The Election of 2016: A Pragmatic Translation Analysis on Dutch and Flemish Subtitles for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s Live Televised Debates

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The Election of 2016:

A Pragmatic Translation Analysis on Dutch and Flemish

Subtitles for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s Live Televised

Debates

Universiteit van Amsterdam Master Scriptie Vertalen

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Abstract

In this thesis the three live presidential debates of the 2016 election for presidency of the United States of America will be analysed on both a pragmatical level as well as through translation theory to see whether there are any identifiable translation norms to be found. This analysis is based on instances of crosstalk using Munday’s Appraisal theory, Grice’s maxims, the concept of Heartland created by Kreis, and Remael’s theory on the subtitling of minor TV characters, as well as basic translation analysis tools. The findings conclude that while most of these theories can be applied, Remael’s theory cannot be used in this type of analysis and that based on a lot of inconsistencies, like translation of numbers and translations of culture bound realia, in the translations it can be said that there are no clear norms used in the translation of this type of media.

I hereby state that I have read the UvA guidelines on plagiarism and declare that this thesis is my own work.

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1. Introduction

“Stronger Together” and “Make America Great Again”, will probably be two of the most historic campaign slogans in the history of the American Election, and could not be more opposite. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton going toe to toe is something that will be remembered for a long time. The most recent American presidential election has been the centre of attention for many reasons. The controversy alone makes it a scholarly treasure, not to mention the language used by both parties which is a rhetorical feast. Not only in national media has this battle of the sexes been heavily covered, people all around the world saw what happened when two opposites collide. Having said that, the main focus of this thesis will be on how this election was covered in the Netherlands as well as Flanders. This will be done by looking at the three televised live debates between the two primary candidates of two primary parties. These live debates have been a part of the presidential election since 1960, and the first live debate was held between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. What happens is that the two primary candidates of the two biggest political parties, the democrats and republicans, meet face to face in three live debates each 1.5 hours long. There is no preparation, the moderator decides what questions will be asked, and one of the three debates, usually the second, relies on audience participation.

On American TV the debates are covered by all major channels like CBS, ABC and NBC. In the Netherlands and Flanders the debates were covered by NPO, VTM and Canvas.

NPO is a Dutch television company called ‘Nederlandse Publieke Omroep’, which roughly translates as Dutch Public Broadcasting Foundation. It was founded in 2000 and is funded by the government. NPO is divided into multiple channels, NPO1, 2 and 3. Each channel has their own political and religious background. The live debate was broadcasted online via the NPO website, which covers the material of all three channels, the website targets a younger audience and because it was not broadcasted on TV people had to have been actively interested in the debate in order to watch them online.

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in Flanders. Their target audiences are families1_{and younger people, while Canvas, the second TV}

channel funded by the Belgium government is more traditional and aims to inform rather than to amuse.

In what follows, a detailed analysis of the three live presidential debates leading up to election day will show how those live debates were translated, on both the level of what happens during translation as well as from a pragmatical viewpoint. This way the focus will be on how these debates work, in the sense of rhetoric, stylistics, and ideology and if these original standpoints are in any way different in the translation through influence by Dutch or Flemish translators and/or television broadcasters. The other point of focus will be the traditional translation analyses to see what (un)intentionally got lost and added in translation. This thesis is not about trying to explain the election in any way, it is just to see, like Hillary Clinton said herself, ‘what happened’ on a linguistic level in the original text as well as the translations.

One way to see what happened is to look at what the differences between translations are, if there are any norms in translating politics, and how these possible norms can be explained through already existing theory.

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2. Theoretical Framework and Method

The publications that were relied on most in this research, focussing on the translation analysis were Aline Remael’s Mainstream Narrative Film Dialogue and Subtitling(2003), Jeremy Munday’s article New directions in discourse analysis for translation: a study of decision-making in crowdsourced subtitles of Obama's 2012 State of the Union speech (2012), and Gideon Toury’s laws of translation which he writes about in his book Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Other than these three main sources, terminology that will be used will come from Vinay and Darbelnet’s Comparative Stylistics of French and English: A methodology for translation. (1958/1995)

What Remael does in her article is look at what parts of spoken source text are translated into the target text, and whether there is a connection between what is translated and what is shown on screen, with regards to primary and secondary characters on TV shows. She concludes that:

Cuts that might affect dominances or the way a dialogue comes across are compensated by visually rendered information in the sense that camera positions make sure the viewers can still understand what is going on. However, enhancing dominances also means enhancing weaknesses and this may eventually affect the story that is being told. (244)

She discovered five trends:

1.The translator cuts the retroactive parts of expanded responses;

2. Cuts due to rewriting into less idiomatic or less idiosyncratic but more concise standard language;

3. Subtitles start following their own logic (as a result from 2);

4. Enhanced interaction and/or quantitative dominance which strengthen power relations; 5. cutting turns by minor characters because they do not supply essential information.

Based on these trends she came to the following conclusions:

- cuts are more prominent in structuring dialogue; this is partly due to the specific function of this dialogue type and partly to the film's strong reliance on visual narration in scenes of transition;

- cuts seem to take the viewers' knowledge of the sequential structure of dialogue into account;

- brief replies are not cut when the speaker is filmed in close up. This is a norm operating alongside that of narrative relevance and reliance on viewer’s knowledge of dialogue interaction. (244)

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These trends on what is left in and out will be used to create a filter for the debates. By looking for parts of the original texts that have been left out, for reasons other than time and space constraints, there will be clear sections of the original text and its translations, both instances where parts of the text were left out, or kept in which can vary between translations, which will be analysed using other theories. The segments that will be analysed using these theories will be selected based on relevance to the debate and whether these topics have been discussed in the news.

One of these theories is described by Jeremy Munday. His article can be used to see what happened to elements that were translated. In his article on the analysis of Obama’s state of the union speech, Munday raises the topic of using the appraisal theory in translation, his source being Martin and White (2005). The appraisal theory is the idea that our emotions are based on our evaluations, we feel things based on experiences. We could see a friend and be happy, or see a complete stranger in a dark alley and be scared. What Munday proposes is that:

The danger of importing such models wholesale into translation studies is that their original purpose may not be best suited to the purpose of analysing translation. Variation may tend to occur mainly in specific evaluative genres, notably advertising or tourist information, where cultural differences may underpin differences of evaluation. (p. 324)

The main goal of his research is to see how often ‘attitude’ is translated. Attitude is defined into three branches:

(1) affect, which expresses emotions (happy, mad, etc.);

(2) judgement, an ethical category that indicates the writer’s evaluation of behaviour, capacity, etc. (honest, brave, noble, etc.); and

(3) appreciation, which indicates an aesthetic or similar evaluation of a thing or phenomenon (wonderful, ugly, difficult, valuable, etc.).

His findings showed that within translation it was more likely variation occurred in gradation rather than in type of attitude. Therefore the different types of attitude in the original text were not likely to change into a different form of attitude in the target text (p. 331).

We can analyse what is left out through the theories of Gideon Toury. Within wat Toury (2012) calls descriptive translation studies he has defined two laws of translation: 1) Law of growing standardization, and 2) Law of interference. The law of growing standardization refers back to the

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problem that: “in translation, textual relations obtaining in the original are often modified, sometimes to the point of being totally ignored, in favour of [more] habitual options offered by a target repertoire.”(304) Which means that ‘marked’ elements sometimes get lost in translation. The law of interference is the phenomenon that Target language (TL) interferes with the Target Text (TT) and Source Text (ST) which can cause false friends (Vinay and Darbelnet 1995) and other translation ‘mistakes’.

Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/1995) devised a model for translation consisting of two strategies, direct and oblique translation, and seven procedures. These seven procedures can be divided into the two strategies. Direct Translation: Borrowing, Calque, literal translation. Oblique translation: Transposition, Modulation, Equivalence, Adaptation. However relevant these procedures what we are most interested in are a number of other techniques described by Vinay and Darblenet. Some of those are: False friends, explicitation and generalization. As well as omission (of repetition). These

omissions can also be a results of the time and space constraints. Linde and Kay (1999) state that due to time and space constraints subtitles consist of maximum two lines of 38 Roman characters per 7 seconds. Which will be kept in mind, as well as the probability that some translations were simultaneously translated or translated with a small time delay during the live broadcasting.

The original texts will be pragmatically analysed using Bull and Simon (2014), Kreis (2012), and Grice (1975). On the pragmatic side we have the concept of equivocation, taken from Bull and Simon’s 2014 paper Equivocation and doublespeak in far right-wing discourse: an analysis of Nick Griffin’s performance on BBC’s Question Time.

“Equivocation, according to Bavelas et al. (1990: 28), is “. . . nonstraightforward communication . . . ambiguous, contradictory, tangential, obscure or even evasive.” Equivocation is sometimes regarded as a form of logical fallacy, the misleading use of a term with more than one meaning or sense (e.g., Kahane and Cavender 2012). Equivocation may also be conceptualized in terms of classical rhetoric. Thus, Wodak et al. (2009: 215) refer to the “rhetorical principle of calculated ambivalence.” (4)

In this paper Bull and Simon make a distinction between three types of equivocation, which they found in Griffin’s speech:

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- Denials (of racism); - personal attacks; - implicit meaning.

They combine these ‘tactics’ with the idea of doublespeak, which is saying the complete opposite of the truth, or rather beating around the bush, twisting and turning, to avoid the truth. Especially during this election the issues of racism and misogyny were heavily featured. Many of the accusations against Donald Trump were denied, he retaliates by putting the focus on his opponent and she in turn reacts in the same way. Making these types of equivocation extremely relevant in this context. Another source article was written by Ramona Kreis, The “Tweet Politics” of President Trump. Journal of Language and Politics (2012), in which she addresses the idea of heartland. This is the concept “about the homeland of the people which is connected to their feeling of national identity and culture of their country. This identity is based on the construction of an ‘imagined community’.” (p. 609) Both Presidential candidates have a different sense of what America should be like. This idea of Heartland, and by creating an image of their ‘perfect’ or ‘great’ America helps them connect with the citizens of the United States. It will be interesting to see if the heartland of the candidates is translated as originally intended, or influenced by the target text culture and if there is a difference between the interpretation of the translations.

Aside from these more specific articles, pragmatic analysis tools like Grice’s maxims (1975) are useful. These maxims are:

1. Quantity: give the right amount of information; 2. Quality: tell what you believe to be the truth; 3. Relation: be relevant;

4. Manner: avoid ambiguity.

Maxims are easily one of the most used rhetorical devises and are often flouted for either selfish or selfless reasons. And thus will be heavily analysed within the debates.

These sources combined should give enough background information and support to analyse all three debates in detail.

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3. Analysis

In the following analysis all three debates were analysed and the findings were divided into three categories based on the theoretical framework: 3.1 Pragmatics, 3.2 Crosstalk, 3.3 Translation Theory. All the segments selected were chosen based on relevance, either they were returning topics in the election or raised a lot of media attention during the time the debates took place.

There are four different moderators in the three debate. The first debate is moderated by Lester Holt, the second debate is co-moderated by Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz, and the last one is moderated by Chris Wallace.

3.1 Pragmatics

First we will look at what is happening in the original text on a pragmatic level. The first segment is from the first debate. The matter that is being discussed in this section of the debate is the matter of Barack Obama’s birth certificate. In this segment Donald Trump tries to place the blame of the ‘birth certificate matter’ on Hillary Clinton, claiming that someone from her campaign went to Kenya to prove that Barack Obama was not born in the US long before he got involved, to avoid taking responsibility for this racist claim. And when that does not work he tries to change the subject.

HOLT: Mr. Trump, for five years, you perpetuated a false claim that the nation's first black president was not a natural-born citizen. You questioned his legitimacy. In the last couple of weeks, you acknowledged what most Americans have accepted for years: The president was born in the United States. Can you tell us what took you so long?

TRUMP: I'll tell you very -- well, just very simple to say. Sidney Blumenthal works for the campaign and close -- very close friend of Secretary Clinton. And her campaign manager, Patti Doyle, went to -- during the campaign, her campaign against President Obama, fought very hard. And you can go look it up, and you can check it out.

TRUMP: And if you look at CNN this past week, Patti Solis Doyle was on Wolf Blitzer saying that this happened. Blumenthal sent McClatchy, highly respected reporter at McClatchy, to Kenya to find out about it. They were pressing it very hard. She failed to get the birth certificate. When I got involved, I didn't fail. I got him to give the birth certificate. So I'm satisfied with it. And I'll tell you why I'm satisfied with it.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Because I want to get on to defeating ISIS, because I want to get on to creating jobs, because I want to get on to having a strong border, because I want to get on to things that are very important to me and that are very important to the country.

What we see in this passage is that through the use of incoherent language, which is a common characteristic of Trump’s language, he creates a vague sense of an answer: ‘I’ll tell you very – well, just very simple to say’, however, he does not actually answer the question on why it took him so long to acknowledge the fact that Barack Obama was born in the United States. He then changes the subject

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all together.

Theory-wise this can be tied in with Grice and his maxims. Especially the change of topic, which does not follow the maxim of relation; be relevant, which is also equivocation, in the form of a personal attack, in which Trump actually blames Hillary Clinton for starting the entire movement, even though this statement has been proven to be untruthful, which is the maxim of quality.

The next segment is more interruption than crosstalk, and it is important to look at the entire segment to see what is happening:

HOLT: Mr. Trump, a lot of these are judgment questions. You had supported the war in Iraq before the invasion. What makes your...

TRUMP: I did not support the war in Iraq. HOLT: In 2002...

TRUMP: That is a mainstream media nonsense put out by her, because she -- frankly, I think the best person in her campaign is mainstream media.

HOLT: My question is, since you supported it... TRUMP: Just -- would you like to hear...

HOLT: ... why is your -- why is your judgment...

TRUMP: Wait a minute. I was against the war in Iraq. Just so you put it out. HOLT: The record shows otherwise, but why -- why was...

TRUMP: The record does not show that. HOLT: Why was -- is your judgment any...

TRUMP: The record shows that I'm right. When I did an interview with Howard Stern, very lightly, first time anyone's asked me that, I said, very lightly, I don't know, maybe, who knows? Essentially. I then did an interview with Neil Cavuto. We talked about the economy is more important. I then spoke to Sean Hannity, which everybody refuses to call Sean Hannity. I had numerous conversations with Sean Hannity at Fox. And Sean Hannity said -- and he called me the other day -- and I spoke to him about it -- he said you were totally against the war, because he was for the war.

HOLT: Why is your judgment better than...

TRUMP: And when he -- excuse me. And that was before the war started. Sean Hannity said very strongly to me and other people -- he's willing to say it, but nobody wants to call him. I was against the war. He said, you used to have fights with me, because Sean was in favor of the war. And I understand that side, also, not very much, because we should have never been there. But nobody called Sean Hannity. And then they did an article in a major magazine, shortly after the war started. I think in '04. But they did an article which had me totally against the war in Iraq.

And one of your compatriots said, you know, whether it was before or right after, Trump was definitely -- because if you read this article, there's no doubt. But if somebody -- and I'll ask the

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press -- if somebody would call up Sean Hannity, this was before the war started. He and I used to have arguments about the war. I said, it's a terrible and a stupid thing. It's going to destabilize the Middle East. And that's exactly what it's done. It's been a disaster.

