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
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.16.2.06maa
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. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Chesterman, Andrew
1997 Memes of translation: The spread of ideas in translation theory. Amsterdam-Philadephia: John Benjamins.   CrossrefGoogle 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
Cukor-Avila, Patricia
2001 “Co-existing grammars: The relationship between the evolution of African American and White vernacular English in the South”. Lanehart 2001 : 93–127.   CrossrefGoogle Scholar
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. CrossrefGoogle 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.   CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lanehart, Sonja L.
2001 “State of the art in African American English research: Multidisciplinary perspectives and directions”. Lanehart 2001a : 1–20.   CrossrefGoogle Scholar
ed. 2001a Sociocultural and historical contexts of African American English. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins.   CrossrefGoogle 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.   CrossrefGoogle 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.   CrossrefGoogle 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.   CrossrefGoogle 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.   CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wekker, Gloria and Herman Wekker
1991 “Coming in from the cold: Linguistic and socio-cultural aspects of the translation of Black English vernacular literary texts into Surinamese Dutch”. Babel 37:4. 221–239.   CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 9 other publications

Baldo, Michela
2019.  In Italian-Canadian Narratives of Return, ► pp. 129 ff. Crossref logo
Choi, Jinsil, Kyung Hye Kim & Jonathan Evans
2020. Translating code-switching in the colonial context. Translation and Interpreting Studies Crossref 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. Crossref logo
Jiang, Jing & Kefei Wang
2022. Understanding the mediation of dialectal value. Babel. Revue internationale de la traduction / International Journal of Translation Crossref logo
Jones, Francis R.
2014. Poetry translators and regional vernacular voice. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 26:1 ► pp. 32 ff. Crossref logo
Määttä, Simo K. & Sari Pietikainen
2014.  In Handbook of Pragmatics, Crossref logo
Pinto, Sara Ramos
2009. How important is the way you say it?. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 21:2 ► pp. 289 ff. Crossref logo
Walker, Callum
2018.  In Eye Tracking and Multidisciplinary Studies on Translation [Benjamins Translation Library, 143], ► pp. 225 ff. Crossref 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. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 april 2022. 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.