Comment traduire les phènomenes culturels? : Analyse des adaptations pragmatiques et sémantiques d'un blog

Sammanfattning: Abstract   This paper is the comment and analysis of the translation of twelve articles in a book with the title Dessine-moi un Parisien by Olivier Magny, originally written as a blog in English on internet, but after huge success also recently published in French. It is a creative, expressive and communicative text, which is fun and often ironic when it tries to describe the nature of a native Parisian. As all texts appear in a cultural context, it is part of the translator’s work to adapt the translated text into the new cultural context in which it will appear. This is especially difficult when a cultural phenomenon (expressed by proper nouns, proverbs, idioms etc.) in the source culture doesn’t even exist in the target culture or, if there is an equivalent translation, is associated with a different connotation.   The aim of this paper is to analyze whether it is possible to translate a text full of local cultural references, by using the many pragmatic and semantic strategies and tools proposed in Konsten att översätta (Ingo: 2007) while trying to keep to the original functions of the text.   Two further strategies, foreignizing and domesticating, have also been of interest as they deal with the basic questions why, when and to what degree one should accomplish all the possible changes in order to adapt the text to the new cultural context.   The analysis shows that all the tools have been of great use and that a good translation is possible. To define a suitable strategy in every single situation, the importance of the pragmatic and the semantic meaning have guided us. It further shows that the situation in which the sentence appears is the most important, even though there is another obvious translation. It has also been possible to endeavor ourselves to obtain some “French color” that is so important for the style in the original blog.   Keywords: cultural adaptations, equivalences, cultural phenomenon, foreignizing, domesticating