La modification du nom propre dans une perspective contrastive

Abstract

The translation of French modified proper names (Npr) into Swedish gives rise to cultural problems, in view of the fact that Swedes are not always familiar with the original referents of the Npr. Linguistic problems do also arise due to the difficulty in Swedish to create new interpretations of the Npr by adding a determiner in front of it. The article system is not so highly developped in Swedish as in French, the partitive article du, de la, de l’, and the indefinite plural article des lacking in Swedish. On the other hand, Swedish noun morphology is extremely complex: the definite article is agglutinated (-n, -en, -t, -et) and since there are seven declinations, plural endings show great variation (-ar, -or, -er, -r, -n, O, -s). The addition of one of these audible endings to the Npr comes in striking contrast with the fundamentally indeclinable form of the Npr. So even if most of the French types of modified Npr can be found also in Swedish, treated in the Grammar of the Swedish Academy as Npr converted into common nouns, their translation may be problematic due to differences in the morphological systems.On the basis of examples from texts mainly by Balzac and Proust, the translation into Swedish of French modified metaphoric and metonymic Npr is examined. As regards the metaphoric Npr, most of Newmark’s (1982) strategies for the translation of metaphors are applied, and that of explicitating the relation of similarity is most often used. The translation of metonymic Npr, which designate either (a part of) an artist’s or writer’s works or a person’s typical behaviour, usually needs an indication of what sort of referent is intended. In both cases, the Npr is “demodified” in the Swedish translation and appears in its prototypical use, as a rigid designator of its original referent.