reasonably
assumed to understand the Polish text, they still are the anticipated addressees of said text as
well as its English translation.
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 29
4.3.2 Verticality status. Since the authors have been established not to change
between the source text and the target text, the Verticality status of the three speeches can only
vary if the category of anticipated addressees changed between the two texts. In the hierarchy
of knowledge, president Bush is in the higher position when addressing the Congress, since
he is the one who knows what options the American government is going to pursue in the
aftermath of the September 11 attack. He informs the Congress, and also the nation and the
world at large, how his government has decided to respond, a knowledge which places him
above those he is addressing. In the case of Andrzej Duda’s 2015 speech, he is also in a higher
position than his addressees. In his speech, Duda outlines his plans and hopes for his
presidency, which is similar to the position of president Bush in his speech, as they both
inform their citizens about the future of their country. In Wałęsa’s speech, the status is not so
clear. Although Wałęsa is in a position of knowledge, as in outlining the situation in his home
country he displays knowledge that his addressees cannot be expected to have, this knowledge
does not grant him any particular authority. This is further supported by him asking the
Congress to support, financially and otherwise, the rebuilding of Polish economy, a move that
exemplifies what he himself called “proposals of cooperation bringing benefits to both sides”.
In addition, Wałesa’s remarks about American culture and values are intended to show the
similarities between the people of the two nations and the values they share. Through stating
that he is also entitled to invoke the phrase “We the people” or that his ideals are closely
related to “the wonderful principles of American democracy”, Wałęsa seeks to show close
affiliation with what he sees as the core American values, thus orienting himself on a
horizontal level with his American audience.
4.4 Results of the Intra-textual Layer Analysis
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 30
In this layer, the categories selected for analysis are Syntax, Rhetorical figures, Social,
expressive and deontic meaning, Keywords, Stigmatised words, Names and Ad-hoc
formations.
4.4.1 Syntax. The speeches have usually employed a mixture of long and short
sentences, though Wałęsa’s speech tends to favour long, often complex sentences, and few
short ones. This in some cases results in minor stylistic mistakes or difficulties. Wałęsa’s
tendency in this regard is not as visible in the translated text, due to, among others, splitting
the sentences into two, often through the use of initial “and”. From this angle, the English
version of Wałęsa’s speech is similar to the one of Bush, where “and” is also used in the initial
position of a sentence multiple times. In fact, it is one of the only consistently used
conjunctions. The lack of this feature in the Polish version of Bush’s speech is here also
consistent with the speeches where the source text was in Polish. In other areas of syntax, the
Polish translations mirrors the stylistic choices used in the source text. Bush’s sentences
follow, in most cases, the standard subject-verb-object structure; the translation follows the
same sentence structure as well. All three speeches and their translations contain multiple
instances of repetition, though in the case of the speech by Lech Wałęsa, there are multiple
fixed phrases repeated within the same paragraph, e.g. “ruch o nazwie Solidarność” (“the
movement called Solidarity”), a feature not typically associated with standard, formal Polish.
Another feature particular to Wałęsa’s speech is the tendency to use lengthy noun phrases
where a shorter alternative would be considered more standard. Examples of this include the
aforementioned “ruch o nazwie Solidarność”, “system gospodarowania” and “istnienie
biologiczne”. The respective English equivalents found in the translation are: “the movement
called Solidarity”, later simply “the Solidarity movement”, “the economy” and “biological
existence”. This is evident of a larger trend visible in the English translation of Wałęsa’s
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 31
speech, which, for instance, simplifies the phraseology or splits the long sentences into two
shorter ones.
Similarly, the inaugural speech of Andrzej Duda also contains many sentences of
considerable length. As noted in Section 4.1, the English translation of this speech contained
only four instances of the use of “and” in the initial position, resulting in the sentences being
mostly of the same length in the Polish and the English version. Moreover, this speech
contains several instances of anaphora within a single paragraph, such as the phrase “Thank
you” used in almost every sentence in the second paragraph of the speech, though not always
exactly in the initial position. This feature is found in both the Polish and the English version
of the speech. A feature typical of this speech is that many a paragraph begin with a vocative
expression. This is especially visible in the Polish text, as these expression are rendered there
using the vocative case and are in some cases ended with an exclamation mark. In the English
translated text, the vocative expressions are still present, but are always followed by a comma.
