Cover not available
Article published In:
Target
Vol. 16:2 (2004) ► pp.319–339

Dialect and point of view

The ideology of translation in The sound and the fury in French

| Department of French, University of California at Berkeley
This article is an analysis of translations into French of non-standard literary dialect, in particular the speech of African Americans, in William Faulkner’s The sound and the fury. It shows that the contingency of dialect variation upon narrative point of view (focalization) is not taken into account in translation, an omission that alters the ideological framework of the novel. In addition, it argues that the maintenance of this variation, when systematic, should be at least as important a concern as, for instance, the most accurate translation of single dialectal or non-standard words and utterances.
Keywords: Faulkner, French, Literary dialect, English, Point of view, Sociolect, Ideology, Polyphony
Article outline
  • Introduction: Translating non-standard literary dialect
  • Faulknerian non-standard literary dialect
    • Luster
    • Dilsey
    • Reverend Shegog
    • Naming
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 12 October 2005
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.16.2.06maa
References (52)
References
Texts
Faulkner, William. 1949. Le bruit et la fureur, tr.tr. Maurice E. Coindreau. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
. 1932. Light in August. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
. 1935. Lumière d’août, tr. Maurice E. Coindreau. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
. 1977. Œuvres romanesques I, ed. I. Michel Gresset. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
. 1995. Œuvres romanesques II, eds. André Bleikasten and François Pitavy. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
. 1934. Sanctuaire, trs.R.N. Raimbault and Henri Delgove. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
. 1962. Sanctuary. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
. 1984. The sound and the fury, ed. Noel Polk. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Secondary sources
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. 2000. “Thick translation”. Lawrence Venuti, ed. The Translation Studies reader. London-New York: Routledge, 2000. 417–429.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, M.M.. 1981. The dialogic imagination: Four essays by M.M. Bakhtin, ed. Michael Holquist, trs. Carlyl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Boecker, Eberhard. 1973. William Faulkne’s later novels in German: A study in the theory and practice of translation. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bowdre, Paul HullJr. 1964. “A study of eye dialect”. Gainesville: University of Florida. [Dissertation. DAI-A 29.03.887.]Google Scholar
Brisset, Annie. 1990. Sociocritique de la traduction: théâtre et altérité au Québec (1968–1988). Longueuil: Préambule.Google Scholar
Catford, J.C. 1965. A linguistic theory of translation. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chapdelaine, Annick. 1994. “Transparence et retraduction des sociolectes dans The hamlet de Faulkner”. TTR: Traduction, terminologie, rédaction 7:2. 1–33.Google Scholar
Chapdelaine, Annick and Gillian Lane-Mercier, eds. 2001. Faulkner: une expérience de retraduction. Montréal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chesterman, Andrew. 1997. Memes of translation: The spread of ideas in translation theory. Amsterdam-Philadephia: John Benjamins.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chesterman, Andrew Natividad Gallardo San Salvador and Yves Gambier, eds. Translating in context: Selected contributions from the EST congress, Granada, 1998. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Fayen, Tonya Tarleton. 1990. “The Latin American literary polysystem 1930–1970: Faulkner in translation”. Binghamton: State University of New York. [Dissertation. DAI-A 51.03.872.]Google Scholar
Findlay, Bill. 1996. “Translation into dialect”. David Johnston, ed. Stages of translation. Bath: Absolute Classics, 1996. 199–217.Google Scholar
Fleischman, Suzanne. 1990. Tense and narrativity: From medieval performance to modern fiction. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Genette, Gérard. 1972. Figures III. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
. 1983. Nouveau discours du récit. Paris: Seuil. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gentzler, Edwin. 2002. “Translation, poststructuralism, and power”. Maria Tymoczko and Edwin Gentzler, eds. Translation and power. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002. 195–218.Google Scholar
Glissant, Édouard. 1996. Faulkner, Mississippi. Paris: Stock.Google Scholar
Guiloineau, Jean. 1997. “La traduction n’est pas un passage mais une rupture”. Miguel Ángel Vega and Rafael Marín-Gaitero, eds. La palabra vertida: Investigaciones en torno a la traducción. Madrid: Editorial Complutense, 1997. 17–23.Google Scholar
Halliday, M.A.K. 1978. Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Hatim, Basil and Ian Mason. 1997. Translator as communicator. London-New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Herrero, Leticia. 1998. “Sobre la traducibilidad de los marcadores culturales”. Chesterman, San Salvador and Gambier 1998 : 307–316.Google Scholar
Hunter, Edwin R. 1973. William Faulkner: Narrative practice and prose style. Washington, D.C.: Windover Press.Google Scholar
Ives, Sumner. 1971. “A theory of literary dialect”. Juanita Williamson and Virginia M. Burke, eds. A various language: Perspectives on American dialects. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. 123–135.Google Scholar
Jäckel, Anne. 2001. “The subtitling of La Haine: A case study”. Yves Gambier and Henrik Gottlieb. eds. (Multi) media translation: Concepts, practices, and research. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2001. 223–235.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
ed. 2001a. Sociocultural and historical contexts of African American English. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey N. and Michael H. Short. 1981. Style in fiction: A linguistic introduction to English fictional prose. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Lencho, Mark W. 1998. “Dialect variation in The sound and the fury: A study of Faulkner’s use of Black English”. Mississippi quarterly 411. 403–419.Google Scholar
Mayoral Asensio, Roberto. 1990. “Comentario a la traducción de algunas variedades de lengua”. Sendebar 11. 35–46.Google Scholar
Mufwene, Salikoko S. 2001. “What is African American English?”. Lanehart 2001 : 21–51.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Murphree, John WilsonJr. 1975. “A study of William Faulkner’s informal dialect theory and his use of dialect markers in eight novels”. Murcie, Ind.: Ball State University. [Dissertation. DAI-A 36.04.2177.]Google Scholar
North, Michael. 1994. The dialect of modernism: Race, language, and twentieth-century literature. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ortega y Gasset, José. 1955. El libro de las misiones. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.Google Scholar
Perret, Jacques. 1975. “Traduction et parole”. Problèmes littéraires de la traduction: textes présentés au cours d’un séminaire organisé pendant l’année académique 1973–1974. Louvain: Bibliothèque de l’université, 1975. 9–20.Google Scholar
Pitavy, François. 2001. François Pitavy commente Le bruit et la fureur de William Faulkner. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Puurtinen, Tiina. 1998. “Translating linguistic markers of ideology”. Chesterman, San Salvador and Gambier 1998 : 177–186.Google Scholar
Sánchez, María T. 1999. “Translation as a(n) (im)possible task: Dialect in literature”. Babel 45:4. 301–310.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Soares Neiva, Aurora Maria. 1995. “ Native son in Brazilian Portuguese with a study of dialects and translation: A nonlogocentric approach”. Dekalb: Northern Illinois University. [Dissertation. DAI-A 56.10.3933.]Google Scholar
Sternberg, Meir. 1981. “Polylingualism as reality and translation as mimesis”. Poetics today 2:4. 221–239.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taivalkoski, Kristiina. 1998. “Les simplifications narratives dans une traduction française de Joseph Andrews ”. Chesterman, San Salvador and Gambier 1998 : 187–198.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elisabeth Closs. 1981. “The sociolinguistics of minority dialect in literary prose”. Danny Alford et al., eds. Proceedings of the seventh annual meeting of the Berkeley linguistics society. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society, 1981. 308–316.Google Scholar
Walpole, Jane Raymond. 1974. “Eye dialect in fictional dialogue”. College composition and communication 25:2. 191–196.   DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (11)

