Traduire Québec: On non-translatability of the folk vision of the world of Pierre Perrault’s

Abstract

The underlying concept of the article is the highlighted issue of the translation of texts inspired by oral folklore which on the surface do not exhibit any features of the folk language due to their poor dialectisation. An additional matter involves poetisation of the language of folk people as a vehicle of specific values in the sequences under analysis, which entails the issue of the formal equivalence in the phono-stylistic layer. On the basis of the cognitive methodology and taking into consideration the state of the research on ethno-linguistics, the author draws particular attention to translatability understood as the ability to achieve equivalence in visualization, which denotes nothing else but the reflection of the reality beyond language, as close to the ideal as possible, projected through structures referring to the original text. However, it transpires that the detailed image ideally close to the image of a fragment of reality is not feasible due to objective differences present in the conceptualization and categorization of the ideas of two different ethnic societies. Nevertheless, a holistic approach to the structure of a piece of work enables the attempt at the reconstruction of not only particular elements of the text-mosaic, but a bigger image beyond language, which is a constituent of this mosaic. Moreover, this image seems more vital than a literal transfer of separate elements at the cost of abandoning specific stylistic effects which are key to the folk literature.