Il était une fois un petit caporal … Ou la traduction des noms propres dans le roman de Walter Hasenclever

Abstract

This paper was first presented at a seminar on “The translation of proper names in travel literature”. On the basis of a case study of the translation of well-known anthroponyms and toponyms in Walter Hasenclever’s “Exilliteratur” novel “Die Rechtlosen”, we show that proper names cannot be translated systematically by commonly accepted linguistic equivalences. On the contrary, as the names themselves often carry strong connotations in the source text and are therefore essential to its underlying meaning, they must first be submitted to a process of interpretation. Their rendering will, therefore, always have a discursive equivalence, even if it may look at first sight like a linguistic equivalence.