Elizabeth Saint

Portraits of self-translation: Fransaskois theatre

The intentions behind a writer’s decision to undertake the “difficult, tedious, and repetitive” task of self-translation (Grutman, 2007, p. 220) influence its presentation, the strategies employed and the type of translation produced. We will compare two pieces of Fransaskois theatre – La Maculée by Madeleine Blais-Dahlem and Bonneau et la Bellehumeur by Raoul Granger – to shed light on aspects of self-translation in Fransaskois drama. We will examine contextual constraints, publication formats, paratexts and translation strategies. Blais-Dahlem and Granger are, like all translators, agents of “intercultural communication” (Vermeer, 1989), and they share a skopos oriented toward “building communal bridges” (Day, 2013). However, while the first develops his personality as a bilingual writer, the second erases any trace of his intervention as a self-translator. An analysis of the translation strategies employed reveals the interdependence between the original and the self-translation in the case of Blais-Dahlem, but the autonomy of the two versions in the case of Granger.

Elizabeth Saint holds an MA in Foreign Language Teaching from the Université Paris 8 (France) and an MA in French from the University of Victoria. She is currently in her first year of the PhD program at the School of Translation and Interpretation at the University of Ottawa. Her doctoral research, directed by Jean Quirion, focuses on language use and factors related to the (non) implementation of official terminology. She has presented her research at conferences in Canada and the United States and in the journals Voix Plurielles (2013), Communication, lettres et sciences du langage (2013), and La Revue de l’Université de Moncton (in press).