Cited by 11 other publications

Torres-Martínez, Sergio
2024.  Semiosic Translation: a Bayesian-heuristic theory of translation and translating. Language and Semiotic Studies 10:2 ► pp. 167 ff. DOI logo
Choi, Jinsil, Kyung Hye Kim & Jonathan Evans
2022. Translating code-switching in the colonial context. Translation and Interpreting Studies 17:2 ► pp. 243 ff. DOI logo
Jiang, Jing & Kefei Wang
2022. Understanding the mediation of dialectal value. Babel. Revue internationale de la traduction / International Journal of Translation 68:3 ► pp. 394 ff. DOI logo
Yu, Jing
2021. Various voices in dialect and the frequency issue in the Chinese translations of Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Neohelicon 48:1 ► pp. 415 ff. DOI logo
Ismail Mousa, Sayed M. & Basem Okleh Alhwamdeh
2020. TRANSLATING DIALECTAL EXPRESSIONS AND TERMS EMBEDDED IN SAUDI MODERN NOVELS WITH A PARTICULAR EMPHASIS ON THE GIRLS OF RIYADH. Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews 8:5 ► pp. 188 ff. DOI logo
Baldo, Michela
2019. Towards a Narrative Model of Code-Switching in Diasporic Writing. In Italian-Canadian Narratives of Return, ► pp. 129 ff. DOI logo
Haroon, Haslina & Adilah Zabir
2018. Penggunaan Dialek dalam Novel Seorang Tua di Kaki Gunung. Jurnal Bahasa 18:2 ► pp. 286 ff. DOI logo
Walker, Callum
2018. Chapter 11. Towards a quantitative measurement of equivalent effect and a tentative conceptualisation of cognitive equivalence. In Eye Tracking and Multidisciplinary Studies on Translation [Benjamins Translation Library, 143], ► pp. 225 ff. DOI logo
Jones, Francis R.
2014. Poetry translators and regional vernacular voice. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 26:1 ► pp. 32 ff. DOI logo
Määttä, Simo K. & Sari Pietikainen
2014. Ideology. In Handbook of Pragmatics, DOI logo
Pinto, Sara Ramos
2009. How important is the way you say it?. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 21:2 ► pp. 289 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.