HOLT: My reference was to what you had said in 2002, and my question was... TRUMP: No, no. You didn't hear what I said.

HOLT: Why is your judgment -- why is your judgment any different than Mrs. Clinton's

judgment?

TRUMP: Well, I have much better judgment than she does.

The underlined parts of the text are the instances in which Donald Trump denies being for the war in Iraq, he explicitly does this eight times. In his attempt to defend himself he breaks all the maxims: Quantity: he overshares, starts talking about Sean Hannity and it takes 205 words for him to explain and prove that, according to him, he was against the war. Quality: he lies. Several sources confirm that he was not against it. Saying he actively supported the war would go too far, but he was not against it2_{. Relation: his answer is completely irrelevant to the question Holt tries to ask him, seeing as he}

interrupts any attempt to ask and finish asking the question, he has no idea what Holt wants to know. Manner: Trump often talks in incomplete and incoherent sentences. This results in him not giving short and incomplete answers: “Trump was definitely -- because if you read this article, there's no doubt. But if somebody -- and I'll ask the press -- if somebody would call up Sean Hannity, this was before the war started.” He starts five sentences:

1. Trump was definitely

2. because if you read this article 3. but if somebody

4. and I’ll ask the press

5. if somebody would call up Sean Hannity

and he finishes none of them, not even the last one, because ‘this was before the war started’ is not connected to any of the other sentences in any way. We could also combine this denial to the theory of equivocation, Bull and Simon state there are various ways this denial can work: someone can “challenge the truth of a proposition” (9) or “claim that he has been misquoted” (11). Trump does both: he straight up says that he was against the war, while also claiming that people are not listening to him, “You didn’t hear what I said” as well as requoting himself: “When I did an interview with Howard Stern, very lightly, first time anyone's asked me that, I said, very lightly, I don't know, maybe, who knows?” The former can also be seen as a claim of victimization. This combined with “I then spoke to Sean Hannity, which everybody refuses to call Sean Hannity.” and “he's willing to say it, but nobody

2

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wants to call him.” makes it look like nobody wants to know whether his claims are true or false and makes him play the victim card.

The text in bold highlights Holt his attempts to ask a question. He first attempts this at 1:19:173

and he is finally able to finish this question 2:05 minutes later at 1:21:22. The translations resolve this in the following ways:

NPO

HOLT: U was voor de oorlog in Irak.

TRUMP: Dat is een leugen van de media. Die is door haar gecreëerd. Ik was tegen de oorlog in Irak. Even voor de duidelijkheid.

HOLT: Toch staat duidelijk vastgelegd dat het zo is.

TRUMP: Nee, ik heb gelijk. In een interview met Howard Stern heb ik gezegd: We zouden kunnen beginnen met de oorlog. Daarna had ik een interview met iemand anders, over de economie en met Sean Hannity, die ik vaak spreek, bij Fox. Zo ook onlangs nog. Hij zei: u was tegen de oorlog. Dat was voor de oorlog begon. Sean Hannity zei duidelijk tegen mij en anderen dat is tegen was. Terwijl hij zelf voor was. We hadden gewoon nooit in Irak moeten zitten. En niemand vraag het Sean Hannity. Kort na de oorlog begon, in 2004, stond er een artikel in een blad waarin in duidelijk tegen de oorlog was. Trump was duidelijk, zeiden de mensen toen al. Ik vraag hierbij de pers om Sean Hannity te bellen en die zal bevestigen dat wij voor de oorlog al ruzie hadden. Toen zei ik al dat het de regio zou destabiliseren. En zo ging het.

HOLT: toch zei u het in 2002. Waarom is uw oordeel beter dan dat van Clinton? TRUMP: het is gewoon beter. En m’n temperament is ook veel beter dan het hare. VTM

HOLT: Meneer Trump, u was voor de oorlog in Irak voor de invasie?

TRUMP: Ik was daar geen voorstander van, dat heeft zij verzonnen. De algemene media zijn haar grootste partner.

Wacht even, ik was tegen de oorlog in Irak. HOLT: Onze gegevens zeggen iets anders.

TRUMP: De gegevens zeggen dat ik gelijk heb. Kijk maar naar mijn eerste interview. En ook naar het interview met Neil Cavuto en Sean Hannity, Hannity zei: je was tegen de oorlog, ik herinner het mij. En dat was voor de oorlog, voor de oorlog startte. Hannity zei: jij was het altijd oneens met mij want ik was voor de oorlog. Het had nooit zover moeten komen. Niemand heeft Hannity opgebeld. Daarna werd er een artikel gepubliceerd waar ik duidelijk tegenstander was van de oorlog in Irak. Iemand zei: Of het nu voor of na de oorlog was, Trump was tegen. Als iemand Hannity zou bellen, dat was voor de oorlog begon, wij discussieerden altijd over de oorlog, met argumenten. Ik vond het dom, het zou zorgen voor minder stabiliteit in het Midden-Oosten.

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HOLT: mijn vraag was: waarom schat u het anders in dan mevrouw Clinton? TRUMP: ik heb een beter inschattingsvermogen, daar valt niet over te twijfelen. CANVAS

HOLT: U heeft de oorlog in Irak gesteund.

TRUMP: Dat klopt niet. Dat is een fabeltje van de mainstream media dat werd verspreid door minister Clinton. Ik was tegen de oorlog in Irak.

HOLT: De bewijzen zeggen iets anders.

TRUMP: Nee, dat klopt niet. In een aantal interviews heb ik dat misschien gezegd. Ik heb dan een ander interview gedaan over de economie. En dat is belangrijker. Ik heb het erover gehad met de verslaggever van Fox. Hij zegt dat ik tegen de oorlog was, nog voor de oorlog startte. En hij wil dat gerust bevestigen, maar niemand wil hem opbellen. Ik was tegen de oorlog. Hij zegt: je vocht met mij omdat ik tegen de oorlog was. Hij was ervoor, maar niemand wil hem bellen. En toen kwam er een artikel in een groot tijdschrift, kort na het begin van de oorlog waarin duidelijk stond dat ik tegen de oorlog in Irak was. En een van uw collega’s zei: Als er iemand voor of tegen… Als iemand de verslaggever wil opbellen… We hadden er steeds ruzie over. Ik vond de oorlog dom. Hij ging voor instabiliteit zorgen in het Midden-Oosten en dat is ook waarheid gebleken.

HOLT: Waarom is uw oordeel beter dan dat van mevrouw Clinton? TRUMP: Dat is gewoon zo, ik kan dat beter inschatten.

The original excerpt is 492 words long. NPO translated this into 227 words, VTM into 204 and Canvas into 218. What all three translations do is remove any crosstalk and interruptions, making Holt less visible while simultaneously erasing evidence of the conflict with Grice’s maxims. All three translations ignore the first part of the question and immediately start about the war, which was only touched upon by the original question, but was not the actual question, making Trump’s answer on topic, so relation can be crossed off the list. In the case of NPO and VTM manner can be crossed off as well. They translate the incoherent sentences of the original as a coherent one, NPO even more so than VTM: “Trump was duidelijk, zeiden de mensen toen al. Ik vraag hierbij de pers om Sean Hannity te bellen en die zal bevestigen dat wij voor de oorlog al ruzie hadden.” (NPO), “Iemand zei: Of het nu voor of na de oorlog was, Trump was tegen. Als iemand Hannity zou bellen, dat was voor de oorlog begon, wij discussieerden altijd over de oorlog, met argumenten” (VTM) While the sentences might not be coherent, they are cohesive. It could be seen as a form of explicitation. The meaning of the sentences is implied, and by completing the unfinished sentences and tying them together something that was implicit is made explicit. Canvas actually keeps that un-cohesiveness by not fully translating the sentences and not filling in the gaps: “Als er iemand voor of tegen… Als iemand de verslaggever wil opbellen… We hadden er steeds ruzie over.” Even though it is not too hard to figure out what Trump means, it is still speculation to actually know what he said, especially in translation.