4.4.2 Rhetorical figures. Apart from the above-mentioned rhetorical figures such as
anaphora, alliteration or vocative expression, the most common rhetorical figures found in the
speeches are metaphors, though other are present as well, albeit much less common. The most
prevailing metaphor found in president Bush’s speech is the use of “America” to mean the
American people as a whole, for instance “All of America was touched”, “America will never
forget” or “America grows fearful”. Bush also personifies America by saying he “will not
forget the wound to our country”. To make his point about the extent to which America is
going to fight terrorism and how he sees the dichotomy of this conflict, Bush used the
following juxtaposition: “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists”. Similar
metaphors can be found in other speeches as well. Wałęsa says in his address that “Poland
was sinking into mourning” or that “Poland has already done much to patch up divisions in
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 32
Europe”. Duda, however, prefers to speak of Polish people (in Polish: Polacy), rather than
employ the same type of metaphor that is used by both Bush and Wałęsa. Excluding the
anaphoric use of “And”, these metaphors are also found in the translated texts. The Polish
version of Bush’s speech, for instance, also employs the metaphoric use of “America”, e.g.
“Ameryka nie zapomni”, “Cała Ameryka była wzruszona” for “America will never forget”
and “All of America was touched” respectively.
As for the omissions, the most explicit one is the opening phrase of Wałęsa’s address,
where he explicitly states that he does not need to remind his audience the source of the
phrase “We the people”. Wałęsa also mentions the Yalta Conference, and although he does
explain what the connotations of that conference for the general Polish public, he omits any
specific reference to what had been agreed during the conference with respect to Poland’s
future. Bush says that “the civilized world is rallying to America’s side”, though he does not
state at any point what he means by the civilized world, nor does he state explicitly if the
countries which did not join the American side are to be considered uncivilized.
4.4.3 Social, expressive and deontic meaning. In this category, the only phrase that
fulfils the criterion of having proposition-constructed meaning is found in the speech by Lech
Wałęsa, where he explicitly defines what the United States mean to him and many people in
Poland, saying that it is linked with “freedom and democracy, with generosity and
highmindedness, with human friendship and friendly humanity”, in the Polish text this being
“kojarzy się [...] z wolnością i demokracją, ze wspaniałomyślnością i ofiarnością, z ludzką
przyjaźnią i przyjaznym człowieczeństwem”. In all other instances, the original texts as well
as their translations did not involve any words or phrases with propositionally-constructed
meaning. In terms of deontic meaning, the speeches did employ language which influenced
the audience by appealing to the necessity and desire to act in a particular way. In Bush’s
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 33
speech, the phrase “We will not forget” is used repeatedly, showing a duty and obligation of
America to remember the support coming from other nations. Furthermore, the list of
demands president Bush makes on behalf of the United States to “the Taliban regime” is a
display of what the addressees of these demands ought to do in order not to become an enemy
of America. In Wałęsa’s speech, there is no explicit list of demands, but rather an appeal to the
goodwill, cooperative spirit and peace-building intentions of the Congress, seen in multiple
phrases throughout the speech such as in the following three examples:
“[…] pragniemy natomiast, aby nasz kraj był traktowany jako partner i przyjaciel”
“Chcemy współpracy na dobrych i korzystnych warunkach.”
“Chcemy, aby Amerykanie przyszli do nas z propozycjami współpracy korzystnej dla
obu stron”
All three of these sentences have been translated into English using the phrase “we would
like”, though the more literal meaning of the Polish verbs “pragniemy” and “chcemy” is “we
wish”. The respective English version of the three sentences are as follows:
“But we would like to see our country treated as a partner and a friend.”
