Louis Alberti

English translations and adaptations of Ô Canada

Taking a historical perspective, my master’s thesis will analyze various aspects of translation in 30 English translations and adaptations of Ô Canada produced from 1900 to 1931. During a meeting of the Saint-Jean Baptiste Societies in 1880, Adolphe Basile Routhier wrote the words of Chant national to Calixa Lavallée’s music. Since 1901, various anglophone authors have translated and adapted this French-Canadian patriotic song. From 1900 to 1931, Canadian society was marked by a number of events: the rise of nationalism, the Second Boer War, the First World War, and the recognition of Canada’s sovereignty in 1931. Translators’ readings of these sociopolitical changes were integral to the translations of the period. My theoretical framework will draw on Charles Le Blanc’s The Hermes Complex, in which the author writes, “Translating involves much more than understanding a text: it also involves understanding an epoch and a consciousness” (2009, p.12).

Louis Alberti received a scholarship in 2014 from the Faculty of Graduate and Post-doctoral Studies at the University of Ottawa to pursue a Master’s Degree in Translation Studies. He has a Bachelor of Arts, Specialization in English-French Translation (2013), with the citation magna cum laude, a Juris Doctor (Common Law, 2005), a Licentiate in Laws (Civil Law, 1979) and two Bachelor of Arts degrees (Philosophy, 1976; Music, 1975), from the University of Ottawa. He has collaborated as a translator and editor on two encyclopedias and presented a paper at the World Words graduate conference in Ottawa in November 2014.