“Politics is quintessentially a language game”, as Geis (1987: 13) wrote. As such it has its
own rules, which politicians are expected to abide by, especially when addressing a
television audience during a debate. Interpreters having to cope withmedia events1 are
required to act professionally while remain pragmatically and interactionally aware of the
situation. Therefore, they may use a number of linguistic strategies and devices primarily
aiming at accomplishing specific communicative functions. However, such process may
lead to a change in the pragmatic level of the interpreted text (IT) if compared to the
original one (OT).
This paper aims at analysing the impact discourse modalisation has on ITs. The research
carried out on simultaneous interpreting (SI) of five American presidential debates
ranging from 1984 to 2008 would suggest that modality markers used in the target
language may emphasise the pragmatic level of ITs, whereas omissions and inaccurate
renditions of speakers‘ statements would determine a mitigation of the emotional impact
as perceived by interpretation users.
