Saving face of the ‘saviour’ : the translations of the Thai Prime Minister’s 2015 press interview and the 2020 national address

Thailand became a military dictatorship in May 2014, after the army deposed the democratically elected government. After being chastised for his lack of legitimacy and appeasing his opposition, Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha began to give official interviews to the international press in his s...

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Main Author: Narongdej Phanthaphoommee,
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2023
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/21583/1/55199-204879-1-PB.pdf
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/21583/
https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1578
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spelling my-ukm.journal.215832023-05-19T08:44:35Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/21583/ Saving face of the ‘saviour’ : the translations of the Thai Prime Minister’s 2015 press interview and the 2020 national address Narongdej Phanthaphoommee, Thailand became a military dictatorship in May 2014, after the army deposed the democratically elected government. After being chastised for his lack of legitimacy and appeasing his opposition, Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha began to give official interviews to the international press in his second year in office and intermittently delivered the mandatory live broadcast address to the public. This paper focuses on English translations of Prayut’s 2015 interview with Al-Jazeera and his 2020 televised address. The former is characterised by an impromptu speech that demonstrates his informal speaking style, whereas the latter is a well-scripted address. Using the appraisal framework (Martin & Rose, 2007; Munday, 2012) to analyse both translations, the paper proposes negotiator as an additional resource for examining the speaker’s attitude and the translator’s evaluative choices in the English written version. This investigation demonstrates the translator’s active mediation in both subtitles for media presentation and official translation for national address: maintaining applause for the ruling government while negatively evaluating its critics; modifying the force of attitude; removing any improper features in the premier’s manner of speaking. Despite differences in time and commission, the study argues that both translations support and sustain the Thai government’s aspiration of gaining international attention in order to improve their post-coup image or save the face of the nation’s ‘saviour’, who staged the coup to help the Thai people from the political dispute. Furthermore, the findings on negotiator can be used to inform quality translation training and practice, particularly the translator’s decisionmaking regarding spoken features in political speeches. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2023-02 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/21583/1/55199-204879-1-PB.pdf Narongdej Phanthaphoommee, (2023) Saving face of the ‘saviour’ : the translations of the Thai Prime Minister’s 2015 press interview and the 2020 national address. GEMA ; Online Journal of Language Studies, 23 (1). pp. 328-345. ISSN 1675-8021 https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1578
institution Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
building Tun Sri Lanang Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
content_source UKM Journal Article Repository
url_provider http://journalarticle.ukm.my/
language English
description Thailand became a military dictatorship in May 2014, after the army deposed the democratically elected government. After being chastised for his lack of legitimacy and appeasing his opposition, Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha began to give official interviews to the international press in his second year in office and intermittently delivered the mandatory live broadcast address to the public. This paper focuses on English translations of Prayut’s 2015 interview with Al-Jazeera and his 2020 televised address. The former is characterised by an impromptu speech that demonstrates his informal speaking style, whereas the latter is a well-scripted address. Using the appraisal framework (Martin & Rose, 2007; Munday, 2012) to analyse both translations, the paper proposes negotiator as an additional resource for examining the speaker’s attitude and the translator’s evaluative choices in the English written version. This investigation demonstrates the translator’s active mediation in both subtitles for media presentation and official translation for national address: maintaining applause for the ruling government while negatively evaluating its critics; modifying the force of attitude; removing any improper features in the premier’s manner of speaking. Despite differences in time and commission, the study argues that both translations support and sustain the Thai government’s aspiration of gaining international attention in order to improve their post-coup image or save the face of the nation’s ‘saviour’, who staged the coup to help the Thai people from the political dispute. Furthermore, the findings on negotiator can be used to inform quality translation training and practice, particularly the translator’s decisionmaking regarding spoken features in political speeches.
format Article
author Narongdej Phanthaphoommee,
spellingShingle Narongdej Phanthaphoommee,
Saving face of the ‘saviour’ : the translations of the Thai Prime Minister’s 2015 press interview and the 2020 national address
author_facet Narongdej Phanthaphoommee,
author_sort Narongdej Phanthaphoommee,
title Saving face of the ‘saviour’ : the translations of the Thai Prime Minister’s 2015 press interview and the 2020 national address
title_short Saving face of the ‘saviour’ : the translations of the Thai Prime Minister’s 2015 press interview and the 2020 national address
title_full Saving face of the ‘saviour’ : the translations of the Thai Prime Minister’s 2015 press interview and the 2020 national address
title_fullStr Saving face of the ‘saviour’ : the translations of the Thai Prime Minister’s 2015 press interview and the 2020 national address
title_full_unstemmed Saving face of the ‘saviour’ : the translations of the Thai Prime Minister’s 2015 press interview and the 2020 national address
title_sort saving face of the ‘saviour’ : the translations of the thai prime minister’s 2015 press interview and the 2020 national address
publisher Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
publishDate 2023
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/21583/1/55199-204879-1-PB.pdf
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/21583/
https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1578
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