Sur la traduction des sociolectes dans le théâtre américain : analyse comparative de traductions françaises et québécoises.

Abstract

Our hypothesis lies in the notion that texts are an intrinsic part of the discourses of the society to which they belong. As the written work is under the influence of the social discourses to which it pertains, so does its translation comply with the expectations of the target reader by incorporating socio-discursive elements from the receiving society. In this thesis, we explore the translation of sociolects as symbolic representations of speech. Our corpus consists of three American plays from the realist theatre, three French translations written in the fifties, and five Quebecois translations, three of which were produced in the seventies. The comparison of French and Quebecois translations enables us to observe that the changes denounce an adaptation of the original text to certain socio-discursive models in the target society which include the theatre aesthetics of the time. The discursive patterns that we noted in the original plays refer to two main themes in realist theatre: the American family and the American dream. After having analysed these elements according to the mainstream ideas prevailing at that particular time, we identified the modified sections of the text in the translations and commented on the new patterns that were emerging. Finally, we demonstrated that these transformations can be explained in terms of aesthetic, stylistic, and thematic tendencies adopted by the target society. In conclusion, this study shows that despite the translator's attempts to "faithfully" reproduce a text, he establishes links between the two theatre forms by adapting the original to the acceptability terms of the target society.