A special "DPP" class is scheduled for you on the 16th June from 11:00 to 12:00.

We will translate some short passages and go over some of the techniques of translation that you should keep in mind for your make-up exam.

Come with your questions or send them to me ahead of time.

Class 11: Info about the Last Test, Correction LeClézio

ATTENTION!!!!
The final test (DST) will be held on Tuesday 4th May in Amphi Josserand, from 14h to 15h. (Those people who are authorized to have a "tiers de temps", please contact me this week).

Both groups will be together (also with my Multimedia students). Please sit in every other chair (meaning, leave a space for a Multimedia student between two Thème students).


The best way to prepare for this test is to review your texts from this semester. Look at the mistakes that you make and try to be aware of them (for example, systematic confusion between two tenses). You should also continue to read and be exposed to English in all its forms.


CORRECTION LE CLEZIO:

She could remember her first winter in the mountains and the music (sonority) of the water in springtime. When was it? She was walking between her father and mother in the village street, holding their hands, one arm pulled more to one side because her father was so tall. Water was flowing down from everywhere, making all that music, hissing, whistling and drumming. Every time she thought of (remembered) that, she felt like laughing (it made her want to laugh) because it was a soft and funny noise like a caress. She was laughing then too, there between her father and mother (her parents), and the water in the drain pipes and in the stream answered her (echoed her voice), slipping and tumbling. Now with the burning heat of summer and the sky an intense blue, there was a happiness that filled her whole body which was almost frightening. She especially liked the big, grassy slope which rose towards the sky just outside of the village. She never went to the top of it because it was said that there were vipers. She walked for a while next to the field just to feel the coolness of the earth (soil), the edgy blades against her lips. From time to time, the grass was so high she disappeared completely (it hid her completely). She was thirteen years old, was named Hélène Grève, but her father called her Esther.

Class 10: Correction Giradoux, New Text by JM LeClézio

Part One: Correction of "La
surenchère" by Jean Giradoux.

Upping the Ante (for the definition, see http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/upping+the+ante)

Charlie strode up and down the islands and climbed on Goat’s Rock. Suddenly, he stopped to listen. Someone was walking behind him cautiously (there were footsteps behind him, cautious footsteps), and had been for a good while (quite some time). The steps would come closer at every dangerous bend (turn) and would, on the contrary, slow up (linger, hang back) when the rocks became level (flat), finally to come even closer and become more threatening (menacing) when bordering a waterfall. People who are about to (are going to) commit suicide may still be afraid of (avoid) spiders and caterpillars, but they are not afraid of being attacked / assaulted. Excited about this adventure, Charlie decided to lure the killer or thief to a little island (islet) where they would not be disturbed (where no one would bother them). He only had to jump (stride) over a little creek which was noisier than it was dangerous, and before crossing over the last Rubicon (the point of no return), that didn’t pose a problem (that would be no problem). He jumped. Someone jumped behind him, floundering (splashing) even slightly. [Then] He climbed a rock overhanging an abyss over which thousands of rainbows intersected (criss-crossed), melted (faded) and reflected like (split into) cinematographic rosaces (stars of light). The someone climbed up after him, not without slipping several times. He turned around abruptly. (He did an about face).

The tattooed face of an Iroquois (Indian) in war paint (battle dress) would have startled/upset him less (would have been less disturbing) than what he saw. Instead of the standard gangster he was expecting, there stood one of those blond and pretty young girls like you see on posters (billboards) smiling at him.

“Mr. Eggins?” she asked simply. Charlie bowed (nodded).

“Mr. Eggins, I am an active member of the Association of the Lord’s Partisans. You probably know of its churches in Boston. And, like everyone, you have probably come to see its presidential chambers where all the objects, even the bathtub, are made of solid gold. I come in His name to remind you that suicide is a mortal sin and to beg you to live for the sake of your soul.

“I am sorry, Miss, but that’s impossible.”

“Are you really determined to die?”

“I am”

“Will you swear not to change your mind?”

“I swear.”