“We would like cooperation under decent and favorable conditions.”
“We would like Americans to come to us with proposals of cooperation bringing
benefits to both sides.”
4.4.4 Word-oriented analysis. Since some of the items in this sub-layer can belong to
multiple categories simultaneously, the results of the analysis of the last four categories,
Keywords, Stigmatised words, Names and Ad-hoc formations are presented collectively.
In the category of Keywords, the speech of president Bush repeatedly mentions
terrorism, the key issue of that time period. Terrorism also belongs to the category of
Stigmatised words, since it is a negative description. Moreover, Bush refers to “the war
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 34
against Iraq”, which is a clear indication of the time period, as since then there was another
military conflict in Iraq in 2003. Both the mentioning of terrorism and the reference to what is
now referred to as the Gulf War have symmetrical equivalents in the Polish version. However,
there are keywords whose translations vary between the two versions. The first is the way
Todd Beamer is introduced. In the original English version, the sentence is “Passengers like
an exceptional man named Todd Beamer”. The respective Polish sentence loses the reference
to passengers, and instead reads “Postaci wyjątkowych jak Todd Beamer”, with the word
“postaci” meaning “characters” or “figures”, which is used in the sentence as a hyperonym.
The other phrase is the name of the new office whose creation is announced in the speech, and
the name did not have an official Polish translation at the time of its announcing. The English
name is Office of Homeland Security, while the Polish version is “Urząd do spraw
bezpieczeństwa wewnętrznego”.
Wałesa introduces a keyword explicitly, stating in his speech that the name of United
States is associated in Poland with many positive ideas such as freedom, democracy and
generosity. Because this keyword is not a generally-accepted one, it fits the criterion of being
an Ad-hoc formation as well. In some cases, Wałęsa also refers to the Solidarity movements
simply as “Solidarity”, which in the context of the speech and the situation the speech is about
does not qualify it to be an Ad-hoc formation. Nevertheless, the term is explained in both
versions of this speech.
Duda mentions in his speech “the Polonia”, a term that is used in Polish to refer to
those Poles who live abroad. Though it is not explicitly defined in either version, the
following sentence serves as a sufficient explanation for that term. Duda’s speech, similarly to
the one by Bush, contains a mention of a newly-established entity, in this case the “Office for
the Polonia and Poles Abroad” (Polish: biuro do spraw Polonii i Polaków za granicą). The
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 35
difference is that the translation of this name comes directly from the entity which established
said office, and can therefore serve as the official English version.
In addition to the above-mentioned notion of terrorism, a number of other elements
form the speech by Bush fit the category of Stigmatised words. The first is the linking of Al-
Qaeda to the Mafia, which further supports the strategy of convincing the American audience
of the evil this organisation is committing. This is seen in the later passages through the use of
words such as “evil”, “destruction” and “brutalized”, all of which are rendered equally
strongly in the Polish version (Polish: zło, zniszczenie, maltretowana). The phrase “to plot
evil and destruction” is given a similar but slightly more poetic rendition in Polish: “spiskują
w imię zła i zniszczenia”, whose closest English equivalent is “[they] plot in the name of evil
and destruction”. The phrase “War on terror” is a stigmatising phrase in itself, as it suggests
the negative connotations one has with the notion of war. This also means that the phrase
places the speech within the semantic field of military conflict, thus making it an item in the
category of Names. This phrase “War on terror” is translated symmetrically into Polish as
“wojna z terroryzmem”, with all its implications and connotations equal in the target
language. In the other speeches, the only stigmatised expression comes form the speech made
by Lech Wałęsa. In it, he repeatedly paints the communist system in a negative light by
calling it an “alien system of government” and associating it with failed, incompatible
economy.
Several of the word and phrases mentioned in connection with the previous two
categories also fit the category of Names. Every elements analysed in the Keyword category
locates the text in a particular semantic field, hence their inclusion in this category as well. Of
the items unique to this category, the first are the proper names used in all three speeches.
