Simultaneous Interpretation of Lexical Expressive Means in Modern Social and Political Discourse

   The research explores the features of simultaneous translation of lexical means of expression in modern socio-political discourse.

   The relevance of the paper stems from the widespread use of linguistic means of expression in the speeches of public leaders and politicians, which poses significant difficulties for a simultaneous interpreter and increases the risks of making mistakes in simultaneous translation.

   The aim of the study was to examine the lexical expressive means in modern social and political discourse and the features of their simultaneous translation from English into Russian.

   The paper analyses cases of the use of lexical expressive means in social and political discourse based on recent speeches by political and public leaders in Russia and some Western countries. In the first part of the research, the author analyses the texts of speeches by the heads of state, government and international organizations for 2024-2025, in which such lexical linguistic means as metaphor, hyperbole, litotes, oxymoron, metonymy, personification, epithet, allusion and comparison were found. In the second part of the study, the author uses materials from the speech of the British Prime Minister K. Starmer at the general debate of the 79^th session of the UN General Assembly on September 26, 2024 as secondary empirical data, and examines the lexical linguistic tools used by K. Starmer and the UN official simultaneous interpretation from English into Russian. For the analysis, the author has transcribed the audio recording with simultaneous interpretation of K. Starmer’s speech and compared the translation of the UN interpreters with the original text and video recording of the speech published on the UN General Assembly official website. In total, 11 epithets, 4 phraseological units and 1 idiom were found in the text of the speech. The results of the study identified the main difficulties and errors that can arise with simultaneous translation in social and political discourse. The author comes to the conclusion that the interpretation of lexical linguistic means of expression requires from a simultaneous interpreter not only certain skills and competencies, but also eloquence, erudition and intercultural awareness.

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