Political Speech and Oratorical Parameters in Translation

Gilles Quentel
Uniwersytet Gdaski
gillesquentel@free.fr

published in Jzyki Spcjalistyczne nr.6 , 2006, pp.241-249. ISBN: 83-918599-7-5 ISSN:
1730-4261

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to analyze the importance of some rhythmical features in the
political speech, and their part in the translation process. It outlines these rhythmical and
oratorical specificities, and concludes with the prevalence of rhythm on meaning in translation.
The papers point of departure is the rhetorical concept of elocutio, and leans on modern
linguistic tools like metrical phonology.

I- The Political Speech and its Problematic in Translation Theory

According to the well-known five categories of rhetoric, elocutio is the art of composing with
sounds and rhythms, of giving a shape to the discourse. The notion of shape will be further
examined in this paper in its relation with the phonetic structuring of the political speech, but at
present we will focus on the phonetic aspect of the concept. Elocutio is, according to Molini
(1992 :127) :

la partie centrale de la rhtorique : vue sommaire, tout ce qui se voit, ou plutt ce qui sentend,
dans la manifestation du discours, relve pratiquement de llocution.

The political speech, which has been practiced since Antiquity, offers a specificity which it
shares at a very high grade with poetry: the care of the phonetic properties of language. Therefore,
the translation of political speeches is subjected to particular phonetic constraints that we will
examine more accurately. The prominence of elocutio on all the other discursive parameters is all
the more important since the inventio is mostly stereotyped in this category of discourse.
Politicians are expected to say approximately what they will say in official circumstances and
according to the ideological stream they belong to. The point is that the surprises are rare from a
semantic point of view, precisely because the political speech is semantically stereotyped.

It offers then the occasion to reconsider the importance of meaning in translation since the
translator has here a free hand to slightly distort the original meaning in order to give to the target
text a stronger impact.


II- The Oratory Stress

Phonetics plays a very important part in the process of translating political speeches, but in a
quite different way than in poetry, even if analogies are to be considered. And according to the
classical rhetorics precepts, phonetics is an important part of elocution:

figurae elocutionis includes the simplest figures of speech concerning single words, both as
regards phonetics (Di Bari. Gouthier: 2002)

These analogies lie mainly in the field of assonances and alliterations, and it can be pointed out
that the phenomenon is noticeable in all forms of literary translation. The recurrence of phonemes
allows the author to give his work a recognizable phonetic pattern in order to allow the reader or
the listener to structure mentally the work in question. It is to be pointed out that readers need
several types of acoustic tokens, not only phonemics, to understand a text at the first shot. By this
way, the meaning itself will be supported and the message will be more understandable:
phonemic inconsistency leads to confusion in the perception of the text: especially when it is read
by a speaker. A translation which would neglect this fact would then be less readable, as we can
notice in this translation of the famous speech uttered by De Gaulle in Bayeux, June the 16
th
1944:

Ex 1:
it was here that events delivered their decisive justification for the efforts of those who had never
given in, and around whom the national instinct had rallied and French power reformed itself,
from June 18, 1940 onwards.

The reasons why this translation sounds that confuse are numerous, but it seems that the obvious
lack of any form of alliteration or assonances is one of them. De Gaulle himself was highly
literate in oratorical writing, and didnt forget to insert phonemic recurrences in his speech, as we
can state by reading the original speech. The fact is noticeable in most of his speeches, and more
generally in most of the great politicians speeches.

C'est ici que l'effort de ceux qui n'avaient jamais cd et autour desquels s'taient, partir du 18
juin 1940, rassembl l'instinct national et reforme la puissance franaise tira des vnements sa
dcisive justification.

The need for inserting phonemic recurrences can eventually lead to distortion of meaning, and
most translators usually put this constraint in practice. The distortion cannot be very significant
because, in any case, the political speeches are semantically stereotyped: De Gaulle says here
what he is expected to say in that occasion, as most politicians would do in a similar context, or
as they would do in all forms of stereotyped contexts (i.e. in this case, the liberation of their
country). Then, the possibility to change some words (the operation resulting in the same general
meaning but with more intensity in the target text) in order to respect some phonemic constraints
is to be considered. This translation suffers the consequences of a source-oriented strategy, which
respects the original meaning at word level with a lower impact as a result.

