Manipulation in translating British and American press articles in the People's Republic of Poland

The aim of this research study was an attempt to examine and exemplify the occurrence of manipulation in the translation of British and American press articles into Polish for Forum. Przegląd Prasy Światowej magazine in the times of the People’s Republic of Poland. In the analyses articles published in the years 1965 - 1989 (sińce the beginning of Forum^ existence up to the decline of communist rule in Poland) were taken into consideration. The research was inspired by a number of publications conceming the language of propaganda in the times of the communist rule in Poland (by Bralczyk 2001, 2003, Galasiński 2000, Głowiński 2009 and others), referring to the censorship apparatus’s activity (e.g. by Romek 2000, 2010, Bagiński 1981, Degen and Żyrda 2012, Pawlicki 2001, Łętowski 2010, Radzikowska 1990, Skorupa 2010), and showing the raised interest in the issue of manipulation in language developed in Poland in the last two decades (Puzynina 1992, Krzyżanowski and Nowak 2004, Tokarz 2006), which madę us aware of the need to show evidence for the use of manipulative techniques also in the field of translation in the period of the communist regime influencing Poland. The theses stating the existence of methods manipulating language in the period of the communist rule in order to create a positive view on the communist authorities’ activities and promote the optimistic image of a political, economic and social situation in the country, expressed as theoretical claims or being results of overall research madę by linguists or historians, required to be supported by an empirical study also within translation studies. The existence of ST manipulation in translation discovered based upon comparative analyses of STs and TTs, could constitute an empirical proof on the legitimacy of the theses mentioned. The study concentrates upon the texts coming from the western press in English after 1965, conceming the economic-political situation in Poland, so it is an attempt to show two clashing views - the capitalist and the one under the communist influence, on important fields of the country’s existence. The method of a comparative study enables to show all the nuances while rendering ST message in translation and in the case of the analytical corpus (50 texts from British and American popular newspapers and magazines together with their 50 translations), to expose the methods of communist powers’ preventive censorship. The texts were analysed within their editorial features, translation techniques used (elicited based on Vinay and Darbelnet 1958, Newmark 1988, Delisle 1999, Malone 1988, Leuven-Zwart 1989, Kwieciński 2001), the presence of Newspeak characteristics, and finally conclusions have been madę proving the existence of manipulation within all 3 analytical areas chosen. The conclusions reveal the fact that the most common translation techniques used by translators during the communist regime and censorship activity were omissions - of single words but also whole passages including unwanted contents. The omissions (of different types within 8 various groups elicited), additions, substitutions and many other techniques of manipulative character, are additionally supported by manipulation within the editorial features of STs, of which TTs are almost completely deprived. The climax of manipulation is constituted by the use of Newspeak features due to which these texts are sometimes as propaganda language templates regardless of the Forum publisher’s declaration of them being reprints