‘Pffft!’ says the cat in the illustration on the front cover of this collection of sixteen articles edited by Michel Ballard. Tintin enthusiasts immediately recognise a scene taken from Les 7 boules de cristal. Translation specialists immediately recognise something more: a vast field that has only been summarily touched on in the literature and which here receives well-deserved attention. For what sound will the cat make, once linguistic and cultural frontiers are crossed? And more generally, what strategies may the translator adopt when faced with any manifestation of sound or of the spoken language within the written text? The problems raised are vast, and one of the merits of this collection is the wide-ranging scope of the articles, with welcome reference to a number of different languages beyond the English–French pairing.

References

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