Translating homophonic wordplay in Patrick Goujon’s Moi non: a case study

Tiffane Levick (1)

1 PRISMES - PRISMES - Langues, Textes, Arts et Cultures du Monde Anglophone - EA 4398

This paper presents a discussion of the issues raised in the translation of homophonic wordplay from French into English. To this end, it takes as its point of departure examples from the translation into English of a contemporary French novel, a novel entitled Moi non, written by Patrick Goujon and published by Gallimard in 2003. These examples are rife with the manifestations of the author’s stylistic game which harnesses the techniques of rap in an exploration of the implications of sound and sense in poetic prose. When faced with the intricacy of the expression in the original text, the translator must strive to identify solutions that respect simultaneously the playful and the connotative functions of the words used. This process beckons questions relative to the artistic licence afforded to the translator who is bound to an assessment of the importance of sound versus that of semantics, seeking a creative compromise between meaning and wordplay.

Mots clés: wordplay; rap; compensation; creativity; compromise

Domaines: Littératures; Linguistique

Tiffane Levick. Translating homophonic wordplay in Patrick Goujon’s Moi non: a case study . Sound / Writing: On Homophonic Translation, Vincent Broqua (University of Paris at Saint-Denis) and Dirk Weissmann (University of Paris at Créteil), Nov 2016, Paris, France. ⟨halshs-01496355⟩