Phonemic recurrences have a particular part to play within the scope of political speech owing to
the oratorical stress. Oratorical stress is almost unknown by theoreticians because it is not
metrical and fairly subjective in its use. It is well-admitted that this stress falls generally on the
first consonant of a word chosen by the speaker in the course of a sentence or a phrase
[Mazaleyrat]. Most of the words concerned by the oratorical stresses are substantives and verbs.
As a result, the more the first consonant of a word has a plosive intensity (i.e. is pronounced by
a sudden blocking and releasing of the air stream through the pharynx) the more the oratorical
stress will be perceptible. However, the use of this stress should be ungenerous in order to not
drown its effect, or to avoid any bombastic tone. That could be the reason why De Gaulle uses
more words beginning with fricatives than with plosives (e.g. [s] in this excerpt) to allow himself
the use of more oratory stresses. The excerpt below shows where he used it (in bold) in another
passage of the same speech:

Ex 2:
L'tat lgitime, parce qu'il reposait sur l'intrt et le sentiment de la nation ; l'tat dont la
souverainet relle avait t transporte du ct de la guerre, de la libert et de la victoire,
tandis que la servitude n'en conservait que l'apparence ; l'tat sauvegard dans ses droits, sa
dignit, son autorit, au milieu des vicissitudes du dnuement et de l'intrigue ; l'tat prserv des
ingrences de l'tranger

The respect of this oratorical stress can be very important for the translator if the speech has to be
uttered again in the target language : this is often the case during the meetings where politicians
of different mother tongues are taking part (currently during the international meetings, at the
European Commission or at NATO for example), and where they can hear through headphones
the translation of the speech uttered at the same moment in front of them, speech which has in
most cases been written a few days before the meeting and sent to the translators. It can be then
difficult to deal with this stress, especially because the translator has very little time to complete
his task (generally a few hours), and because politicians make changes till the last minute.

De Gaulle attached great importance to this stress, as we can notice by hearing most of his
speeches, and politicians generally do. Then it seems obvious that the translator should respect
this phonemic constraint according to the specificities of the target language, which can again
lead to distortion of meaning. But meaning is not all, especially when political speech is
concerned: it can be stated that elocutio prevails over inventio . This fact seems to have been
taken into consideration (consciously or not) by the translator as we can state here, by avoiding
both plosives and soft sounds like glides and vocals at the beginning of words (which occur
frequently in English contrary to French):

The legitimate State - because rooted in the interests and the sentiment of the nation ; the State
whose true sovereignty had been transported to the side of war, of freedom, of victory, while
serfdom retained but Statehood's outward appearance ; the State whose rights, dignity, and
authority had been upheld in the midst of vicissitudes, barrenness and intrigue ; the State
preserved from foreign interference ; the State capable of restoring around itself the unity of the
nation and the empire

III- Metrical Constraints

Rhythm cannot be reduced to metrical contingencies: assonances and alliterations are nothing
else than phonemic rhythms even if the syntactic rhythm is also to be considered (see next
chapters): but the metrical rhythm is of a central matter here too: no politician can allows himself
to ignore this; hence no translator either. A metrically inconsistent sentence which gives the
listener the impression that it ends too early or too late, that something else will be said but
nothing comes, is to be avoided in all cases.

Besides the classical metrical tools that can be used to measure the gaps or the equilibrium in a
sentence by counting syllables, modern phonetics has developed more accurate formalisms to
investigate the metrical patterns of a sentence, among them metrical phonology. A sentence can
be rhythmically analyzed by organizing into a hierarchy all its stresses according to their intensity
by elaborating a metrical tree. Then, specific stress diagrams permit to spot euphonies or stress
clashes (grid clashes).

To illustrate the idea, we will just use the classical syllables counting with the following example.
The text here is quite old and written in a language remote from English or French, but is
interesting to examine since the first brilliant known political speeches were written in this
language (i.e. old greek). The first lines of Aeschylus Seven against Thebes consist are a speech
uttered by Eteocles to the citizens of Thebes that he rules. The specificity of ancient Indo-
European languages is the intensive use of declensions (as it can be found nowadays in Slavic
languages) which permits the insertion of elaborated metaphors which are extremely difficult to
translate in a more synthetic language as French or English.