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topic through a diversion by Donald Trump from his tax returns. Which shows off how well Donald Trump has mastered the art of equivocation, which he is called out for by Hillary Clinton herself:

TRUMP: Well, I told you, I will release them as soon as the audit. Look, I've been under audit almost for 15 years. I know a lot of wealthy people that have never been audited. I said, do you get audited? I get audited almost every year.

And in a way, I should be complaining. I'm not even complaining. I don't mind it. It's almost become a way of life. I get audited by the IRS. But other people don't.

I will say this. We have a situation in this country that has to be taken care of. I will release my tax returns -- against my lawyer's wishes -- when she releases her 33,000 e-mails that have been deleted. As soon as she releases them, I will release.

I will release my tax returns. And that's against -- my lawyers, they say, "Don't do it." I will tell you this. No -- in fact, watching shows, they're reading the papers. Almost every lawyer says, you don't release your returns until the audit's complete. When the audit's complete, I'll do it. But I would go against them if she releases her e-mails.

HOLT: So it's negotiable?

TRUMP: It's not negotiable, no. Let her release the e-mails. Why did she delete 33,000... HOLT: Well, I'll let her answer that. But let me just admonish the audience one more time. There was an agreement. We did ask you to be silent, so it would be helpful for us. Secretary Clinton?

CLINTON: Well, I think you've seen another example of bait-and- switch here. For 40 years, everyone running for president has released their tax returns. You can go and see nearly, I think, 39, 40 years of our tax returns, but everyone has done it. We know the IRS has made clear there is no prohibition on releasing it when you're under audit.

…

HOLT: He also -- he also raised the issue of your e-mails. Do you want to respond to that? CLINTON: I do. You know, I made a mistake using a private e- mail.

TRUMP: That's for sure.

CLINTON: And if I had to do it over again, I would, obviously, do it differently. But I'm not going to make any excuses. It was a mistake, and I take responsibility for that.

What happens here is that Trump puts all the focus on Clinton by using a personal attack as well as claims of victimization (Bull and Simon): “I've been under audit almost for 15 years. I know a lot of wealthy people that have never been audited. I said, do you get audited? I get audited almost every year.” He is being questioned about his tax returns, he obviously does not like the topic, so he decides to change it. And Clinton tries to avoid the matter of her emails all together, by ignoring the maxim of relation and continuing with the topic of tax returns while Holt obviously asked her about her emails instead. There is no crosstalk in this segment, but this is a sensitive issue and the translators had to make decisions on what to translate and what to leave out. This could shed some light into the

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perspective of the translator. NPO

TRUMP: ik word al 15 jaar onderzocht door de fiscus. Veel andere rijken niet, ik zou moeten klagen, maar dat doe ik niet. Ik ben eraan gewend geraakt, andere mensen niet. We hebben nu een situatie in het land waar we iets aan moeten doen.

Ik geef mijn belastingaangifte vrij, zodra haar 33.000 gewiste emails vrijgegeven worden. Mijn advocaten zijn daartegen. Advocaten zeggen: geef ze niet vrij. Toch wil ik het. Zodra zij haar emails vrijgeeft.

HOLT: Dus er is over te onderhandelen?

TRUMP: Helemaal niet. Waarom heeft zij 33.000 emails verwijderd? HOLT: ik vraag het publiek stil te zijn.

CLITNON: Dit was weer een voorbeeld van bedrog. 40 jaar lang gaf elke kandidaat z’n belastingaangifte vrij. De fiscus heeft gezegd dat er geen verbod op bestaat.

…

HOLT: Wilt u nog reageren op de emails?

CLINTON: Ja. Ik heb een fout gemaakt met een privémailserver. Dat zou ik nu anders doen. Het was een fout, ik neem de schuld op me.

CANVAS

TRUMP: ik zal ze vrijgeven wanneer de audit… Mijn belastingen worden al bijna elk jaar gecontroleerd. Ik ken veel rijken die nooit een audit hadden. Ik ben dat al gewoon, ik klaag er niet meer over. Ik ben het al gewoon dat ik gecontroleerd word. Maar we zitten momenteel met een situatie in het land die moet aangepakt worden.

Ik zal mijn belastingsaangifte [sic] vrijgeven, als zij haar 43.000[sic] verwijderde e-mails vrijgeeft. Zodra zij dat doet, zal ik mijn belastingsaangifte [sic] vrijgeven nochtans tegen het advies van mijn advocaten. Bijna elke advocaat zegt dat je je aangifte niet mag vrijgeven voor de audit is afgelopen. Maar ik zal ze vrijgeven als ze haar e-mails vrijgeeft.

HOLT: Dus je bent aan het onderhandelen?

Ik vraag andermaal aan het publiek om stil te blijven zoals afgesproken.

CLINTON: Andermaal een voorbeeld van de rollen omdraaien. Al 40 jaar lang heeft elke presidentskandidaat zijn belastingsaangifte [sic] vrijgegeven. Er is geen enkel probleem om die al vrij te geven voor de audit.

…

HOLT: Hij bracht ook de kwestie van uw e-mails te berde. Wilt u daarop antwoorden?

CLINTON: ik heb een fout gemaakt door een privé e-mailadres te gebruiken. Ik zou dat niet opnieuw doen en ik neem daarvoor mijn verantwoordelijkheid op.

VTM

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jaar. Ik heb niet te klagen, ik word elk jaar door de IRS geaudit. Anderen niet. In ons land zitten we met een situatie die moet opgelost worden. Ik zal mijn belastingaangifte verspreiden, tegen het advies van mijn advocaten, als zij haar 33.000 gelekte e-mails publiceert.

Als zij dat doet, dan doe ik dat, tegen het advies van mijn advocaten in. Als je de shows bekijkt en de kranten leest, zegt iedereen: Verspreid de belastingaangifte niet tot de audit compleet is. Ik doe het als zij het doet.

HOLT: dus het is onderhandelbaar?

Ik wil even het publiek vragen om stil te blijven. Dat zou helpen.

CLINTON: dit was weer een mooi voorbeeld van meneer Trump. De voorbije veertig jaar heeft elke president zijn belastingaangifte gepubliceerd, iedereen. Iedereen deed dit. IRS heeft gezegd dat er geen verbod op is, tijdens een audit.

…

HOLT: hij vroeg om uw e-mails te publiceren, wil u antwoorden?

CLINTON: Ja. Het was een vergissing om een privé-adres [sic] te gebruiken. Ik zou het anders aanpakken nu. Ik ga geen excuses verzinnen, het was een vergissing.

Donald Trump’s talk about his lawyers telling him what to do is significantly shorter in the subtitles. This is mostly due to repetition, because all Donald Trump says is that he will release his tax returns, against his lawyers’ wishes if Clinton releases her emails, he just needs 191 words to say so. Keeping this information in the subtitles would be redundant and it makes complete sense to leave this out. The way this does not make sense, is that two out of three translators leave out the part where Donald Trump contradicts himself within a matter of seconds:

TRUMP: I'll do it. But I would go against them if she releases her e-mails. HOLT: So it's negotiable?

