Publications

Publication details [#8729]

Déprats, Jean-Michel. 1998. Traduire une langue duelle: le cas de l'anglo-irlandais de Synge dans The Playboy of the Western World [Translating a dual language: the case of Synges' Anglo-Irish in The Playboy of the Western World]. In Bensimon, Paul and Didier Coupaye, eds. Traduire la culture [Translating culture]. Special issue of Palimpsestes 11: 71–81.
Publication type
Article in Special issue
Publication language
French
Source language
Target language
Person as a subject

Abstract

The Anglo-Irish English used by Synge in The Playboy of the Western World is a dialect whose deep structure rests upon the syntax of Gaelic. This mixture of two languages in contact seems impossible to translate into French. Translations into French fall into three categories: - "Realistic" translation renders the play into French as if it had been written in standard English - "Poetic" translation treats the lexical and syntactic particularities of Synge’s Anglo-Irish as poetic tropes or effects, as if Synge had simply used idiosyncratic words and/or turns of phrase - "Dialectal" translation uses a peasant language still spoken in France, trying to borrow from it all the tropes and turns of phrase corresponding to Synge’s language. Françoise Morvan has deliberately chosen this approach and, living in Lower Brittany, has attempted to translate Synge's play into a French marked by the lexicon and syntax of Breton. This paper is mainly devoted to an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of Morvan's translation. [Based on abstract in journal]
Source : Based on abstract in journal