A Comparative Analysis of Ideology and Power Shifts in Urdu Translations of Prime Minister Imran Khan's 2019 UNGA Speech: A Mixed Methods Study of Translation Strategies and Critical Discourse Dynamics

Abstract

Translation is not simply a linguistic transfer of meaning from one language into another; it is an ideological and socio-political act that reconstructs narratives, identities, and relations of power. This study examines ideological and power shifts in Urdu translations of Prime Minister Imran Khan's 2019 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) speech, comparing versions produced by 92 News and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Using a mixed-methods, triangulated design, the analysis draws on Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough's three-dimensional model), translation theory (Vinay and Darbelnet's procedures, Nida's equivalence, Lefevere's rewriting), and functional-equivalence frameworks to examine lexical choices, syntactic restructuring, omission, addition, paraphrase, semantic modulation, and persuasive framing across thirty parallel extracts. The 92 News translation relied predominantly on direct, semantically equivalent strategies that preserved informational neutrality and formal equivalence, whereas the PTI translation showed substantial ideological intervention through oblique procedures emotional amplification, mitigation of criticism, selective omission, and patriotic reframing. These results indicate that political translation operates as a mechanism of ideological mediation and public persuasion rather than as a neutral reproduction of source content. The study contributes to translation studies, political discourse analysis, media linguistics, and applied linguistics by showing how institutional affiliation systematically shapes translation practice in politically sensitive contexts.