“Well, then Mr. Eggins, let me explain to you the second part of my mission. I am also a representative of the Forbett Company from Indianapolis. You’re certainly familiar with their shoe polishes and varnishes. Forbetts would like to offer you twenty thousand dollars, payable to whichever relative you designate, if, on Sunday, you throw yourself from the suspension bridge with a banner that they will provide you that has their name printed on it. I will come to your hotel tonight at 8 o’clock for your answer.”

PART TWO: Text to translate for next week

LeClézio: L'Etoile Errante, "La portrait d'Esther"

Elle se souvenait du premier hiver à la montagne, et de la musique de l’eau au printemps. C’était quand ? Elle marchait entre son père et sa mère dans la rue du village, elle leur donnait la main. Son bras tirait plus d’un côté, parce que son père était si grand. Et l’eau descendait de tous les côtés, en faisant cette musique, ces chuintements, ces sifflements, ces tambourinades. Chaque fois qu’elle se souvenait de cela, elle avait envie de rire, parce que c’était un bruit doux et drôle comme une caresse. Elle riait, alors, entre son père et sa mère, et l’eau des gouttières et du ruisseau lui répondait, glissait, cascadait…

Maintenant, avec la brûlure de l’été, le ciel d’un bleu intense, il y avait un bonheur qui emplissait tout le corps, qui faisait peur, presque. Elle aimait surtout la grande pente herbeuse qui montait vers le ciel, au-dessus du village. Elle n’allait pas jusqu’en haut, parce qu’on disait qu’il y avait des vipères. Elle marchait un instant au bord du champ, juste assez pour sentir la fraîcheur de la terre, les lames coupantes contre ses lèvres. Par endroits, les herbes étaient si hautes qu’elle disparaissait complètement. Elle avait treize ans, elle s’appelait Hélène Grève, mais son père disait : Esther.”

Hi Class,


Sorry for the late message... I have had a computer failure. But, since you already have the text from Giradoux that we will continue translating next week, I don't feel as guilty.


So, continue to work on the text and refining your translation. Remember that you will learn more if you are more ACTIVE than PASSIVE.


Students from Monday's class are encouraged (though not required) to come to the Tuesday class. It is from 14h to 15h in room 423 (if I remember correctly).


Have a nice rest of the weekend.

Class 8: Correction Echenoz & Text by Giradoux

Hello class, sorry about the delay this week in posting your correction and new text.... time flies so quickly sometimes, but this is no excuse.

Just to let you know also that the week after next is Easter weekend, including Easter Monday. For those in Group 1, this is "problematic", since there will be no class. There will also be no "make-up" class (due to a lack of weeks in the semester). So, I invite you to come to the class on Tuesday (also at 14h), if you can or want to. You can suggest other solutions if you would like in class this week.

So, here are the texts.

CORRECTION Jean Echenoz

And now that he had a moment, the bartender was speaking to the young man, pointing out the strong (big) man with his gaze (with his eyes/a look). He seemed to be talking softly, yet despite the music, the young man seemed to understand. He slid from his barstool, walked calmly up the line of drinkers and came up close, very close, to the strong man and said something that Georges Chave couldn’t hear.

The strong man shuttered (was startled, jumped), and trying to back up, banged into the bar (bumped into). The young man moved his lips again and, suddenly, hidden somewhere between the dark crowd and the noise, Georges Chave saw the flash of a razor off whose blade reflected a fleeting, dim yellow glow. Responding to God knows what, there was a ripple through the crowd and Georges Chave banged into the strong man who fell (tripped) backwards and who the young man wanted to hold back by stooping down within reach of Georges Chave, who in turn threw out his leg to crush his foot into the nose of the young man who began to scream something inaudible, bringing his hands to his face. The razor fell somewhere among the dancing shoes (feet). The strong man looked quickly at the big man and then ran away from the bar towards the stairs cutting his way like a wild boar through the women dancing. Georges Chave ran after him and met up with him in the hallway.

TEXT TO TRANSLATE FOR NEXT TIME:

This is admittedly a long text. I am however including this whole section because it gives you some indication of context. Also, the ACTION happens in the USA so you should translate the name of the geological formation mentioned in the first line as well as the names of the organisations and companies mentioned later into English

Translate as much as you can and we will see how far we get. If we need to finish it up over two weeks, we can.