TRUMP: It's not negotiable, no

So, whether is it is actually negotiable or not, Trump probably does not know himself. One could argue that it has no actual contribution to the text as a whole, and that is correct, you can leave out the sentence and not miss any vital information. What it does do, however, is show how Donald Trump’s mind works. This relates back to his unfinished and ungrammatical sentences. His thoughts seem to be all over the place, so much so that he forgets what he said in a preceding sentence or pretends to forget in order to avoid answering the question. It could be that the translators were facing time constraints which forced them to leave out Trump’s reply, however they do translate something that almost seems irrelevant, asking the audience to be silent, compared to Trump’s contradiction. Which when faced with the choice between two sentences, seems like an odd decision.

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Ironically Clinton accuses Donald Trump of bait and switching while in the third debate proves she is rather practiced in the art as well:

WALLACE: Secretary Clinton, during your 2009 Senate confirmation hearing, you promised to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest with your dealing with the Clinton Foundation while you were secretary of state, but e-mails show that donors got special access to you. Those seeking grants for Haiti relief were considered separately from non-donors, and some of those donors got contracts, government contracts, taxpayer money.

Can you really say that you kept your pledge to that Senate committee? And why isn't what happened and what went on between you and the Clinton Foundation, why isn't it what Mr. Trump calls pay to play?

CLINTON: Well, everything I did as secretary of state was in furtherance of our country's interests and our values. The State Department has said that. I think that's been proven. But I am happy, in fact I'm thrilled to talk about the Clinton Foundation, because it is a world-renowned charity and I am so proud of the work that it does. You know, I could talk for the rest of the debate -- I know I don't have the time to do that.

But just briefly, the Clinton Foundation made it possible for 11 million people around the world with HIV-AIDS to afford treatment, and that's about half all the people in the world who are getting treatment. In partnership with the American Health Association...

WALLACE: Secretary Clinton...

CLINTON: ... we have made environments in schools healthier for kids, including healthier lunches...

WALLACE: Secretary Clinton, respectfully, this is -- this is an open discussion.

What we see her is that Wallace is accusing Clinton of taking bribes and doing favours for money while using her foundation as a front. The minute Wallace mentions the Clinton Foundation Clinton sees a way out and completely ignores the question. You could say that three out of four maxims are broken here: Quantity, relation, and manner. She overshares information that is not relevant or to the point. The only thing she does not do is lie, she omits the truth, but she does not lie.

The second debate is an interesting one because the audience is asking most of the questions rather than the moderators. In total eight questions were asked by the audience and only half of those were actually directly answered by one or both candidates. One of those questions is on islamophobia.

QUESTION: Hi. There are 3.3 million Muslims in the United States, and I’m one of them. You’ve mentioned working with Muslim nations, but with Islamophobia on the rise, how will you help people like me deal with the consequences of being labelled as a threat to the country after the election is over?

The candidates had the following answers:

TRUMP: Well, you’re right about Islamophobia, and that’s a shame. But one thing we have to do is we have to make sure that — because there is a problem…

(19)

…As an example, in San Bernardino, many people saw the bombs all over the apartment of the two people that killed 14 and wounded many, many people. Horribly wounded. They’ll never be the same…

…because you look at Orlando and you look at San Bernardino and you look at the World Trade Center. Go outside. Look at Paris. Look at that horrible — these are radical Islamic terrorists.

And she won’t even mention the word and nor will President Obama. He won’t use the term “radical Islamic terrorism.” Now, to solve a problem, you have to be able to state what the problem is or at least say the name. She won’t say the name and President Obama won’t say the name. But the name is there. It’s radical Islamic terror. And before you solve it, you have to say the name.

CLINTON: Well, thank you for asking your question. And I’ve heard this question from a lot of Muslim-Americans across our country, because, unfortunately, there’s been a lot of very divisive, dark things said about Muslims. And even someone like Captain Khan, the young man who sacrificed himself defending our country in the United States Army, has been subject to attack by Donald…

…My vision of America is an America where everyone has a place, if you’re willing to work hard, you do your part, you contribute to the community. That’s what America is. That’s what we want America to be for our children and our grandchildren.

It’s also very short-sighted and even dangerous to be engaging in the kind of demagogic rhetoric that Donald has about Muslims. We need American Muslims to be part of our eyes and ears on our front lines…

…It’s also important I intend to defeat ISIS, to do so in a coalition with majority Muslim nations. Right now, a lot of those nations are hearing what Donald says and wondering, why should we cooperate with the Americans? And this is a gift to ISIS and the terrorists, violent jihadist terrorists.

We are not at war with Islam. And it is a mistake and it plays into the hands of the terrorists to act as though we are. So I want a country where citizens like you and your family are just as welcome as anyone else.

Now the actual question that was asked was: “how will you help people like me deal with the consequences of being labelled as a threat to the country after the election is over?” Trump answers this question by talking about all the terrible things radical Islamic terrorist have done to the United States, he points the finger towards Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as if they are part of the reason radical terrorism exists, but he makes no attempt to tell the audience member that he will try and shed some positive light on most of the Muslims living in the United States who are not radical Islamic terrorists. This could be labelled as claims of victimization. Donald Trump victimizes the United States, and the rest of the world, based on all the terrible acts of terror that have been performed by those terrorists, while denying the unjust way Muslims are being treated in the United States. He seems to justify their treatment as a necessary evil, or payback to what ‘they’ have done to the rest of the world.

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Clinton at least attempts to pretend to answer the question, however all she does is criticize Donald Trump and his way of dealing with these situations. She says that if you work hard, you deserve to be an American citizen. That is her idea of America, that is her ‘Heartland’: Everybody contributes and earns their spot in society. She wants to ‘use’ Muslims as her eyes and ears in war zones rather than also focussing on the domestic problems of both hatred and homegrown terrorists. So, she too does not provide a real plan to get the target of the back of Muslims in the United States. Two out of the four maxims are ignored in this segment: Relation and manner, while the information seems somewhat relevant to the situation, it is not relevant to the question. Clinton ignores the maxim of manner, she seems to answer the question, but she does not, making her answer ambiguous. If we look closer to the heartland of the c andidates Trump creates an America destroyed by Radical Islamic Terrorism. Clinton, as said before, has this image of unity and hardworking Americans, where you must earn your place. Not much can be said about the translations. All three translations focus on the sense of the original and capture that in a clear and almost 1:1 way. The only difference is that in the NPO translation the translator opted to leave out most of the blame that Trump places on Clinton and Obama:

TRUMP: Dat zijn moslimterroristen. Zij wil dat niet zo noemen. Obama ook niet. Radicaal moslimterrorisme. Problemen moet je benoemen. Dat doen zij niet. Het gaat om radicaal islamitische terreur. Dat moet je eerst benoemen.

74 words cut down to 33. If we look at what is left out, we mostly miss repetition. Repetitive phrases like ‘say the name” which Trump originally says four times is only translated twice. As well as repetition of ‘President Obama’ by simply translating that as ‘zij’, they, you cut down on words as well. One interesting topic from the third debate is Vladimir Putin and Russian’s interference in the American Election. It is a very sensitive topic and subject to a heated discussion between Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and the moderator in this case, Chris Wallace. This entire segment is like a battle of who gets to talk:

TRUMP: Now we can talk about Putin. I don't know Putin. He said nice things about me. If we got along well, that would be good. If Russia and the United States got along well and went after ISIS, that would be good.

He has no respect for her. He has no respect for our president. And I'll tell you what: We're in very serious trouble, because we have a country with tremendous numbers of nuclear warheads -- 1,800, by the way -- where they expanded and we didn't, 1,800 nuclear warheads. And she's playing chicken. Look, Putin...

WALLACE: Wait, but...

TRUMP: ... from everything I see, has no respect for this person.

