Abstracts
Abstract
Adaptation, as both a method and a textual category, has been a perennial favorite with text mediators who call themselves translators, appearing especially prominently in intersemiotic rather than interlingual translation. The present paper examines the concepts and practices of adaptation, drawing particular attention to examples from both the West and the Far East. Just as a preference for adaptive methods in translation can be seen in certain periods of Western literary history (e.g. seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France), there were times when adaptations were hailed in China, Japan and Korea. In the course of the discussion, reference will be made to (1) the modernist adaptations undertaken by Western writers through much of the twentieth century; (2) the sequences of novelistic adaptations spawned in Korea and Japan by Chinese classical novels; and (3) the adaptations of European novels by the prodigious twentieth-century Chinese translator Lin Shu. It will be shown that there is a need for translation scholars to question the theoretical validity of the dichotomy between the two modes of “translation” and “adaptation,” as well as an urgency to reconsider the supposed “inferior” status of adaptations.
Keywords:
- adaptation,
- free translation,
- rewriting,
- transmutation,
- transcreation
Résumé
L’adaptation, évoquant à la fois la méthode et les textes en résultant, a toujours été prisée par les médiateurs du texte se désignant eux-mêmes traducteurs, et se montre particulièrement saillante en traduction intersémiotique, comparativement à la traduction interlangue. Le présent article examine les pratiques et les concepts relatifs à l’adaptation, avec une attention particulière portée à des exemples en provenance d’Occident et d’Extrême-Orient. De même que certaines périodes de l’histoire littéraire occidentale ont montré une préférence pour les méthodes adaptatives (par exemple, le xviie et le xviiie siècle en France), il y eut des moments de l’histoire de la Chine, du Japon et de la Corée pendant lesquels l’adaptation était valorisée. La discussion portera notamment sur : 1) les adaptations modernistes entreprises par les écrivains occidentaux pendant une grande partie du xxe siècle ; 2) les séries d’adaptations romanesques qui se sont répandues en Corée et au Japon par les romans classiques chinois ; et 3) les adaptations des romans européens par Lin Shu, un prodigieux traducteur chinois du xxe siècle. Nous montrerons qu’il est souhaitable que les chercheurs en traductologie s’interrogent sur la validité, sur le plan théorique, de la dichotomie entre « traduction » et « adaptation », et qu’il est urgent de remettre en question le statut « d’infériorité » des adaptations.
Mots-clés:
- adaptation,
- traduction libre,
- réécriture,
- transmutation,
- transcréation
Appendices
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