Metafora e linguaggio politico in interpretazione simultanea: un contributo sperimentale.

The objective of the present study is to investigate the impact of metaphorical and figurative language, used within political discourse, on the process of simultaneous interpreting. More specifically, in order to explore how these dimensions intersect, the study will take into account both the Russian and American political landscapes. In order to practically examine the object of this study, an experiment was conducted within an educational setting with the help of the students of the Department of Interpreting and Translation of Bologna University, more specifically from the Forlì Campus. Firstly, the present thesis will focus on exploring metaphors and figures of speech from a theoretical point of view, through different models and studies. Secondly, a theoretical framework will be presented on political discourse as a linguistic and cognitive object. Thirdly, the third chapter analyzes the practice of simultaneous interpreting as a profession throughout the years, and from a theoretical perspective, particularly exploring different models that have been formulated. In the fourth chapter, the present thesis presents a panoramic of political discourse within the Russian and American political contexts. Finally, the fifth chapter is dedicated to the description of the experiment conducted and the discussion of the results. The experiment was conducted with the main objective of examining how real students, who are still completing their professional interpreting training, would deal with the presence of metaphorical and figurative language within two discourses that had been specifically selected for this experiment.The main findings of this study suggest that factors such as conceptual complexity of the original speech and speed can strongly impact the interpreters’ perceptions of metaphors, and consequently the strategies employed during the rendition.