Ideological Manipulation in Twitter Communication: A Critical Stylistic Analysis of Donald Trump's Tweets

Donald Trump’s use of Twitter as a modality to defame opponents, antagonize media outlets and even glorify violence is an enduring legacy for political campaigns, presidential rhetoric and argumentative debates. This nontraditional use of social media as a political communication tool has invited Twitter’s fact-checking editorial decisions, alienated some of Trump’s supporters and attracted worldwide criticism. Using purposive sampling, the present paper employs the ten textual-conceptual functions of critical stylistics to analyze a dataset of Trump’s tweets on domestic and international political issues published between 2011 and 2020 and assembled from the monitor corpus Trump Twitter Archive. The critical stylistic analysis aims at uncovering Trump’s ideological outlook by identifying the extra layer of meaning in which the ideological evaluation is structured and exposing the way in which the resources of language are strategically deployed to influence and ideologically manipulate Trump’s followers’ experience of reality. Analysis reveals a network of lexical, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic choices underlying Trump’s seemingly simple rhetoric. It signposts his ideological evaluation and constructs a world for his followers to desire, believe or fear. The study extends the application of critical stylistics to microblogging channels, with implications both for the linguistic make-up of political communication in Web 2.0 contexts and for the explanatory power of critical stylistics.

Rethinking International News Translations: Toward a Foreignizing Approach to News Events Translations

The present paper investigates the ideological manipulation that creeps in translated news headlines and falsifies the produced translated version since such process involves both the imposition of dominant ideologies and the negative portrayals of the other in mediated news. Thus, international news translation basically exploits and manipulates the original news events in such a way that misrepresents the image of otherness and creates a positive representation of patrons. In this vein, this paper brings to the fore the influence of extra-textual factors on the translation of headlines. Many strategies and translation techniques are utilized and translators do intervene to align produced headlines with the two networks’ ideological affiliations and editorial policies. The present paper adopts descriptive approach where I attempted to compare translated news headlines and pinpoint the alterations and transformations undertaken over them, also it aims to call for rethinking strategies undertaken while translating global news in a cosmopolitan context where openness to the other and appreciation of difference are conducive to an effective cross cultural and linguistic interactions. Accordingly, it proposes foreignizing approach to global news translation because it retains the image of otherness which is essential in the original event.

How Covid-19 spreads: narratives, counter-narratives and social dramas

This paper offers a critique of UK government policy based on mode of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (which in turn followed misleading advice from the World Health Organisation) through the lens of policymaking as narrative. Two flawed narratives—“Covid is droplet- not airborne-spread” and “Covid is situationally airborne” (that is, airborne transmission is unusual but may occur during aerosol-generating medical procedures and severe indoor crowding)—quickly became dominant despite no evidence to support them. Two important counter-narratives—“Covid is unequivocally airborne” and “Everyone generates aerosols; everyone is vulnerable”— were sidelined despite strong evidence to support them. Tragic consequences of the flawed policy narrative unfolded as social dramas. For example, droplet precautions became ritualised; care home residents died in their thousands; public masking became a libertarian lightning rod; and healthcare settings became occupational health battlegrounds. In a discussion, we call for bold action to ensure that the science of SARS-CoV-2 transmission is freed from the shackles of historical errors, scientific vested interests, ideological manipulation and policy satisficing.

Ukrainian Revolution of 1917—1921 in the Propaganda Discourse of the Russian Bolshevism: Tymofii Levchuk’s Film “A Kyiv Citizen” (1958)

The history of cinema is one of those unique cultural phenomena, which constantly attracts the attention of researchers. This phenomenon, especially in the 20th century, determined not only the direction of aesthetic transformations of the cultural development but also had an impact on the formation of ideologies and the strengthening of political regimes. This topic is relevant because the methods of propaganda that were actively used by totalitarian regimes (including the Soviet totalitarian rule) are now actively used by the undemocratic Russian administration to achieve political goals. The construction of the “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalist” image in Soviet cinema is of special interest in the context of Russia's “hybrid warfare” against Ukraine, which continues today. The instrumental technologies of ideological manipulation used in the creation of films have shown their effectiveness in shaping the worldview of the “new Soviet man”. Forms of this type of consciousness still continue to influence the political choices of many citizens of our state. The film “A Kyiv Citizen”, studied in the article, was created in 1958 by the Ukrainian Soviet film director T. Levchuk at the Kyiv O. Dovzhenko Studio. The film is a classic example of the ideologically biased film production. On the example of this film, we can observe technological principles and constructive models used by the Soviet regime to falsify the history of Ukraine in the 20th century, in particular the events of the Ukrainian revolution of 1917–1921. In the film “A Kyiv Citizen”, the events of the Ukrainian revolution of 1917–1921 were counterfeited in order to illustrate to the audience the Soviet version of the history of Ukraine and the events related to the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks. In such a way, the Soviet propaganda tried to form in the viewer a type of psychological perception of reality loyal to the “Soviet empire”. In particular, the facts related to the Bolsheviks' attempt to seize power in Kyiv in October 1917, the battles for the Arsenal plant in January 1918, and the conclusion of a peace treaty between the Ukrainian People's Republic and Germany were falsified.

