After the festive excess, it’s back to the gym.
“Je voudrais un six-pack,” I explain to Jean-Nicholas, le gérant.
“Je ne comprends pas.”
“Vous savez, avoir des abdos comme Ronaldo… Ca s’appelle comment en français?”
“Ah, vous voulez dire des tablettes de chocolat!”
I get it. While I’m conjuring up mental images of Budweiser, my French counterparts are dreaming of Lindt. Cultural humiliation time again.
I suppose that it’s because here in wine-drinking France not many people buy six-packs of lager. I wonder if it was the Académie Française that was called in to adjudicate.
Le signifié and le signifiant
The transition from sixpack to tablettes de chocolat is an example of equivalence – one of seven translation processes identified by Canadian linguists Jean-Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelnet in the 1950s. Their classification has been contested since, but remains a reference point today.
Starting learning French, I hoped it’d be a question of acquiring some vocabulary, a few conjugations and Bob’s your uncle
Now I believe a better approach is to start by thinking about what we are trying to translate: the concept (also known as the signified) or le signifié in French.
In our example, le signifié would be the concept of rippling abdominal muscles.
Tablettes de chocolat and six pack are les signifiants (signifiers) : the words being used to describe le signifié. (More specifically les signifiants are the sounds that the written words are designed to generate).
Le signifié is not always a physical object.
La paix and peace are signifiants which describe the concept of peace – un signifié which is a state of being.
Equivalence
Once we have the relationship between signifié and signifiant clear in our mind, the translation method of équivalence becomes easier to explain.
We are looking at the same signifié – rippling abdominal muscles.
But because in France we have different cultural circumstances – French people don’t buy six packs of beer very much so it’s not an image that comes quickly to mind – the translation is an equivalent: something any French person can imagine that looks quite like rippling abdos: tablettes de chocolat.
That’s Equivalence.
The Benefits of a theoretical approach
The six other translation techniques in Vinay and Darbelnet’s classification are: Literal, Borrowing, Calque, Transposition, Modulation and Adaptation. We’ll be exploring them in the coming months.
But before we do, it’s fair to ask why theorise at all.
Firstly theorising helps me recognise patterns: transformations that happen frequently because of structural differences between source and target language. By recognising these patterns and practising the transformations, we become more fluent, gaining in both speed and precision.
Secondly, theorising helps me become more alert. If you live in France long enough, you reach a stage that’s flatteringly called “thinking in French”: you absorb meaning without consciously translating. But this can become a trap. Because we can get by understanding the gist of what is being said, we no longer invest the mental energy needed to notice subtle yet important nuances.
Returning to a conscious translation process is a way of re-awakening our sensitivity and getting to a richer level of understanding.
Back to the Gym
So what about obtaining that six-pack?
It might just be that I was focussing on the wrong target. Here Jean-Nicholas explains the philosophy behind the Keep Cool chain of fitness clubs, which is N° 2 in France:
[On inspire profondément jusqu’à ouvrir la cage thoracique, avec moi, ouvrez la poitrine, sans forcer les étirements, on accentue un tout petit peu avec une légère pression et on va regarder vers le sol] – Vous avez différentes motivations, vous avez des gens qui viennent ici chercher une hygiène de vie, d’autres qui veulent absolument perdre du poids, d’autres qui veulent se dessiner un corps, du renfort musculaire, d’autres qui viennent chercher un lien: rencontrer des gens, parce que c’est aussi… un club c’est aussi une ambiance. Et vous avez des gens aussi, au bout d’un certain âge, leur médecin leur a dit: “vous savez, “ça serait bien de faire du sport maintenant”, “J’ai pas très envie”, “Oui, mais vous avez pas beaucoup le choix”. Donc on a aussi cette catégorie de gens-là.
[Descendez lentement sans forcer] – Vous avez dû remarquer, vous qui êtes adhérent, vous n’avez pas de miroirs dans les salles. Dans beaucoup de clubs, historiquement, et ça existe encore aujourd’hui, quand vous les rencontrez, vous voyez des gens avec… en t-shirts avec des muscles pas possibles, qui sont en train de se regarder derrière les miroirs. Donc ça, c’est ce qu’on appelle la frime. Un club de sport doit normalement – c’est notre engagement – faire… tout faire pour que les gens soient en forme. Nous, c’est ce qu’on va mettre. Mais la forme sans la frime. Il y a pas de miroirs. Et on se prend pas au sérieux, mais on fait les choses sérieusement.