Names of people, their titles and positions in the government, names of institutions, are all
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 36
items which situate their respective texts within the field of government and public
administration. Save for the names of institutions which are covered in the first paragraph of
this Section, every title and position has a respective equivalent in the target language and is
translated accordingly. One exception to that is the lower house of the Polish parliament,
Sejm, which is treated as a proper name and is rendered in English as “the Sejm”.
Of the items in the category of Ad-hoc formations, the first one is the translation of the
Office of Homeland Security. At the time, there was no formally-established Polish
equivalent, therefore the one presented in the speech qualifies as a temporary formation.
Similarly, the Office for the Polonia and Poles Abroad is an Ad-hoc Formation, since this is
the speech in which the name is announced and introduced to the general public. This name
also contains the phrase “the Polonia”, which is a temporary construction in the English
version of the speech only, as it is a translation of a term that is well-established in the Polish
language. A case where the phrase fits this category in both languages occurs in Wałęsa’s
speech. The Polish version is a play on words, as the two notions are built in a complementary
fashion, “ludzka przyjaźń i przyjazne człowieczeństwo” and their English equivalent “human
friendship and friendly humanity” work together to create a unique notion consisting of two
counterparts. Finally, Wałęsa’s “Solidarity” can be seen as an Ad-hoc creation as well,
especially when it is used without any modifier. That explains why it is capitalised in the
transcripts, and that the word does not appear in any other context in the speech.
5. Discussion
Overall, the results show that written translations of political speeches share many
aspects between English and Polish. Similar patters have been noticed across all speeches and
in both languages, especially in the Actors layer, where the results were largely similar in both
language settings. Many rhetorical devices have either a symmetrical or nearly symmetrical
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 37
equivalents in the target language, and many items relating to cultural symbolism have been
given a functional equivalent.
One of the more distinguishable findings in this part was that Wałęsa was targeting his
Polish speech at an English-speaking audience. This finding would at first seem counter-
intuitive, as one would expect the audience to speak the language in which the speech is
delivered, yet this scenario seems to be an example of the quasi-translatory property identified
in Grucza (1985). This is further supported by the use of the phrase “We the people”, as
identified in Sections 4.2.1 and 4.3.2, a deliberate nod to the American audience which, upon
examining the video recording of the speech, was a successful one, and resulted in a standing
ovation. Another element which suggests the Polish version of Wałęsa’s speech in Congress
was written with the English translation in mind is the explanation of the associations Polish
people have with America, a point which would seem redundant if presented to a Polish
audience.
The second finding is the divergence in using “and” at the beginning of a sentence.
This move was employed in every English version of the speech, whereas the Polish versions
used it very scarcely, opting instead for either a longer sentence or a different conjunction.
This indicates that either the use or the avoidance of initial “and” in rhetorical context could
be more language-specific than universal, and could necessitate further investigation. On a
larger scale, this might suggest a different approach to the use of anaphora and repetitions in
general the two languages.
The third noticeable finding is that if a speech of this type introduces a new
administrative or government entity, its translation in the target language might vary in terms
of their status. In the speech by Duda, both the Polish and the English text come from the
president’s office, and can therefore be assumed to provide the official English equivalents of
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 38
names of Polish institutions. By contrast, the Polish version of the speech by Bush does not
come from such a place, and therefore the equivalents presented therein cannot be given the
same official status. A related problem is exemplified by the translation of name of the Office
of Homeland Security into Polish. The name needed to accommodate for the fact that during
the communist period, Poland’s security service was called “Służba Bezpieczeństwa
[Ministerstwa Spraw Wewnętrznych]” - Security Service [of the Ministry of Internal Affairs],
a name which generally does not have many positive connotations amongst the Poles.
Therefore, institutions of this type often have their Polish translations modified in order to
avoid similarities in the name.
Other noteworthy results include the fact that the name of Todd Beamer contains a
more general and less detailed description in the Polish version of the speech might be seen as
not wholly fortunate, especially given that his story might not be as widely-known in Poland
as it was in the United States. This could be seen as a flaw, as the information on who Todd
Beamer was could have been relevant to the audience of the translated text in order to better
understand the situation.
