Translating Tropes in Political Discourses of Louise Mushikiwabo’s Campaign for the Post of OIF Secretary General from French into Ikinyarwanda and English
Keywords:
Diplomatic Language, Discourse, Persuasion, Stylistics, Translation, TropesAbstract
The study was conducted with the aim of translating some selected tropes in Louise Mushikiwabo’s campaign discourse when she was vying for the post of Secretary General of the International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF). The Skopos, a purpose-driven translation theory, applicable to texts translation was used to stay focused on both translatability and usability in the target languages’ context. This study adopted a documentary research design and it embraced desk review. The population consisted of speeches delivered in francophone countries where Louise Mushikiwabo campaigned. Discourses were selected using purposive and convenient sampling methods. Data were presented in three languages- French, Ikinyarwanda and English and then annotations were added. Data were treated using content-analysis method with different translation techniques such as modulation, transposition, equivalence, borrowing, addition, omission, and so on. Findings revealed that Louise Mushikiwabo’s campaign discourses fall in the domain of international diplomacy. Again, she used the persuasive stylistic/rhetorical devices of various kinds to appeal to the audience. As French, Ikinyarwanda and English belong to different language families, it was found challenging to translate a message from the source language while maintaining the same tropes effectively into the target languages and respect internal consistency faithfulness. The study concluded that Louise Mushikiwabo used the persuasive stylistic/rhetorical devices effectively that made her the Rwandan and indeed African favoured candidate for the post of Secretary General of La Francophonie. Repetition, allusion, listing, use of description and narrative, imagery, anaphora, co-reference, alliteration, parallelism and metonymy, imagery and symbolism are among other persuasive devices used by the speaker. It was recommended that other researchers should collect speeches of Louise Mushikiwabo delivered in Ikinyarwanda and translate them into French and English to see if they arrive at similar or different findings from this study. While translating tropes used in political domains, translators should add annotation for more clarification.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Gregoire Ndashimye, Abubakar Kateregga, Sylvestre Ntabajyana

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