The transfer of (im)politeness in interpreting

While the linguistic concept of politeness has been thoroughly analyzed, the same does not apply to its interpreting. The present theoretical-empirical work describes the means for expressing politeness grouped by G. Leechʼs maxims of politeness. The empirical part analyzes recordings of simultaneous interpretation from media and European Parliament settings. This is a quantitative study and the outcome is the number of means for expressing politeness which the interpreters conveyed into Czech. On average and in all of the material 65,7 % of means for expressing politeness were conveyed into Czech in compliance with the maxims. The means analyzed are prosody, non-verbal communication, modality, personal reference, etc. An equivalent interpretation of means of politeness was deemed desirable. The thesis verifies the hypothesis whether the level of politeness significantly increased in comparison with the original speeches. Key words: politeness, pragmatics, illocutionary act, maxims of politeness, face, modality, prosody, non- verbal communication, Czech, English, interpreting, equivalence, US presidential debate, Obama, Romney, Common Agricultural Policy, European Parliament, Catherine Ashton, forms of addres