Conversely, Wałęsa’s detailed description of his jumping over the fence in Gdańsk is
an example of expanding the context to inform the audience about what they might not know.
This act carries enough symbolism in the Polish socio-political sphere surrounding the times
of the Solidarity movement in order for it to be considered socially symbolic for the Polish
audience. The American audience, however, could not be expected to be aware of this piece of
context, which may be why Wałęsa’s jumping over the fence is given a detailed explanation,
including the spacial and temporal contexts, so that the non-Polish audience could realise how
pivotal this moment was for the Polish history of the late 20th century.
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 39
The findings of the first reading (Section 4.1) point to Wałęsa’s syntax in the source
text being unorthodox and in some areas unnecessarily complex. A possible reason for this is
the influence the Polish state had on the Polish language in the latter half of the 20th century.
This influence promoted overly complex structures as well as the use of many newly-created
fixed phrases, and therefore was dubbed as ‘nowomowa’ (newspeak), a direct reference to
George Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four (see Głowiński, 1990; Szymaniak, 2002 for more on
newspeak in the Polish language).
The problems with rendering the Polish word “Rzeczpospolita” into English as either
“Republic of Poland” or “Poland” seem to reflect two slightly different contexts in which the
word is used in the Polish text. The former English equivalent is used in cases where it relates
to the office of the president or the full name of the country, the latter seems to be used
whenever “Rzeczpospolita” is used less officially, such as when it is used as a synonym for
the shorter version of the name of the country.
6. Conclusion
The aim of this paper was to investigate how political speeches and their translations
into either English or Polish can be analysed from a discourse-linguistic perspective. The
methodological framework chosen for this purpose was the Diskurslinguistische Mehr-
Ebenen-Analyse (DIMEAN) model. This allowed for multiple characteristics to be selected
for analysis. The choice of which categories to include was based primarily on their direct
applicability to the data set.
In response to the research question, the findings of this paper show that written-
written translations of political speeches are generally translated with a large degree of
functional equivalence, most features of the source text have been given an equivalent which
conveys the same intended meaning, and this seems to be consistent in both target languages.
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 40
Some of the more dissimilar items in the translations include different approaches to
the use of conjunctions at the beginning of a sentence. In English, a number of sentences
started with “and”, while in Polish this tendency was generally avoided, which might imply
that in different languages there are diverse tendencies with regards to such repetitions. Other
points of divergence between the source and the target text were primarily due to difficulties
in translating names of institutions, as they often did not have an official equivalent in the
target language. This seems to be related to the nature of the texts, as it is often in a speech
that a new institution, and its name, is presented to the public and thus needs to be translated.
In terms of limitations of this paper, the main one is the scope of the data. Although
the data set consisted of three speeches and their translations, resulting in six texts in total, the
texts themselves are lengthy enough to render the increase of their number beyond the scope
of this paper. Nevertheless, a broader sample of more texts of this type would enhance the
strength of the conclusions that can be drawn from such analysis. Alternatively, a selection of
texts in a different language pair could provide more information on the universality of the
findings, especially as some of them seemed to be language-specific. Further investigation of
language-specific rhetoric could also be studied, for instance the tendency to use ‘And’ in the
initial position in different languages.
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 41
References
Baker, M. (2006). Translation and context. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(3), 317-320.
Busse, D. (1987). Historische Semantik. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.
Busse, D. (2008). Diskurslinguistik als Epistemologie – Das verstehensrelevante Wissen als
Gegenstand linguistischer Forschung. In I.H. Warnke & J. Spitzmüller (Eds.),
Methoden der Diskurslinguistik. Sprachwissenschaftliche Zugänge zur transtextuellen
Ebene (Linguistik – Impulse und Tendenzen 31), 57-87.
Busse, D., & Teubert, W. (2013). Ist Diskurs ein sprachwissenschaftliches Objekt? Zur
Methodenfrage der historischen Semantik. In Linguistische Diskursanalyse: neue
Perspektiven, 13-30. Springer VS, Wiesbaden.