(21)

TRUMP: No puppet. No puppet. CLINTON: And it's pretty clear... TRUMP: You're the puppet!

CLINTON: It's pretty clear you won't admit... TRUMP: No, you're the puppet.

CLINTON: ... that the Russians have engaged in cyberattacks against the United States of America, that you encouraged espionage against our people, that you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do, and that you continue to get help from him, because he has a very clear favorite in this race.

So I think that this is such an unprecedented situation. We've never had a foreign government trying to interfere in our election. We have 17 -- 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyberattacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin and they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing.

WALLACE: Secretary Clinton...

CLINTON: And I think it's time you take a stand...

TRUMP: She has no idea whether it's Russia, China, or anybody else. CLINTON: I am not quoting myself.

TRUMP: She has no idea. CLINTON: I am quoting 17... TRUMP: Hillary, you have no idea.

CLINTON: ... 17 intelligence -- do you doubt 17 military and civilian... TRUMP: And our country has no idea.

CLINTON: ... agencies.

TRUMP: Yeah, I doubt it. I doubt it.

CLINTON: Well, he'd rather believe Vladimir Putin than the military and civilian intelligence professionals who are sworn to protect us. I find that just absolutely...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: She doesn't like Putin because Putin has outsmarted her at every step of the way. WALLACE: Mr. Trump...

TRUMP: Excuse me. Putin has outsmarted her in Syria. WALLACE: Mr. Trump...

(CROSSTALK)

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WALLACE: I do get to ask some questions. TRUMP: Yes, that's fine.

WALLACE: And I would like to ask you this direct question. The top national security officials of this country do believe that Russia has been behind these hacks. Even if you don't know for sure whether they are, do you condemn any interference by Russia in the American election? TRUMP: By Russia or anybody else.

WALLACE: You condemn their interference?

TRUMP: Of course I condemn. Of course I -- I don't know Putin. I have no idea. WALLACE: I'm not asking -- I'm asking do you condemn?

TRUMP: I never met Putin. This is not my best friend. But if the United States got along with Russia, wouldn't be so bad.

There is a lot happening in this segment. First of all, the sentence “Look, Putin… from everything I see, has no respect for this person.”, this person being Hillary Clinton, is incredibly deprecating. Rather than referring to Clinton by her name or calling her ‘her’, he calls her ‘this person’. Two out of three translations copy this rhetoric and translate the sentence as “Deze persoon”, while VTM makes it less offensive with ‘haar’ (her).

With the matter of the puppet we almost see a childlike reaction from Donald Trump, to a persistent Hillary Clinton who just wants to finish her sentence. Trump’s “You are the puppet” is what Bull and Simon call a denial through a personal attack. This personal attack continues: “she has no idea”, “Hillary you have no idea.”, “our country has no idea.” His denial of facts is astonishing, but not unheard of and his interruptions and ignoring of Wallace is significant as well. Wallace wants to ask Trump a question, one that requires a simple yes or no, yet Donald Trump has problems answering the question in a straightforward, unambiguous way and tries to squeeze his opinion on the Putin topic within his answer:

WALLACE: You condemn their interference?

TRUMP: Of course I condemn. Of course I -- I don't know Putin. I have no idea. WALLACE: I'm not asking -- I'm asking do you condemn?

TRUMP: I never met Putin. This is not my best friend. But if the United States got along with Russia, wouldn't be so bad.

He only gives this answer after Wallace’s fourth attempt to ask him this, and after a fifth attempt for a straight answer he ignores the question completely. Once again, the maxim of relation is ignored as

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well as quality, the information given is neither relevant to the situation or true, seeing as Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election has been confirmed on numerous occasions 4_.

3.2 Crosstalk

Using Remael’s omission theory saying that spoken language is not subtitled when the person speaking is not filmed in a closeup, the following excerpts where selected for analysis based on crosstalk and omissions due to time constraints, seeing as the translators then must decide themselves what to translate. Crosstalk is something that happens often in these debates. The candidates are limited by time and often disagree with their opponents resulting in overlap and interruptions. So, does the translator only rely on camera closeups when deciding what to translate or could there be another reason and do the translations vary in what they translate? Remael concluded that subtitles enhance interaction and dominance which strengthen power relations. In the case of the NPO translation this theory holds ground. Since the camera focusses mostly on the candidates, the moderator is often not subtitled, and when they are, their lines are often cut short:

EN

HOLT: Mr. Trump, for five years, you perpetuated a false claim that the nation's first black president was not a natural-born citizen. You questioned his legitimacy. In the last couple of weeks, you acknowledged what most Americans have accepted for years: The president was born in the United States. Can you tell us what took you so long?

NPO

HOLT: Mr Trump, u hebt jaren lang gezegd dat de eerste zwarte president geen staatsburger was. Pas nu erkent u dat hij het wel is. Waarom?

This example from the first debates shows how 57 words are cut down to 25. Because half of the words are left out, there are quite some changes to the original meaning of the text. ‘Natural-born citizen’ is translated as ‘staatsburger’, which actually translates back to “just” citizen, you can be an American citizen without having been born there. It was never claimed that Obama was not an American citizen, it was Trump’s ‘false’, which was also omitted in the translation, claim that he was not born in the United States but in Kenya. Leaving this out of the translation changes the meaning. This is not just about time and space constraints as it is about giving a voice to a minor character. This continues: EN

HOLT: I will let you respond. It's important. But I just want to get the answer here. The birth certificate was produced in 2011. You've continued to tell the story and question the president's legitimacy in 2012, '13, '14, '15...

TRUMP: Yeah.

(24)

HOLT: .... as recently as January. So the question is, what changed your mind? NPO

HOLT: toch wil ik het antwoord. De geboorteakte is in 2011 getoond. Maar u bleef er tot en met 2012 vragen over stellen.

53 words to 22. Holt is not the only person whose lines are cut short, while the camera switches to Trump his response is not translated. Trump has a simple one world reply, easily understandable for a Dutch or Flemish audience, so this is in line with what Remael has concluded in her research saying that something is not translated when it can be assumed the audience has sufficient knowledge of the situation and language. This segment at least acknowledges that the moderator has spoken, mere seconds later, he is completely omitted in the subtitle while the camera is on him the entire time he speaks.

In the Canvas translation we see the following: CANVAS

HOLT: U heeft vijf jaar lang volgehouden dat onze eerste Afro-Amerikaanse president geen echte Amerikaan was. U twijfelde aan zijn geboortecertificaat. U hebt dat in de laatste weken toch aanvaard. Kan u zeggen waarom u daar zo lang aan twijfelde? TRUMP: Sidney Blumenthal werkte voor zijn campagne. Hij is een goede vriend van minister Clinton. En campagnemanager Patty Doyle is tijdens haar campagne tegen Obama… Je kan dit opzoeken.

Patty heeft gezegd dat dit gebeurd is. Ze hebben een reporter naar Kenia gevlogen op zoek naar het geboortecertificaat. Ze kon het niet vinden. Toen weigerde hij zijn geboortecertificaat te tonen. Maar toen ik de vraag stelde, heeft hij het wel getoond. En ik ben blij dat ik hierin ben geslaagd. En laat me vertellen waarom.

Ik wel [sic] jobs creëren, ik wil IS verslaan.

HOLT: Maar het geboortecertificaat werd in 2011 getoond en u bleef maar jarenlang zeggen dat het niet juist was, tot 2015. Waardoor bent u van gedacht [sic] veranderd?

TRUMP: Niemand was er echt nog mee bezig,

maar ik ben erin geslaagd om hem zijn geboortecertificaat te laten tonen.