Jean Giraudoux, « La surenchère », dans Les contes d’un matin 1952

Charlie parcourut les îles, grimpa sur le rocher des Chèvres. Soudain, il prêta l’oreille. On marchait derrière lui, depuis un bon moment, avec précaution. Les pas se rapprochaient aux tournants dangereux, s’attardaient au contraire quand le roc devenait plan, pour redevenir, dès qu’on côtoyait une cascade, plus proches et plus menaçants. Les gens qui vont se suicider évitent peut-être encore les araignées ou les chenilles, mais ne redoutent pas les agressions. Charlie, heureux de l’aventure, décida d’attirer l’assassin ou le voleur dans un petit îlot où nul ne les dérangerait. Il n’y avait qu’à enjamber un ruisselet plus bruyant que dangereux, et avant de franchir le dernier Rubicon, ce n’était point là une affaire. Il sauta. On sauta derrière lui, on pataugea même un peu. Il gravit un rocher qui surplombait un gouffre au-dessus duquel mille arcs-en-ciel se croisaient, se fondaient et se dédoublaient comme des rosaces de cinématographe. On grimpa derrière lui, non sans glissades répétées. Il se retourna alors brusquement.

La face tatouée d’un Iroquois en costume de guerre l’eût moins troublé que ce qu’il vit. Au lieu du bandit classique auquel il s’attendait, une jeune fille blonde et jolie comme on en voit sur les affiches, lui souriait.

-- Monsieur Eggins ? demanda-t-elle seulement. Charlie s’inclina.

-- Monsieur Eggins, je suis membre actif de l’Association des Partisans du Seigneur. Vous connaissez ses églises de Boston. Vous avez visité, comme tous, sa chambre présidentielle, dont tous les objets, même la baignoire, sont d’or massif. Je viens en son nom vous rappeler que le suicide est un péché mortel et vous conjurer de vivre pour le salut de votre âme.

-- Tous mes regrets, Miss, c’est impossible.

-- Vous êtes bien résolu à mourir ?

-- Je le suis.

--Vous jurez que vous ne changerez point d’avis ?

-- Je le jure.

-- Alors, Monsieur Eggins, permettez-moi d’exposer la seconde partie de ma mission. Je suis également mandataire de la Maison Forbett, d’Indianapolis. Son cirage et ses vernis ne vous sont pas inconnus. La Maison Forbett vous offre vingt mille dollars, payables à celui de vos parents que vous désignerez si, dimanche, vous vous jetez du pont suspendu avec une banderole qu’elle vous fournira et qui porte sa marque de fabrique. Je passerai ce soir, à huit heures, à votre hôtel chercher la réponse.

Class 7: Correction Berque & New Text by Echenoz

This week we got back to work but started branching out by studying an academic text by a contemporary author and researcher.

In fact, if you want to delve more into his texts, his theories and his world you can actually audit his seminar at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales: http://crj.ehess.fr/document.php?id=581

For this text, it was imperative to analyse the overall meaning to find the juxtaposition between the living, WE, and the dead, THEM. From there, you needed to adapt the pronouns found in the text to correspond to the category you were talking about.

PART ONE: CORRECTION:

Opening Corpses

VIII. Yet no matter what they tell us, in the end corpses only say what we want to make them say. “We”, in other words, the living, with our monopoly on speech. We take advantage of this to be the only ones to talk about death, even if it’s the one thing in all the world we know the least about. Certainly, we see death with others, but no matter how much we autopsy ourselves, we’ll never see ourselves dead. There’s no hermeneutics of death: we’ll never know what it wants to say, other than transposed in terms of life. As someone who’s alive and thus capable of talking about death, I know that we, the living, are unable to put ourselves in the place of the dead. Even if we chant Requiem aeternam dona eis (“Grant them eternal rest” in Latin, a dead language but not the language of the dead), it’s mainly so the souls of the dead will leave us alone, we who are alive. Because souls that aren’t at rest come back; and we don’t really want that. What we want is for those we love not to die. But once they’re corpses, they’ve gone to another world, and we don’t really know what kind of ideas they might get over there. No doubt not the same ones they had while they were alive; because since they’ve been dead, they’ve seen worse (other things). They’ve seen other dead people who could very well have given them dead-people ideas.


