PRIEŠIŠKŲ KALBŲ EUROPOS PARLAMENTE VERTIMO IŠ ANGLŲ KALBOS Į LIETUVIŲ KALBĄ SOCIOLINGVISTINĖ ANALIZĖ
SOCIOLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF INTERPRETING FACE-THREATENING ACTS FROM ENGLISH INTO LITHUANIAN IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Summary/Abstract: The case study focuses on the sociolinguistic and communicative aspects of interpreting face-threatening acts as were rendered by professional simultaneous interpreters in a specific setting – Indirect Conversational Interpreted Event (the author’s addition to Cynthia Roy’s division of Interpreted events). The article analyses speeches delivered by Nigel Farage in the European Parliament between 2008 and 2014 (108 interventions in English with an average span of 2:07 minutes) and their interpretations into Lithuanian. Nigel Farage is the leader of the UK Independent Party, which is notably vocal in opposing the European Union and the UK’s membership of it. His speeches often contain face-threatening acts directed towards the members of the Parliament as well as other EU officials and are thus markedly different from the kind of speeches EU interpreters usually deal with. Analysis of these occurrences reveals the rhetorical means the speaker employs (e.g. use of personal pronouns, metaphors, comparison, sarcasm) in order to damage the face of the hearer. While interpreting these speeches, interpreters into Lithuanian often try to mitigate the offence, i.e. to save face. They do this by omitting some information; by rendering the facts, but not the form; avoiding directly addressing a person although the speaker does this or, vice-versa, by directly addressing a person although the speaker uses pronouns, thus trying to exclude the hearer from the act of communication.

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