A large portion of Donald Trump’s lines are omitted, because for some reason Holt’s lines appear when Trump is still speaking, so now the subtitle is running ahead instead of behind. This continues throughout the entire duration of the debate, due to a synchronization error. The VTM translation seems to have found a balance between the two speakers:

VTM

HOLT: Meneer Trump, vijf jaar lang heb je geclaimd dat de eerste zwarte president van Amerika niet echt als zwarte is geboren. U ontkende altijd dat hij is Amerika was geboren, kunt u daar iets meer over vertellen?

(25)

TRUMP: Sydney Bloomington [sic] werkt voor mevrouw Clinton. Haar campagnemanager, Paddy [sic] Doyle heeft erg hard gewerkt aan de campagne voor Obama. U kan het opzoeken, kijk naar CNN in de laatste week. Daar stond ze en gaf ze toe dat dat gebeurd is.

Ze kon de geboorteakte niet bemachtigen. Van waar komt hij? Ik ben daar wel in geslaagd. Daar ben ik trots op. Ik wil IS bestrijden, ik wil jobs creëren. Ik wil een sterke grens. Ik vind die dingen belangrijk voor mij en voor het land.

HOLT: Ik wilde toch een antwoord. Die geboorteakte, dat was de 2011, in 2012 trok u nog altijd zijn afkomst in twijfel.

TRUMP: Niemand vond het erg belangrijk. U heeft die vraag wel gesteld, maar niemand geeft erom. Maar ik heb er wel voor gezorgd dat hij zijn geboorteakte heeft verspreid, dat was goed gedaan van mij.

It does so by having the right amount of words on screen for exactly the right amount of time. When comparing the three translations of the first debate the biggest difference between them is the number of words. NPO has 8400, Canvas 9110, and VTM 9233. This does not mean NPO is an insufficient translation. The translation sticks to all the time and space rules of subtitle translation stated by Linde and Kay, Canvas and VTM push the time limit, they squeeze in more words in a smaller time frame, while still being completely readable.

An instance of crosstalk occurs right after the aforementioned segment from the first debate:

EN

TRUMP: … And she was involved. But just like she can't bring back jobs, she can't produce. HOLT: I'm sorry. I'm just going to follow up -- and I will let you respond to that, because there's a lot there. But we're talking about racial healing in this segment. What do you say to Americans, people of color who...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Well, it was very -- I say nothing. I say nothing, because I was able to get him to produce it. He should have produced it a long time before. I say nothing.

NPO

TRUMP: Net zo goed als ze geen banen kan creëren kreeg ze die akte niet boven tafel. X

TRUMP: ik heb die man gedwongen z’n akte te laten zien. Canvas

TRUMP: Maar ze kan geen jobs terughalen en ze kan ook het certificaat…

HOLT: Ik ga u straks laten antwoorden. Maar we praten over de rassenkwestie hier. Wat wilt u zeggen…

(26)

VTM

TRUMP: Ze kan geen jobs terug brengen, en ze kan ze ook niet creëren.

HOLT: Ik laat je nog teruggaan naar het onderwerp. We hebben het nu over herkomst. Wat vind u daarover?

TRUMP: Ik ga er niets over zeggen, hij had dat al langer moeten publiceren.

What is immediately noticeable is that NPO does not translate Holt even though he is a part of the crosstalk and has a wordcount of 41. It is interesting to see that the camera is on Holt for the entire duration of this moment of crosstalk. So NPO not translating this part goes against previously mentioned reasons for not translating ‘minor characters’, because that is essentially what Lester Holt is. However, it frequently occurs that Holt is not fully translated, or not translated at all:

EN HOLT: Do you support the current policy? Mr. Trump, you have two minutes on that. NPO HOLT: Bent u het daarmee eens?

CANVAS HOLT: Bent u het daarmee eens? VTM HOLT: … bent u het daarmee eens?

The information that Donald Trump has two minutes to answer the question is left out. This can be explained through Remael who concluded that: “cuts seem to take the viewers' knowledge of the sequential structure of dialogue into account.” (244). The translator assumed that the viewers know Donald Trump has two minutes to answer, the entire setup of the debate is explained in the beginning, including the fact that each candidate has two minutes to formulate an answer:

HOLT: … The 90-minute debate is divided into six segments, each 15 minutes long… and they will each have up to two minutes to respond.

However, this only holds up if this was previously translated and not omitted as well. This is the same for anytime Holt indicates a speaker’s turn by saying their name. The translator assumes the audience knows what this is about and does not translate the names, assumes that the audience has enough knowledge of the English language, assumes that even without any knowledge of English this is still understandable, and assumes that the audience is able to hear what is being said. The following topic, which was raised in the second debate, is a sensitive one and caused a lot of discussion:

COOPER: We received a lot of questions online, Mr. Trump, about the tape that was released on Friday, as you can imagine. You called what you said locker room banter. You described kissing women without consent, grabbing their genitals. That is sexual assault. You bragged that you have sexually assaulted women. Do you understand that?

TRUMP: No, I didn’t say that at all. I don’t think you understood what was — this was locker room talk. I’m not proud of it. I apologize to my family. I apologize to the American people. Certainly I’m not proud of it. But this is locker room talk.

(27)

You know, when we have a world where you have ISIS chopping off heads, where you have — and, frankly, drowning people in steel cages, where you have wars and horrible, horrible sights all over, where you have so many bad things happening, this is like medieval times. We haven’t seen anything like this, the carnage all over the world.

And they look and they see. Can you imagine the people that are, frankly, doing so well against us with ISIS? And they look at our country and they see what’s going on.

Yes, I’m very embarrassed by it. I hate it. But it’s locker room talk, and it’s one of those things. I will knock the hell out of ISIS. We’re going to defeat ISIS. ISIS happened a number of years ago in a vacuum that was left because of bad judgment. And I will tell you, I will take care of ISIS.

COOPER: So, Mr. Trump…

TRUMP: And we should get on to much more important things and much bigger things. COOPER: Just for the record, though, are you saying that what you said on that bus 11 years ago that you did not actually kiss women without consent or grope women without consent? TRUMP: I have great respect for women. Nobody has more respect for women than I do. COOPER: So, for the record, you’re saying you never did that?

TRUMP: I’ve said things that, frankly, you hear these things I said. And I was embarrassed by it. But I have tremendous respect for women.

COOPER: Have you ever done those things?

TRUMP: And women have respect for me. And I will tell you: No, I have not. And I will tell you that I’m going to make our country safe. We’re going to have bo rders in our country, which we don’t have now. People are pouring into our country, and they’re coming in from the Middle East and other places.

We’re going to make America safe again. We’re going to make America great again, but we’re going to make America safe again. And we’re going to make America wealthy again, because if you don’t do that, it just — it sounds harsh to say, but we have to build up the wealth of our nation.

COOPER: Thank you, Mr. Trump.

TRUMP: Right now, other nations are taking our jobs and they’re taking our wealth. COOPER: Thank you, Mr. Trump.

TRUMP: And that’s what I want to talk about.

Aside from what Donald Trump according to him does want to talk about, there is one thing he does not want to walk about and that is this accusation. He knows he has no chance of not answering the direct question being asked by Cooper, but of course he does try to deny having said that even though it was caught on tape: “No, I didn’t say that at all. I don’t think you understood what was —” and when he realizes he is standing with his back against the wall, he tries to blame Cooper for not understanding and misinterpreting his words, which he labels “locker room talk.” Trump thinks

(28)

he is done answering questions on this topic and tries to change the topic to ISIS. So, when Cooper interrupts him, the underlined lines, he tries to ignore him and hopes to then divert the problem. The translators handle this in the following ways:

CANVAS

COOPER: Bedankt, meneer Trump. De vraag van Patrice ging over voorbeeldgedrag voor kinderen. We kregen online veel vragen, meneer Trump, over de tape van vrijdag. U noemde het kleedkamerpraat. U had het over vrouwen kussen en ze aanraken zonder hun toestemming. Dat is aanranding. U schepte daarover op. Wat vindt u daarvan?