Ex 3: ,
, http://www.perseus.org/cgi-
bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999%2e04%2e0016&query=commline%3d%23575

The translator can deal with two strategies to translate this harangue: whether a word-to-word
translation in order to respect the poetic tone used by Aeschylus, or a more target-oriented one
which would reproduce the force of Eteocles speech to the crowd. In our perspective, the best
choice is undoubtedly the second one since the point is to respect the elocutio above all. A
translation of the first type is for example the one made by H.W.Smyth in English:

Men of Cadmus's city, he who guards from the stern the concerns of the State and guides its helm
with eyes untouched by sleep must speak to the point.

To say the least, this translation is not the most readable we can imagine, but it respects with a
great accuracy the meaning of the source text. However, it deprives it of all its persuasions
strength. An equivalent in French could be:

Citoyens de Cadmos, il doit parler aux bons moments celui qui veille aux affaires de lEtat depuis
la proue de la cit, qui guide son casque les paupires non alourdies par le sommeil.

This translation is even more accurate than the English one quoted above, and perhaps even less
readable. Besides the fact that the metaphors used here are much elaborated, the metrical
inconsistency of the sentence deprives the translation of all strength: it is precisely the part of
metrical rhythm to bear the meaning in a way that it can have a greater impact on the listeners.
The detailed metrical account is here (for the four phrases): 6 + 8 + 10 + 8 | 5 + 7 + 4. It is
possible to speculate about the place where fidelity to the source text lies when using such
translation strategies, but we will now try to modify the rhythmical structure without changing
the words (it is still a source-oriented translation then):

Citoyens de Cadmos, il doit parler aux bons moments || celui qui veille aux affaires de lEtat |
depuis la proue de la cit, || qui guide son casque | les paupires non alourdies de sommeil.

(6 + 8) + (10 + 8) + (5 + 10)

The metrical pattern is less inconsistent, but still poor, and it seems difficult to get any better
result by using the exact words. Theres then an obvious need to stand aloof from the exact
meaning of the source text at a word level, and to carry out some modification. The result could
be for example:

Citoyens de Cadmos ! Celui qui veille sur les intrts de lEtat | du haut de la cit, || qui dirige
son casque | sans cder au sommeil, || celui-l doit savoir parler point nomm !

(12 + 6) + (6 + 6) + 12

Here the metrical equilibrium is reached, without any important alteration of the original meaning
which remains the same but not at a word level (e.g. the word accusative :helm is
almost impossible to use in the translation for the metaphor it creates is too complex and prevent
the translator from reaching the equilibrium).

Obviously, the translator is not always aware that he will make such a modification in order to
metrically re-equilibrate the sentence: but after his first literal offspring, he will probably
reconsider the sentence. Furthermore, this process seems to come into play in the translation of
literature too.

IV- The Concept of Undertow

The translator Philippe Bouquet was probably the first to mention the concept of undertow
(ressac) in relation with translation: the idea is based on the length of the sentences into a text
and on the lengths of the clauses and phrases into a sentence. The concept is quite new, but it
seems that there is a link between the relative lengths of clauses and sentences in a text that could
be ruled systematically, and that a translator can whether respect (if it exists in the original) or
create. The political speech is perhaps the most obvious case where such phenomenon can be
plotted, and I would like to investigate Bouquets idea further.

Let us consider for example the famous Gettysburg Address uttered by Abraham Lincoln the 19
th

of November 1863:

Ex 4:
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived
and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come
to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that
that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

This excerpt is composed of four sentences:

- the first sentence is composed of 3 clauses or 7 phrases
- the second sentence is composed of 1 sentence or 3 phrases
- the third sentence is composed of 3 clauses or or 9 phrases
- the fourth sentence is composed of 2 clauses or 3 phrases (possibly 2, depending on how
we count the phrases).