Charteris-Black, J. (2014). Analysing political speeches : Rhetoric, discourse and metaphor.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cooper, J. M., & Hutchinson, D. S. (1997). Plato: complete works.
Cope, E. M., & Sandys, J. E. (2009). Aristotle: Rhetoric (Cambridge Library Collection –
Classics).
Cybulska, A. (2015). Poparcie dla kandydatów w wyborach prezydenckich. Komunikat z
badań CBOS 28/2015, Warsaw, www.cbos.pl.
Czachur, W. (2011). Diskursive Weltbilder im Kontrast. Linguistische Konzeption und
Methode der kontrastiven Diskursanalyse deutscher und polnischer Medien. Wrocław.
Enos, R., & Benoit, W. (1982). The most significant passage in Aristotle's rhetoric. Rhetoric
Society Quarterly, 12(1), 2-9.
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 42
Fix, U., Poethe, H., Yos, G., & Geier, R. (2003). Textlinguistik und Stilistik für Einsteiger: ein
Lehr-und Arbeitsbuch. P. Lang.
Freese, J. (1926). The art of rhetoric (The Loeb classical library). London: Heinemann.
Girnth, H. (2015). Sprache und Sprachverwendung in der Politik: eine Einführung in die
linguistische Analyse öffentlich-politischer Kommunikation (Vol. 39). Walter de
Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.
Głowiński, M. (1990). Nowomowa po polsku (Vol. 2). Pen.
Grucza, F. (1985). Lingwistyka, lingwistyka stosowana, glottodydaktyka, translatoryka,(in:)
F. Grucza (red.), Lingwistyka, glottodydaktyka, translatoryka. Warszawa, 19, 44.
Gutt, E. A. (2014). Translation and relevance: Cognition and context. Routledge.
House, J. (1997). Translation quality assessment: A model revisited (Vol. 410). Gunter Narr
Verlag.
Hutchins, W. J., & Somers, H. L. (1992). An introduction to machine translation (Vol. 362).
London: Academic Press.
Jakobson, R. (1959). On Linguistic Aspects of Translation. On Translation, 3, 30-39.
Kade, O. (1968). Zufall und Gesetzmäßigkeit in der Übersetzung (Vol. 1). Verlag
Enzyklopädie.
Kennedy, G. A. (1991). "On rhetoric" : A theory of civic discourse. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Kielar, B. Z. (2003). Zarys translatoryki. KJS UW.
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 43
Koller, W., & Henjum, K. B. (1992). Einführung in die Übersetzungswissenschaft.
Krebs, R. R., & Jackson, P. T. (2007). Twisting tongues and twisting arms: The power of
political rhetoric. European Journal of International Relations, 13(1), 35-66.
Manfredi, M. (2008). Translating Text and Context: Translation Studies and Systemic
Functional Linguistics (Vol. 1).
Manfredi, M. (2014). Translating Text and Context: Translation Studies and Systemic
Functional Linguistics. Volume 2: From Theory to Practice.
Mason, D. (1985). Public opinion and political change in Poland, 1980-1982.
Munday, J. (2013). Introducing translation studies: Theories and applications. Routledge.
Neubert, A. (1981). Translation, interpreting and text linguistics. Studia Linguistica, 35(1 2), ‐
130-145.
Nida, E. A., & Taber, C. R. (2003). The theory and practice of translation (Vol. 8). Brill.
Olszanecka-Marmola, A. (2015). Pro-systemic Voters Versus Anti-systemic Ones: Emotional
Attitude to Candidates and the Influence of TV Political Advertising in the 2015
Presidential Election in Poland. Political Preferences, 11, 75-90.
Ornatowski, C. (2005). “I Leapt over the Wall and They Made Me President”: Historical
Context, Rhetorical Agency and the Amazing Career Of Lech Walesa. Advances in the
History of Rhetoric,8(1), 187-207.