THE ISSUE OF SUBTITLING HUMOR IN ARABIC

Subtitling humor is one of the most arduous tasks subtitlers face as it involves technical, linguistic, textual and cultural factors. This article aims at investigating the issue of manipulating humor in Arabic subtitles of American series and movies. It examines the strategies subtitlers use in translating humor and analyzes the solutions they opt for. It focuses on two fields of study: jokes and puns. The study is based on the work of Diaz Cintas (2012) and (2007) on ideological manipulation in Audiovisual Translation (AVT). The theory stipulates that translators have turned into intercultural agents and mediators shaping the ideological discourse of their culture <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0896/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Ideological Manipulation of Translation through Translator’s Comments: A Case Study of Barks’ Translation of Rumi’s Poetry

As purposefully crafted information around a text, paratext is a critical platform for ideological manipulation in translation. Translators’ comments as a form of paratext can cause ideological deviations between source and target texts that diminish the ideological context of the source text. On this ground, this study aimed to explore translators’ comments and how they can subtly recontextualize the ideology of texts and reframe them in new ideological contexts. Thus, choosing Coleman Barks’ translations of Rumi’s poetry as a case study. It aimed to probe the congruency of Rumi’s ideology with the ideology embedded in the translator’s comments on the verses. The study employed critical discourse analysis as its analytical methodology and explored the collected controversial examples of the translator’s comments. The findings illustrated a high level of ideological deviation between the source and target texts. Moreover, the findings implied the translator’s dominant approach toward a text from an inferior language comparing the superior English language. It has shown that ideological fidelity in translation is not only confined to texts but includes paratexts as well. The present study can be considered significant as it revealed the de-Islamization trend of a Middle Eastern text in the light of the relationship of the unequal languages. The study suggests that paratexts as an empowering platform for translators effectively direct the readers’ perception about the source text and its author. This study hopes to make the translator trainees more cautious in their comments on the original authors’ voices and ideology.

“Kiev Citizen” Movie by T. Levchuk: Ukrainian Revolution of 1917—1921 in the Ukrainian Soviet Cinematography

Cinematography is one of those unique cultural phenomena, whose history has always attracted historians’ interest. In the 20th century, this phenomenon did not only determine the direction of cultural transformations development but also impacted the formation of ideologies and political regimes. Today this topic is especially relevant considering the fact that the propaganda methods, intrinsic of dictatorship systems, namely the Soviet totalitarian regime, are actively used by the antidemocratic Russian power for achieving its political goals. The special interest in the context of the “hybrid warfare” which is currently going on between Russia and Ukraine, causes the construction in the Soviet period cinematography of the image of a “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalist” as the instrumental technologies of ideological manipulations used in such movies proved their effectiveness for shaping the outlook of a “new Russian citizen”. Such phenomenon, especially in the 20th century, determined not only the direction of aesthetic transformations of cultural development but also had an impact on the formation of ideologies and strengthening of political regimes. This topic is relevant because the methods of propaganda that were actively used by totalitarian regimes (including the Soviet totalitarian one) are now actively applied by the undemocratic Russian regime to achieve political goals. The construction of the image of the "Ukrainian bourgeois nationalist" in the Soviet cinema constitutes special interest in the context of today’s Russia’s "hybrid warfare" against Ukraine. The instrumental technologies of ideological manipulation used in the creation of films have shown their effectiveness in shaping the worldview of the “new Soviet man.” Forms of this type of consciousness still continue to influence the political choices of many citizens of our state. The film “Kiev Citizen”, studied in the article, was created in 1958 by Ukrainian Soviet film director T. Levchuk at Kyiv O. Dovzhenko Studio. This film is a classic example of ideologically biased film production. Using this movie, we can observe technological principles and constructive models of falsification of the 20th–century history of Ukraine by the Soviet regime, in particular the events of the Ukrainian revolution of 1917–1921. In the film “Kiev Citizen”, the events of the Ukrainian revolution of 1917–1921 were falsified in order to illustrate the audience the Soviet version of the history of Ukraine and the events connected with the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks. Soviet propaganda tried to form in this way the audience loyal to the “Soviet empire” type of psychological perception of reality. In particular, the facts related to the Bolsheviks’ attempt to seize power in Kyiv in October 1917, the battles for the Arsenal plant in January 1918, and the conclusion of a peace treaty between the Ukrainian People’s Republic and Germany were falsified.

The Effect of Ideology on the Form and Content of Edward FitzGerald’s Translation of Khayyam's Rubaiyat

The present study attempted to examine Edward FitzGerald, who would translate Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat (1859), was interested in Persian poetry. Translation deals with power and authority and most of the time the ideology of source text changes in favor of the dominant ideology of target text. Victorian people‘s scornful outlook toward East led to ideological manipulation of source texts by translators such as Fitzgerald. His strange reduction in his translations, especially in Khayyam's Rubaiyat results in the necessity of investigating his translation from ideological point of view. Surprisingly translation of Khayyam’s Rubaiyat has never been studied from ideological perspective and is unknown for many literary scholars. Victorian issues had a strong effect on FitzGerald‘s selection of some Khayyam's Rubaiyat.