It shows quite well an alternation of long and short sentences. Alternation is the first step: an
undertow is a superposition of two different movements as its natural equivalent. If we now count
the number of words per clause in each sentence, the result will be as follows:

- first sentence: 9 + 12 + 3
- second sentence: 10
- third sentence: 10 + 12 + 5
- fourth sentence: 6 + 5

Then, each sentence ends with the shortest clause in all cases. If we consider again the examples
2 and 3 , we can notice the same phenomenon: alternation short/long sentences + the shortest
clause at the end of the sentence. Thats obviously not the absolute rule since more complex
patterns of undertow can be plotted in political speeches (the good ones), but it is perhaps the
easiest to detect. The fact is that here the equilibrium is to be avoided: disruption is the very rule,
but with consistency between disruptions.
This is a constraint more for the translator of political speeches who tries to respect the elocutio,
and it is not the easiest to respect since he has to reconcile infidelity at a word or syntactic level
(see previous chapters) with fidelity at word-flow level.

V- The Incantatory Sentence

This fact is well-known, politicians use and abuse it (poets as well): the repetition of phrases or
words in order to create an incantatory effect, as it can be seen in examples 2 (recurrence of
ltat) and 4 (recurrence of we + verb). In most cases, this special type of anaphora is easy to
translate, but difficult configurations can occur, as in this excerpt from the Gettysburg Address:

Ex 5: The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget
what they did here.

When translated into French, the repetition of here doesnt produce the same effect as in
English, and it is necessary to change it if we want to preserve this anaphora. The word change
will also require a change of syntax:

Le monde ne retiendra que peu, ni ne se souviendra de ce qui aura t dit en ces lieux, mais il ne
pourra jamais oublier ce quen ces lieux mmes ils auront fait.

Another specific rhetorical figure related to repetition of word, the antanaclasis which consists of
the repetition of a word with two different meanings is at the edge of the untranslatable: here
Cicero plays with the ambiguity of the word religio in his Pro Domo:

Ex 6: ut amplissimi et clarissimi cives rem publicam bene gerendo religiones, religiones
sapienter interpretando rem publicam conservarent anadiplose

[so that they might preserve the republic as] the most honourable and eminent of the citizens, by
governing it well, and as priests by wisely interpreting the requirements of religion.

The translator dodged the problem by using two different translations of the word, since there is
no equivalent in English.

VI - Conclusion

According to Peter Hesselmann, elocutio is the Kunst der berzeugenden und sthetisch
befriedigenden sprachlichen Formulierung (Hesselmann 1992). This aesthetic aspect of
translation has been often neglected, not by the translators but by the theoreticians who directed
their analysis towards the problematic of meaning. The translation of political speeches shows
not only that the search for the absolute equivalent is vain, as we can state e.g. by reading the
translation in English of De Gaulles speech at Bayeux, and that the acoustic aspects described
above are a prominent feature of the translation process, if not the most prominent. The very
concept of fidelity in translation seems then quite limited in its current acceptation and in
contradiction with the classical rhetorics precepts: even the inventio is not only meaning, and
there is no form/meaning duality in the oratory art.


Bibliography :
Molini Georges. (1992). Dictionnaire de rhtorique. Paris. Hachette.
Di Bari M. Gouthier D. (2002). Tropes, Science and Communication, JDCOM March 2th
2002 Trieste.
Hesselmann Peter (1992). Rhetorische Grundbegriffe. Brackert, Helmut/Jrn Stckrath (ed.):
Literaturwissenschaft. Ein Grundkurs. Reinbek: Rowohlt.
Hogg R, McCully C-B. (1987). Metrical Phonology. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
Klinkenberg Jean-Marie. Prcis de smiotique gnrale. Paris. De Boeck & Larcier 1996
Mazaleyrat, Jean. (1990). Elments de mtrique franaise. Paris. Armand Colin.

Works quoted :
Aeschylus : Seven against Thebes . Edited and translated in English by Herbert Weir Smyth.
The Perseus Project : www.perseus.org
Cicero: De Domo Sua ad Pontifices Oratio. Edited by Albert Clark. The Perseus Project:
www.perseus.org
Charles De Gaulles speech at Bayeux and English translation (author unknown):
www.charles-de-gaulle.org (12/03/05)
Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg (The Gettysburg Address). Abraham Lincoln Online.
http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln.html (12/03/05)