Politeness strategies in translating Donald Trump's offensive language into Arabic

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the strategies employed by six Arabic news channels in translating the controversial comments that Donald Trump made during his election campaign (2015–2016) and his first three years in office (2017–2019). Drawing on politeness theory, we look at the ways in which translators negotiate the offensive and inappropriate nature of comments made by Donald Trump that could threaten the positive face of Arab audiences. However, protecting the face of their target audience is not the only concern Arab translators consider when dealing with Donald Trump speech. Translators might also intervene to protect their own face because, in reproducing Donald Trump’s offensive comments, they might also be considered responsible for the use of face-threatening language acts. Additionally, we argue that translators are aware of Donald Trump’s discursive ethos which is central to his rise to power. Mitigating the offensive and inappropriate content of Donald Trump’s comments might alter his public image in the eyes of Arab viewers. We argue that translating Donald Trump’s ethos as an abrasive speaker who uses insults as a rhetorical weapon outweighs the need to protect the positive face of Arab audiences.

KEYWORDS:

• President Donald Trump
• politeness theory
• Arabic translation
• translating Donald Trump
• discursive ethos

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Haneen Abudayeh obtained her PhD in Translatology from the University of Caen-Lower Normandy in France. Her research interests are: translation theories, ideology and translation, political and media discourse analysis, and translation in time of wars. Abudayeh’s most recent publications are ‘The Translator as an Activist: Reframing Conflict in the Arabic Translation of Sacco's Footnotes in Gaza’, ‘Translation and political ideology: issues and challenges’ & ‘Islamic State and reshaping the Middle East: war on terrorism’. She is currently an assistant professor of French at the University of Jordan.

Barkuzar Dubbati received her PhD from the University of George Washington in Washington DC. Her area of research is literary theory, popular fiction, cultural studies, and postcolonial literature. Dubbati’s most recent publication is ‘The Translator as an Activist: Reframing Conflict in the Arabic Translation of Sacco's Footnotes in Gaza.’ She worked as a reporter and translator for Jordan TV from 2000 until 2004 and was awarded the Fulbright Doctoral Grant in 2006. She is currently an assistant professor of English at the University of Jordan.

ORCID

Haneen Abudayeh http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1478-1664

Barkuzar Dubbati http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9621-9132

Notes

1 The comments are available on eXtraNews’ Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/almasryalyoum/posts/10156220193554316?__xts__[0]=68.ARDjMWoOXGalLnnXcpZI_ZUOKUAqQATF0veAD5bz3-ATCp95ELcNrJfMoXJDmyYfTwIkUk-Ve4LjevGaURi-bDKA6OEPWUen7hw5xb8fcaKyOQQlHPOVAoaYV4jyhWrH7CUqojoBO83--56LB1Ydgnai4sY6m0WVnTJr7_WkuPyPMTBwAf4tuu4xGXnyGQKK2aiZ0jc6_6J8Xtoy0cn_7PKArs8i2lWNchFkDwzz0UxARtGxEYAO_YEZTE1dJRtR46ODs7C8PjsuS412r9t2Egmne3_emGnGuX5Mvrud-PuiSvUAQoldWwGvInMZGMns5HoB2z1qdr72j8TTHr6u&__tn__=-R

2 Because the focus of the study is news translation, we include under the term ‘translator’ translators, editors, and news channels. As one of the authors of this essay worked as a news editor/translator for an Arab channel, we are aware that decisions over translation and reproduction of non-Arabic content are not only made by translators, but also editors and sometimes news directors. Because the translation of Donald Trump’s offensive content could affect the positive face of the news channels, the decision to reproduce the content was not solely that of the translators.

3 An example of this is the recent controversy over Netflix’s Jordanian miniseries Jinn, in which teenage characters exchange insults, curse, and kiss. A major component of the uproar against the show is the harm it caused to Jordan’s public image, Jordanian culture, and even the Jordanian landscape where the show was filmed. This indicates a collective rejection not of the language in the show, which many Jordanians use, but of its publicness. For more on the controversy, see Kuttab’s ‘The Netflix Series Jinn Has Exposed a Social Fault Line in Jordan’ and Elderkin’s ‘Controversy Around Netflix’s Jinn Highlights a Cultural Divide in Jordan and the Middle East.’ Another example of a similar controversy is the YouTube video ‘This Is My Privacy,’ where a group of female Arab students held signs on which they wrote down the verbal harassment they heard in public. The video caused a major controversy, due to the women’s reproducing and ‘airing’ of expletives and offensive language—even when they were the victims of that language. For more on this video, see Quawas’ ‘Inciting Critique in the Feminist Classroom.’

4 The Access Hollywood tape was recorded in 2005 but leaked in 2016 during Donald Trump’s campaign.

5 All back translations are our work.