The Translatability of Figures of Speech in Khalid Mashaal’s Political Speeches: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This paper focuses on employing CDA method in studying Arabic political discourse in general, and the translatability of figures of speech of Khalid Mashaal's political speeches in particular. This paper also supports the notion that linguistic theory and CDA are useful in studying the translation of political discourse.? Three political speeches of Mashaal were translated into English; CDA was used as a theoretical framework to analyze these speeches. The study found that these speeches are full of figures of speech, and the translatability of them into English is problematic, because the translated version lost the flavor of emotiveness that SL text had. This paper also suggests some strategies for translators to overcome these obstacles in translation.