Mátyás Bánhegyi: The Effects of Politics and Ideology on the Translation of Argumentative Political Newspaper Articles
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Chapter 4: Translation and politics: Critical Discourse Analysis
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4.5 Van Dijk’s (1993, 1997, 2001, 2003) Critical Discourse Analysis
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4.5.2 Van Dijk’s CDA
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4.5.2.3 Theoretical background and aims

4.5.2.3 Theoretical background and aims

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Based on the intricate relationship between discourse and society, van Dijk’s framework primarily examines power abuse and the reproduction of ideology as well as the resulting social injustice and inequality (van Dijk 1993). This seems a very practice-oriented venture, however, it must be noted that even if CDA does not overstress the importance of a theoretical framework, van Dijk (2001) claims there are some strict theoretical requirements of CDA to be able to realize its aims. Van Dijk summarises these theoretical notions the following way:

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a) CDA focuses on social problems and political issues;

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b) “[e]mpirically adequate critical analysis of social problems can be performed through a multidisciplinary approach;

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c) CDA does not simply describe discourse structures but contextualises discourse and tries to relate the properties of discourse especially to social structure;

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d) and “CDA focuses on the ways discourse structures enact, confirm, legitimate, reproduce, or challenge relations of power and dominance in society” (van Dijk, 2001, p. 353).
 

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Based on the above notions, it can be concluded that CDA claims itself to be a socially committed field of research. Similarly, in our interpretation, politics-related aspects of Translation Studies will ideally involve social and political awareness. Consequently, the social and political aims of van Dijk’s CDA will ideally surface in Translation Studies related applications of this CDA framework. The current approach, therefore, intends to make such social and political aims explicit in the following ways:

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a) in van Dijk’s CDA, the analysts’ work is “admittedly and ultimately political” in order to achieve “a change through critical understanding” (van Dijk 2001, p. 252). It is assumed that CDA is useful in Translation Studies as it raises critical awareness in the readers and translators of translated of political texts;

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b) CDA’s “[c]ritical targets are the power elites that enact, sustain, legitimate, condone or ignore social inequality and injustice” (van Dijk 1993, p. 252). Consequently, CDA analysts’ work focuses on the critique of discourse and expresses criticism of those producing and reproducing social dominance, power and ideology through discourse (van Dijk 1993). Similarly, if translators follow dominant political agendas, then they also contribute to the conservation of political dominance, which should be made known to translators and the receivers of such texts, who should be sensitized to such politics-related issues of translation. Therefore, in an ideal scenario, the translators and the receivers of political texts should preferably possess critical awareness.
 

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As it has been seen, van Dijk’s framework is theoretically well-grounded, is capable of analysing social aspects as well as power and ideology related aspects of discourse, and has the potential of raising awareness in the translators of translated political texts as well as in the audience of such texts. In Translation Studies, the adaptation of such a framework and approach potentially holds social, political and translation methodological implications.
 
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