Les ethnonymes défigés à l'épreuve de la traduction

https://unizd.academia.edu/BarbaraVodanovic

by Barbara Vodanović           and          Evaine Le Calvé Ivičević (Université de Zagreb)

                        

Publisher: Meandar Media/University of Zadar

Journal Name: Actes du colloque international "Ecriture formelle, contrainte, ludique : l'Oulipo et au-dela, Zadar, 2015.

Publication Date: Jun 2016

Publication Name: Entre jeu et contrainte. Pratiques et expériences oulipiennes.

Abstract

In this paper we intend to talk about a very small part in the vast mosaic of possibilities that Raymond Queneau’s novel The Blue Flowers is offering. Following two ideas about the linguistic sign: 1. that the sign is imposed on us by the social code which is language and is therefore fixed and 2. that the sign used consciously to communicate something is an intentional sign, we propose to question Queneau’s way of decomposition of ethnonyms in his novel where the nonsense is intentional and playful realization of an exaggerated sense. We consider the proper name of ethnicity as a phrase within the Meaning-Text theory, that is a lexical unit regrouping complex linguistic expressions that are conceptualized as a whole. And what Queneau did, attributing the Celts "a gallican way" and Romans "a Caesarian way" or the Alans "way Narte" is the decomposition as a result of transonymisation, formal denotative, (Alans) or semantic connotative decomposition (the Romans).