Politesse et éthos dans le débat présidentiel Sarkozy-Royal : un défi pour les interprètes

Abstract

The presidential debate held on May 2, 2007, between Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal was distributed in Italy thanks to, among other things, the simultaneous interpretation of the event broadcast live on the news channel SkyTG24. Thanks to the translation provided by four interpreters, the Italian-speaking public had access to the entire debate, in which the two candidates to the French presidency engaged for approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes. Prime example of adversarial interaction, presidential debates rest on a balanced mixture of conflictuality and politeness, so as to prevail over one’s opponent(s) while preserving decency. The resulting face work is the focus of our analysis. More specifically, we intend to observe how politeness and argumentative strategies are rendered in the interpreted discourse when candidates attack their opponents or counter the latter’s blows.