Traduction et texte : vers un nouveau double paradigme

Abstract

The starting point of the article is a simple question: When a literary translator, a subtitler, a localizer of Websites, an advertising agency adapting an international campaign, a conference interpreter are speaking of text, do they refer to the same concept and do they indirectly perceive translation in the same way? The different conceptions and makings of text shape different translation strategies. Conversely, can we believe that the various current modes of translating, based on different types of texts, could help us setting up the concept of text in another way? In the first part, the article focuses on the paradigms which are competing today in Translation Studies. It then questions the media history of translation and its impact on the concept of text. In its third part, it tries to link Translation Studies and some issues of Text Linguistics. Finally, with the coming (or the return?) of the multimodal text, nothing can prevent to question the validity of the dominant concept of text as it has been defined in the 1970s thanks to several criteria of textuality. Does the translators’ work disturb, call to challenge the historicized concept of text? The changes of paradigms in Translation Studies, as they appear today, do not imply a clear-cut answer.

Keywords

• digital
• translation
• genres
• multimodality
• paradigm