Nancy Huston in Self-Translation an Aesthetics of Redoublement
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Corso di Dottorato in Studi Umanistici Curriculum: Studi Linguistici e Letterari XXIX ciclo Nancy Huston in Self-translation An Aesthetics of Redoublement Relatore Dottoranda Prof. Andrea Binelli Dott.ssa Giorgia Falceri A.A. 2015-2016 1 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I ............................................................................................... 7 I. AN INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY SELF-TRANSLATION .............. 7 1.1 FRAMING SELF-TRANSLATION STUDIES ................................................... 7 1.2 SELF-TRANSLATION IN THEORY ............................................................. 15 1.2.1 AUTHOR, TRANSLATOR AND TEXT .....................................................................18 1.2.2 RECONSIDERING TRADITIONAL CATEGORIES AND BINARY OPPOSITIONS .......... 23 1.3 SELF-TRANSLATION IN PRACTICE ........................................................... 26 1.3.1 SELF-TRANSLATORS, THESE STRANGERS. .......................................................... 26 1.3.2 TYPOLOGIES OF SELF-TRANSLATED TEXTS ........................................................ 31 1.3.3 TOWARDS A HISTORY OF SELF-TRANSLATION? ................................................. 35 1.3.4 SELF-TRANSLATION IN A SOCIOLINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE ................................. 40 1.4 AGAINST SELF-TRANSLATION ................................................................ 46 1.5 INNOVATIVE THEORETICAL MODELS TO APPROACH THE SELF-TRANSLATED TEXT ............................................................................................................. 50 II. NANCY HUSTON: WRITING AND TRANSLATING THE SELF ...... 57 2.1 NANCY HUSTON. A POLYPHONIC ARTIST ................................................. 57 2.1.1 A CANADIAN CHILDHOOD AND A FRENCH ADULTHOOD .................................... 60 2.1.2 LITERARY APPRENTICESHIP: FICTION VS THEORY ............................................ 62 2.1.3 EXILE, MOTHERHOOD AND LITERATURE.......................................................... 66 2.2 LINGUISTIC DOUBLING AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF A LITERARY IDENTITY ... 73 2.2.1 REFLECTIONS ON THE SPLIT IDENTITY ............................................................. 73 2.2.2 THE STEP-MOTHER TONGUE OR THE FIRST LANGUAGE OF WRITING ............... 78 2.2.3 BECOMING A ‘FALSE’ BILINGUAL ..................................................................... 80 III. SELF-TRANSLATION AS LITERARY AESTHETICS ..................... 85 3.1 RE-APPROPRIATING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN PLAINSONG ..................... 85 3.1.1 PLAINSONG SELF-TRANSLATED ........................................................................ 89 3.2 THE DOUBLE IDENTITY ........................................................................ 96 3 3.3 WHY SELF-TRANSLATING? EDITORIAL VS AESTHETIC REASONS ................ 100 3.3.1 POSITIVE FUNCTIONS… ................................................................................. 100 3.3.2…AND NEGATIVE EFFECTS ............................................................................. 102 3.3.3 THE BURGEONING OF AN AESTHETICS OF REDOUBLEMENT ............................ 103 PART II .......................................................................................... 109 IV. DELAYED SELF-TRANSLATION FROM FRENCH TO ENGLISH . 115 4.1 THEMATIC AND STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF L’EMPREINTE DE L’ANGE/THE MARK OF THE ANGEL ............................................................................................ 115 4.2 SELF-TRANSLATION ANALYSIS: FROM FRENCH TO ENGLISH ..................... 122 4.2.1 EUPHONIES: ALLITERATIONS, ASSONANCES AND RHYMES ............................... 124 4.2.2. IDIOMS ........................................................................................................ 128 4.2.3 CULTURE-BOUND REFERENCES ...................................................................... 131 4.2.4 FOREIGN LANGUAGE INTERFERENCE ............................................................. 132 4.2.5 CHARACTERS REPRESENTATION ..................................................................... 135 4.2.6 REVISIONS ..................................................................................................... 137 4.2.7 TEXT RECEPTION .......................................................................................... 138 V. SIMULTANEOUS BILINGUAL WRITING AND SELF-TRANSLATION. .......................................................................................................141 5.1 THEMATIC AND STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF INSTRUMENTS OF DARKNESS/ INSTRUMENTS DES TÉNÈBRES ................................................................... 142 5.2 ALTERNATE WRITING ANALYSIS .......................................................... 