Traduire J. L. Austin : le texte et son projet : éléments pour une réflexion métatextuelle.

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the notion of text as a project which implicitly underlies a certain orientation in translation studies, traceable through some of Berman's, Brisset's, Derrida's and Fitch's work. Its purpose is to offer a descriptive analysis of this textual perspective through a clarification of four correlated accounts of translation (Berman: 1985, Brisset: 1985, Derrida: 1986, Fitch: 1988). An article drawn from J. L. Austin's Philosophical Papers (Oxford, 1979) and its French translation (Aubert et Hacker, Paris, 1979) provide the descriptive framework for a three-stage analysis. Each stage focuses on one defining element common to the four converging approaches. Translation is thus described successively as a dynamic, supratextual, text-altering practice. Concurrently, each descriptive account of the translation phenomenon generates an analysis of the underlying concept of text, described respectively as a non-linear structure, as a project, as an action. The analysis is illustrated throughout by means of concrete applications drawn from Austin's article and its French translation.