A vous maintenant
Listen to the following scene from Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, which won the Palme d’Or at the 1994 Cannes film festival.
BUTCH: Ha ?
FABIAN: J’aurais voulu avoir de la brioche.
BUTCH: Tu t’es regardée dans la glace ce matin, ça t’as ouvert l’appétit ?
FABIAN: Pas cette brioche, du bide imbécile. Un peu de bide c’est très sexy.
BUTCH: Bah alors, tu peux être contente, parce que t’en as !
FABIAN: N’importe quoi gros lard, tu sais bien que j’en ai pas. J’ai un peu de ventre, un tout petit peu, comme Madonna quand elle chantait « Lucky Star », c’est différent.
BUTCH: J’ignorais qu’il y avait une différence entre un peu de ventre et du bide.
FABIAN: Une différence ééénorme.
BUTCH: Ça te plairait si j’avais de la brioche ?
FABIAN: Non, la brioche c’est bon pour les blaireaux, ça leur fait un ventre de gorille. Mais chez une femme c’est pas pareil, ça fait sexy. Il suffit que le reste soit beau, un beau visage, des belles hanches, des belles jambes, un beau derrière mais avec en plus un petit ventre bien rond, une belle brioche. Si j’en avais une, je mettrais des t-Shirt très collants pour que les gens la remarque.
BUTCH: Tu crois que ça plairait aux gens ?
FABIAN: Moi, j’ai bien mieux à faire que de les séduire. Dommage que ce qu’on a du plaisir à toucher et ce qu’on a du plaisir à regarder aille rarement ensemble.
BUTCH: Si tu avais de la brioche, je la bourrerais de coups.
FABIAN: Des coups de poings dans ma petite brioche ?
BUTCH: Grands coups de poings.
FABIAN: Oh ! Et ben moi, je t’étoufferais avec et je m’assiérais sur ta figure et tu pourrais plus respirer.
BUTCH: Tu ferais ça ?
FABIAN: Oui… Oui…
BUTCH: Uh-huh?
FABIAN: I wish I had a pot.
BUTCH: You were lookin’ in the mirror and you wish you had some pot?
FABIAN: A pot. A pot belly. Pot bellies are sexy.
BUTCH: Well you should be happy, ’cause you do.
FABIAN: Shut up, Fatso! I don’t have a pot! I have a bit of a tummy, like Madonna when she did “Lucky Star,” it’s not the same thing.
BUTCH: I didn’t realize there was a difference between a tummy and a pot belly.
FABIAN: The difference is huge.
BUTCH: You want me to have a pot?
FABIAN: No. Pot bellies make a man look either oafish, or like a gorilla. But on a woman, a pot belly is very sexy. The rest of you is normal. Normal face, normal legs, normal hips, normal ass, but with a big, perfectly round pot belly. If I had one, I’d wear a tee-shirt two sizes too small to accentuate it.
BUTCH: You think guys would find that attractive?
FABIAN: I don’t give a damn what men find attractive. It’s unfortunate what we find pleasing to the touch and pleasing to the eye is seldom the same.
BUTCH: If I had a pot belly, I’d punch you in it.
FABIAN: You’d punch me in my belly?
BUTCH: Right in the belly.
FABIAN: I’d smother you. I’d drop it on your right on your face ’til you couldn’t breathe.
BUTCH: You’d do that to me?
FABIAN: Yes!
Exercises
1. Transcribe the dialogue
2. Translate it into English
3. Reveal and compare the French transcript and Tarantino’s original script. Notice the use of equivalence, and reflect on why it was needed.
4. The original English ‘Normal face, normal legs, normal hips’ could have been translated by ‘un visage normal, des jambes normales, des hanches normales’. But the translator has changed both the order and the meaning: ‘un beau visage, des belles hanches, des belles jambes’. Why?
Taking it further
Vinay and Barbelnet’s Stylistique comparée du français et de l’anglais was a ground-breaking work and is still available as a digital reprint. It’s a challenge for non-native speakers, but a rewarding one.