147 5.2.1 PROSE RHYTHM ............................................................................................ 148 5.2.2 ISOMORPHISMS ..............................................................................................150 5.2.3 CULTURE-BOUND REFERENCES ...................................................................... 153 5.2.4 PLAY-ON-WORDS ........................................................................................... 154 5.2.5 THE UNTRANSLATABLE .................................................................................. 155 5.2.6 THE WRITER ‘MIS’ EN ABYME ......................................................................... 156 5.3 THEMATIC AND STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF LIMBES/LIMBO. UN HOMMAGE À SAMUEL BECKETT. ................................................................................. 159 5.4 BILINGUAL VERSION ANALYSIS ........................................................... 163 4 5.4.1 LANGUAGE INTERFERENCE AS TRANSLATIONAL STRATEGY ............................... 163 5.4.2 TRANSLATIONAL REWRITING ......................................................................... 165 VI. A LINGUISTIC ENTANGLEMENT: MULTILINGUALISM AND SELF- TRANSLATION .............................................................................. 173 6.1 THEMATIC AND STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF DANSE NOIRE/BLACK DANCE .........175 6.2 SELF-TRANSLATION ANALYSIS ............................................................ 180 6.2.1 BILINGUALISM IN THE ENGLISH EDITION ....................................................... 180 6.2.2 LINGUISTIC ENTANGLEMENTS IN THE FRENCH EDITION ................................ 183 VII. CONCLUSIVE REMARKS ........................................................ 197 7.1 SELF-TRANSLATION AS A CEASELESS LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL NEGOTIATION ........................................................................................................... 197 7.2 DECRYPTING THE BOND BETWEEN LINGUISTIC IDENTITY AND LITERARY IDENTITY .............................................................................................. 205 7.3 “TRADUTTORE NON È TRADITORE”: THE POETICS OF SELF-TRANSLATION AND OF THE TRANSNATIONAL NOVEL ................................................................... 212 WORKS BY NANCY HUSTON ......................................................... 219 NOVELS ................................................................................................ 219 ESSAYS ................................................................................................ 219 ARTICLES ............................................................................................. 220 CO-AUTHORED WORKS ........................................................................... 220 WORKS CITED .............................................................................. 221 ONLINE RESOURCES .................................................................... 236 WEBSITES AND BLOGS ...................................................................... 236 INTERVIEWS TO NANCY HUSTON ..................................................... 237 APPENDIX I. ................................................................................. 238 SYNOPTIC TABLE OF NANCY HUSTON’S SELF-TRANSLATIONS .. 238 5 6 PART I I. AN INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY SELF-TRANSLATION Traduire, c’est ça qu’il faut : traduttore non è traditore, c’est même la seule façon de ne pas trahir, il n’y a que ça de vrai. Traduire, éternellement traduire. Nancy Huston 1.1 Framing Self-translation Studies The earliest academic definition of the phenomenon of self-translation is possibly that established by Slovak translation scholar Anton Popovič in the Dictionary for the Analysis of Literary Translation (1976), where he terms it as “the translation of an original work into another language by the author himself”. The entry ‘Self-translation’ (or ‘Auto-translation’, or authorial translation) written by Canadian translation scholar Rainier Grutman when it first entered the Routledge Encyclopaedia of Translation Studies (1998) quotes: “the act of translating one’s writing and the result of such an undertaking”.1 Literary self-translation refers more specifically to the enterprise of bilingual (or multilingual) authors who decide to translate the texts they have written and published in one of the languages they master, into other language(s). The high number of publications on the subject that have flourished in the last decades suggests that this circumscribed branch of study within the academic discipline of Translation Studies has benefited from a considerable amount of interest.2 Just before the turn of the millennium, Grutman described ‘self-translation’ as being ‘frowned upon in literary studies’. Studies have progressed a long way since then, and now it seems no longer the case. Indeed,