Investigating Interpreter Ideology: UN Interpreters in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Abstract

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an ongoing geopolitical dispute of global attention and a discursive arena where competing ideologies are articulated and negotiated, particularly at the United Nations. Against this backdrop, the present study investigates the role of interpreters’ ideology within the conflict through a discourse analysis of four United Nations Security Council conferences on the Palestine Question. Drawing on a combined framework of Critical Discourse Analysis and Appraisal Theory, the study first quantifies patterns of lexical, semantic, and polarity shifts in the interpreting for both Israeli and Palestinian speakers. Log-likelihood and Log-ratio algorithm are then applied to measure the differences between the two groups. Lastly, the ideological factors underlying these shifts are explored from cognitive, social, and discursive perspectives. The results reveal distinct patterns: interpreting for Israel tends to involve mitigation strategies, including downscaling force, softening focus, and weakening negativity. In contrast, interpreting for Palestine shows an opposite trend with upscaling force, sharpening focus, and strengthening negativity. These patterns suggest that interpreters may subtly shape narratives by promoting peace and dialogue in a tense international setting. However, they are also influenced by institutional and national ideologies, as interpreters are expected to perform under the guidelines of their home countries and the organizations they represent. By demonstrating the multifaceted role of interpreters in conflict settings, the study contributes a fresh perspective to interpreters’ operation within a complex interaction of language, conflict, and ideology.