With reference to power, it will be analysed which social groups are given access to speak, what power the actual newspapers are given through publishing an argumentative political article, what power translators are given through a commission of translating such articles as well as how journalists and translators formulate, produce and enact social dominance through texts.

Journalists, as a rule, satisfy the newspapers that employ them, and usually, to varying extents, reproduce the power the actual newspaper supports, accepts or tolerates. The job of translators is different. Through a translation assignment, translators are given power by the entity commissioning them: through their target texts, translators control social groups, the readers of translations. Being given a commission to translate holds two types of power: (1) translators create texts that go public – thus translators can have their voices heard; and (2) through target texts, translators can potentially enact power in the discourse they construct.

As regards power enacted in translated texts, translators – as the nature of their job dictates – have three options (cf. Baker (2006), who writes about two options, here these are referred to as options 1 and 3): (1) they either reproduce the power relations deemed beneficial by their clients to satisfy such clients (and probably even themselves if they agree with the power enacted in the text for translation) or, (2) translators can act against their clients rejecting the power contained in the text for translation, or can even manipulate target texts in a way that they contain different power relations than those appearing in the source texts or, alternatively, (3) translators can choose to translate other pieces of texts than the officially/originally selected ones and get them published in the media thereby creating a contesting reality for the target culture. Naturally, if translators want to satisfy their clients, which is of primary importance in this profession, they will probably benefit from the power their clients possess and potentially share it by reproducing the power in their target texts that serves the interests of their clients. The current research will examine which of the above strategies journalists and translators employ in their jobs with reference to power.

As far as ideology and social cognition are concerned in both the source and the target texts, evaluative beliefs and opinions will be explored, the presence of which signal social and personal beliefs and consequently ideology. Our previous research (Bánhegyi 2008) and van Dijk (1993) have shown that such social and personal beliefs are traceable in the form of individual propositions containing evaluative beliefs and opinions on a discursive microlevel. Therefore, propositions containing ideology in the form of evaluative beliefs and opinions will be highlighted and interpreted.

In terms of the reproduction of ideology, on the basis of van Dijk’s research (1993, 1997, 2001) on the relationship of power and media discourse, and the research of Jones and Wareing (1999), it is expected that the following discursive elements will potentially be present in the source and target language texts: argumentation, stylistic features, metaphoric expressions and formulaic language. Concerning the gist of source and target texts, the argumentation contained can reflect social opinions, which usually sound convincing without any further explanations: “It [argumentation] may be persuasive because of the social opinions that are hidden in its implicit premises and thus taken for granted by the recipients” (van Dijk, 2001, p. 358). Such reproduction of power in newspaper articles is no way uncommon (van Dijk 2001, 2002, 2006). It will be explored how translation will cope with such social opinions reproducing ideology.

Specific use of stylistic features and metaphoric expressions surfacing as lexical choice, metaphors, parallels, etc. will be analysed and compared in the source and target texts with a view to the ideology expressed by them. Textual features of implicitness and explicitness extend to the question of what implicature is contained in the texts. Such discourse implicatures will lead readers to infer something that is not explicitly asserted by the text, and often operate over more than one phrase or sentence. Implicature is also present in the political message: due to its shortness, as argued in Section 3.6, the political message contains the ideology expressed in the given article implicitly. Moreover, implicatures are heavily dependent on shared knowledge between the text producer, the receivers and the surrounding context of discourse. The reproduction of ideology and ideological manipulation frequently takes place by way of implicitly communicating beliefs rather than asserting them, which provides less chance for such beliefs to be ideologically or socially challenged. It will also be explored to what extent journalist and translators use such strategies.

Formulaic language reproducing ideology will also be pointed out in source and target texts. The realisations of formulaic language in the source and target texts will be compared. Furthermore, the present TDSI Model enables the exploration of how the US vs. THEM distinction is realised on the level of discourse in the source and target texts and will allow for the comparison of such features.