TRUMP: Ik heb dat niet gezegd, u begrijpt het niet. Dit was kleedkamerpraat. Ik ben er niet trots op en ik heb e verontschuldigd bij mijn familie en de Amerikanen. Ik ben er zeker niet trots op, maar het is maar kleedkamerpraat.

In een wereld waar IS mensen onthoofdt, waar mensen verdrinken in stalen kooien, waar je oorlogen hebt en waar zo veel vreselijke dingen gebeuren… Het lijken we de middelleewen [sic]. Over in de wereld zijn er slachtpartijen. Zij kijken naar ons en zien… Stel je voor, de mensen die het goed doen tegen ons met IS.

Ja, ik ben beschaamd, maar het was maar kleedkamer praat. En ik zal IS kapotmaken. We zullen ze verslaan. IS is enkele jaren geleden ontstaan door een vacuüm na een verkeerde inschatting. Maar ik zal IS aanpakken.

We moeten overgaan naar belangrijkere zaken.

COOPER: Maar voor de duidelijkheid, ik zegt u dat u geen vrouwen hebt gekust of hebt aangerand zonder hun toestemming?

TRUMP: Ik heb veel respect voor vrouwen. Niemand heeft mee respect voor hen dan ik. COOPER: U hebt dat niet gezegd?

TRUMP: Eerlijk gezegd, zulke dingen worden nu eenmaal gezegd. Ik ben er beschaamd over, maar ik respecteer vrouwen. En zij respecteren mij ook.

COOPER: Hebt u dat gedaan?

TRUMP: Ik heb dat nooit gedaan. Ik wil ons land veilig maken en ik wil betere grenzen, want nu stromen mensen ons land binnen. Ze komen onder andere uit het Midden-Oosten. We gaan Amerika weer veilig maken en ook groots. En ook welvarend, want als je dat niet doet, en het klinkt misschien hard…

We moeten ons land weer welvarend maken, want nu nemen buitenstaanders onze jobs in. NPO

COOPER: de vraag was of u een goed voorbeeld was voor de jeugd. Er zijn veel vragen rond de opnamen die bekend werden. U noemde dat jongens onder elkaar. U had het over vrouwen in hun kruis grijpen. Wij noemen dat molest. Vind u dat normaal?

(29)

We hebben een wereld waarin IS mensen vermoordt. Er gebeuren rampzalige zaken, het lijken de middeleeuwen wel. En dan beginnen ze over zoiets. Snapt u dat mensen die het zo goed tegen ons doen… Wat ik heb gezegd is gewoon stoere jongenspraat.

Maar ik vind dat we IS moeten verslaan. IS is ontstaan in een vacuüm dat het gevold is van beoordelingsfouten. Ik zal IS uitschakelen en belangrijke zaken aanpakken.

COOPER: Maar het klopt dat u hebt gezegd dat je vrouwen zomaar kunt zoenen? TRUMP: Ik heb veel respect voor vrouwen.

COOPER: U zegt dat het niet zo is? TRUMP: U hebt het gehoord.

COOPER: heeft u het weleens gedaan?

TRUMP: Dat niet. Ik zal zorgen dat ons land veilig wordt. Mensen komen nu massaal uit het Midden-Oosten. We maken Amerika weer veilig.

Veilig en welvarend. Want als je dat niet doet het klinkt hard, maar andere landen pikken nu onze banen in.

VTM

COOPER: Bedankt. De vraag van Patrice was: Zijn jullie rolmodellen voor de jeugd van vandaag? We hebben veel vragen online gekregen over de video die gelekt is vrijdag. U had het over het bepotelen van de genitalen [sic] van vrouwen. U had het over seksuele intimidatie, over ongewenste intimiteiten.

TRUMP: Daar ging het niet over. Maar ik ben er niet trots op. Absoluut niet. Maar dit is gewoon praten onder jongens. Je weet wel.

Er gebeuren onthoofdingen in deze wereld, mensen worden opgesloten in stalen kooien, er zijn oorlogen bezig. Er gebeuren allemaal vreselijke dingen op deze wereld, het lijken wel de middeleeuwen. Dat zagen we nooit eerder. Slachtpartijen overal ter wereld.

Als je dat allemaal ziet, en als je ziet wat er gebeurt met IS, ik ben uiteraard beschaamd over wat er gebeurd is, ik haat zelf wat er gebeurd is, maar het is gewoon jongenspraat.

Dat is het gewoon maar. Maar ik ga er alles aan doen om Is te verslaan. IS is ontstaan in een vacuüm jaren geleden. Ik wil focussen op veel belangrijkere dingen.

COOPER: Maar officieel dan, zegt u dan dat u nooit vrouwen heeft gekust of betast heeft zonder hun toestemming?

TRUMP: ik heb ongelooflijk veel respect voor vrouwen, en niemand heeft meer respect dan ik.

COOPER: ontkent u dat dan?

TRUMP: U hoorde wat ik heb gezegd, ik heb veel respect voor vrouwen en zij voor mij. Ik heb ze nog nooit betast zonder hun toestemming. Ik ga ons land weer veiliger maken, ik ga de grenzen beveiligen, mensen komen ons land nu massaal binnen. We gaan Amerika weer veilig maken en ook weer groots.

(30)

En we gaan Amerika weer rijk maken, want als je dat niet doet, dan, het klinkt hard, dan moeten we echt een muur bouwen. Andere landen stelen onze jobs en onze welvaart. En daar wil ik het over hebben.

As noted before, the NPO translation is noticeably shorter than the other two, 210 words, while Canvas has 330 words and VTM 310. Again, this is more because VTM and Canvas use more words than NPO rather than NPO not using enough words. Remael’s theory does not hold up in this case; during this segment we see a split screen, Donald Trump is on one side, Hillary Clinton is on the other side. We do not see the two moderators Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz. Cooper interrupts Trump four times, and while the camera is not him or his co-moderator VTM translates Cooper’s interruptions twice and NPO and Canvas both three times, while also translating most of what Donald Trump says. Aside from interaction between the audience and the candidates the second debate also shows more interaction between the two candidates, and by interaction I mean interruption and crosstalk, or rather Donald Trump interrupting Hillary Clinton:

COOPER: Secretary — I want you to be able to respond, Secretary Clinton.

CLINTON: Well, here we go again. I’ve been in favor of getting rid of carried interest for years, starting when I was a senator from New York. But that’s not the point here.

TRUMP: Why didn’t you do it? Why didn’t you do it? COOPER: Allow her to respond.

CLINTON: Because I was a senator with a Republican president. TRUMP: Oh, really?

CLINTON: I will be the president and we will get it done. That’s exactly right.

TRUMP: You could have done it, if you were an effective — if you were an effective senator, you could have done it. If you were an effective senator, you could have done it. But you were not an effective senator.

COOPER: Please allow her to respond. She didn’t interrupt you.

In this situation we have three speakers trying to speak at the same time. Because the camera shows a wider view of the stage we can see both candidates and the back of the moderators’ heads. This results in translations that cover all speakers:

CANVAS

COOPER: Wilt u reageren, minister Clinton?

CLINTON: Hier gaan we weer. Ik wil al jaren af van die beleggingswinsten. Al van toen ik senator was in New York. Maar daar gaat ’t hier niet om

TRUMP: Waarom hebt u het dan niet gedaan?

The Election of 2016: A Pragmatic Translation Analysis on Dutch and Flemish Subtitles for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s Live Televised Debates