TRANSLATION IN THE GRIP OF IDEOLOGY: THE TRANSLATOR AND POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN THE ALGERIAN CONTEXT

Abstract

This paper starts from the premise that discussing fidelity in the translation of political discourse remains incomplete unless we first ask: fidelity to which ideology? Political texts are not written in a vacuum, nor does the translator who conveys them operate in a vacuum. The first section reviews the concept of ideology in Marx, Gramsci, Althusser, van Dijk, and Laroui. The second traces the shift in Translation Studies from the question of equivalence to that of power through Lefevere, Venuti, and Spivak. The third section is devoted to political discourse, while the fifth addresses the Algerian case, with its linguistic duality, colonial memory, and contestation over identity, drawing on examples from the terminology of war, the Revolution, and the Hirak. The paper concludes that neutrality is an unattainable demand and that its alternative is not blind partisanship but the translator’s ideological transparency.