Reframing through simultaneous interpreting: The 2020 US Presidential debates in the shadow of a pandemic

The U.S. Presidential Debates are one of the most followed TV shows being interpreted live in many countries as well as in Turkey. The year 2020 was noteworthy in the sense that the debates were held in the shadow of a pandemic. Along with that, the tumultuous environment with overlapping talks of the candidates received a great deal of attention. In Turkey, this year's debates were interpreted live on TV with the new working conditions shaped by the precautions due to the pandemic. It is against this background that this study aims to examine how the 2020 American presidential debates are reframed through simultaneous interpretation on television. Against this backdrop, recordings of the simultaneous interpretation of the debates were obtained from 2 news outlets. Furthermore, in-depth interviews with the interpreters of the Presidential Debates were corroborated with the real interpreting instances. Through interviews, working conditions and preparation process of the interpreters will be analysed as well as their decisions pertaining to the interpretation of the debates. As a result, the data and the interviews will be scrutinized in the light of Framing Theory to shed light on the question how the simultaneous interpretation of the presidential debates were (re)framed and the interpreters become (re)framers. Correspondingly, the results prove that along with working conditions and preparation processes framing the simultaneous interpretations, interpreters as well (re)frame the debates with the decisions and strategies they adopt.