Reisigl, M. (2008). Analyzing political rhetoric. Qualitative discourse analysis in the social
sciences, 96-120.
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 44
Ryan, A. M., West, B. J., & Carr, J. Z. (2003). Effects of the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01 on
employee attitudes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(4), 647.
Sapir, E. (1934). Symbolism. Encyclopedia of the social sciences, 14, 492-495.
Sárosi-Márdirosz, K. (2014). Problems Related to the Translation of Political Texts. Acta
Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 6(2), 159-180.
Shuttleworth, M. (2014). Dictionary of translation studies. Routledge.
Spitzmüller, J., & Warnke, I. H. (2011a). Diskurslinguistik: eine Einführung in Theorien und
Methoden der transtextuellen Sprachanalyse. Walter de Gruyter.
Spitzmüller, J., & Warnke, I. H. (2011b). Discourse as a ‘linguistic object’: methodical and
methodological delimitations. Critical Discourse Studies, 8(2), 75-94.
Svejcer, A. D. (1981). Levels of equivalence or translation models?. Kühlwein, W. et alii,
320-323.
Szymaniak, W. J. (2002). Code switching and English language as free-culture medium: Case
study of the novel Necessary Lies by Eva Stachniak. Revista de FilologÍa y su
Didáctica, 25, 311-322.
de Waard, J., & Nida, E. A. (1986). From one language to another. Functional equivalence in
Bible Translating. Nashville: Nelson.
Warnke, I. H., / Spitzmüller, J. (2008). Methoden und Methodologie der Diskurslinguistik –
Grundlagen und Verfahren einer Sprachwissenschaft jenseits textueller Grenzen.
Methoden der Diskurslinguistik. Sprachwissenschaftliche Zugänge zur transtextuellen
Ebene. Berlin/New York, Walter de Gruyter GmbH.
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 45
Wengeler, M. (2005). „Das Szenario des kollektiven Wissens einer Diskursgemeinschaft
entwerfen. Historische Diskurssemantik als »kritische Linguistik«.“. Aptum.
Zeitschrift für Sprachkritik und Sprachkultur, 3(2005), 262-282.
Zarefsky, D. (2009). Strategic maneuvering in political argumentation. Examining
argumentation in context: Fifteen studies on strategic maneuvering, 1, 115.
Source Material
135 Cong. Rec. (Bound) (address by the honorable Lech Walesa, Chairman of Solidarnosc)
(1989, November 15). Retrieved April 9, 2018, from
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GPO-CRECB-1989-pt20/GPO-CRECB-1989-
pt20-5
Bush, G. W. (2001, September 20). Retrieved April 06, 2018, from http://stosunki-
miedzynarodowe.pl/teksty-zrodlowe/przemowienia/1102-przemowienie-georga-w-
busha-po-atakach-terrorystycznych-z-11-wrzesnia-2001-roku-20-wrzesnia-2001-r
Dubinski, K. (1999). Okrągły Stół. [The Round Table]. Warszawa: Krajowa Agencja
Promocyjna.
Duda, A. (2015a, August 6). Prezydent.pl. Retrieved March 27, 2018, from
http://www.prezydent.pl/aktualnosci/wypowiedzi-prezydenta-
rp/wystapienia/art,1,oredzie-prezydenta-rp-andrzeja-dudy-przed-zgromadzeniem-
narodowym.html
Duda, A. (2015b, August 6). Prezydent.pl. Retrieved March 27, 2018, from
http://www.prezydent.pl/en/news/art,7,address-by-the-president-of-the-republic-of-
poland-mr-andrzej-duda-before-the-national-assembly.html
TRANSLATIONS OF SPEECHES INTO ENGLISH AND POLISH 46
Transcript of President Bush's Address. (2001, September 20). Retrieved April 6, 2018, from
http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.transcript/
Internet Sources
Rhetoric | Definition of rhetoric in English by Oxford Dictionaries. (n.d.). Retrieved April 04,
2018, from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/rhetoric
Top Related