Theorizing the peregrinations of Anglo/Québécois literature in translation

Theorizing the Peregrinations of Anglo/Québécois Literature in Translation argues that Anglo-Québécois literature is an inherent part of Québécois literature, and the proof for this is found in its translated works. Although a seemingly obvious claim, this position has not been subject to scrutiny when it comes to how the content of the texts themselves do this. Building on the socio-literary history and the theorization of Anglo-Québécois literature and its translation, elaborated upon in the first chapter, this thesis seeks to understand the actual mechanics of translating culture from English into French. This is undertaken on two contemporary Anglo-Québécois novels—Cockroach (2008) by Rawi Hage and Lullabies for Little Criminals (2006) by Heather O’Neill—and their translations.  With the use of stereoscopic reading, a comparative analytical technique that requires the original text and the translation be read side by side, the texts are analysed in order to detect what I am calling a glitch. The glitch is a sociocultural anomaly whereby the encoded thematic interpretant found in the original is unable to cross into the translated language. It can be the result of either an unconscious misinterpretation or a willful transformation by the translator. To this purpose, the thematic interpretant, in other words the information relating to the values and beliefs of the target culture and their social coherence, serves as the expository tool. The drive behind searching for a glitch is not normative but born of a need to understand the cultural transformation occurring in translation.  In applying this reading technique to Cockroach and Lullabies for Little Criminals, and their respective translations, the goal is to uncover glitches. In other words, the texts are probed for mutually exclusive cultural differences that demarcate themselves only when read using stereoscopic reading. Given that the translation of Hage’s Cockroach was undertaken and published in Quebec, the intertextual differences related to the various thematic interpretants employed in the original are complex and deeply seated. A canonical link to Kafka, a sophisticated play between languages (French and English in this case) and the skillful transformation of cultural incommensurability in the translation constitute the object of an analysis that illustrates how cultural superposition affects cultural translation. O’Neill’s Lullabies for Little Criminals was translated and published in Paris. This produces a different sort of comparison. The translation’s lack of Québécois sociocultural sensibility is used to demonstrate how the concept of Americanicity, a notion well entrenched in Québécois literature, is ignored in this transatlantic translation. This thesis nonetheless establishes a solid link between O’Neill’s novel and Québécois literature via the comparison, explicit in Lullabies, with a classic work of Québécois literature, Réjean Ducharme’s L’avalée des avalés.

Keyphrases: culture, translation, literature, culture, literary translation, cultural translation, French, English, Quebec, Montreal, Anglo-Québécois, Quebec literature, Anglo-Québécois literature, contemporary novel, sociolinguistics, sociology of literature, sociology of translation, Anglo-québécois