HOMEWORK

For next week (22/23 March 2010) we will deal with ACTION. Again, it is important to know who did what, where and when and to whom. Here is the text:

Jean Echenoz, Cherokee 1983

Et maintenant qu’il avait un instant, le serveur parlait encore au jeune homme en désignant l’homme fort du regard. Il semblait parler à voix basse mais, malgré la musique, le jeune homme paraissait comprendre : il glissa de son tabouret, remonta calmement la ligne des buveurs pour s’approcher de l’homme fort, très près, et lui dire quelque chose que Georges Chave ne put entendre. L’homme fort sursauta, voulut reculer, se heurta au comptoir. Le jeune homme remua encore les lèvres et puis, subitement, caché entre eux parmi la foule obscure et le bruit, Georges Chave vit luire un rasoir dont la lame réfractait un faisceau fugitif de lueur jaune. Sous l’action d’on ne sait quoi, il y eut alors un mouvement de foule et Georges Chave heurta brusquement l’homme fort qui trébucha et que le jeune homme voulut retenir en se baissant à portée de Georges Chave, lequel alors balança sèchement sa jambe pour écraser son pied sur le nez du jeune homme qui se mit à crier quelque chose d’inaudible en portant ses deux mains vers son visage, le rasoir allant se perdre sous les semelles des danseurs. L’homme fort regarda brièvement l’homme grand, puis s’éloigna du bar en courant vers l’escalier, se frayant un brutal passage de sanglier à travers les femmes qui dansaient. Georges Chave courut après lui, le rejoignit dans le hall.

Class 6: Correction DST and new text by Berque

Hello class, two weeks ago there was no blog entry because of the DST. I was pleased at the results.

Here are the corrections:

(I had promised you two excerpts from your classmates, but that might take up too much room. Instead, I have incorporated some of their GREAT ideas into the correction, which is slightly different from what we did in class.)

Text A: Muriel Barbery, Une Gourmandise (Gallimard, 2000)

My Aunt Marthe’s house was an old dilapidated house engulfed in ivy. Due to a boarded up window, it had a slightly blind appearance which was in perfect harmony with the surroundings and its inhabitant. Aunt Marthe, who was the eldest of my mother’s sisters and the only one not to have inherited a nickname, was a surly, ugly and smelly old maid who lived in the midst of her chicken coop and the rabbit hutches in an incredible stench. Inside, it went without saying, there was no water, no electricity, no telephone or television.

Text B: Julien Green, Moira (1950)

“Mister Day,” she said. “Do you know what is in this letter?”

“Yes,” he replied. “I wrote it down myself while my father was dictating it to me.”

His voice was muted, both husky and tender at the same time.

“My father is blind,” he explained.

Mrs. Dare raised her eyebrows. Neither old, nor young, she was thin and stood erect in her grey dress with white flowers. Her cheeks were flat and rubbed with blush and her black hair was pulled back (in a bun). Her mouth was too broad and her nose too pointy for her to be considered pretty, but the young man concluded that she, at any rate, must find herself so to make herself up in that way.

Homework to translate for next week ( 15/16 March)

Augustin Berque: L'ouverture de cadavres, 2007

VIII. Quoi qu’ils racontent, pourtant, les cadavres ne disent en fin de compte que ce qu’on veut bien leur faire dire. « On », c’est-à-dire les vivants, qui monopolisent la parole. Ils en profitent pour être les seuls à parler de la mort, bien que ce soit la chose au monde qu’ils connaissent le moins. La mort, certes, on la voit chez les autres, mais on aura beau s’autopsier, soi-même on ne se verra jamais mort. Il n’y pas d’herméneutique de la mort : jamais on ne saura ce qu’elle veut dire, sinon transposée dans les termes de la vie. Moi qui suis vivant, et puis donc parler de la mort, je sais que nous autres vivants sommes incapables de nous mettre à la place des morts. Même si l’on chante Requiem aeternam dona eis (« Donne-leur le repos éternel » en latin, langue morte mais non pas langue des morts), c’est d’abord pour que les âmes des morts nous laissent tranquilles, nous autres qui sommes en vie. Parce que les âmes qui ne sont pas en repos, elles reviennent ; et ça, on n’en veut pas. Ce qu’on voudrait, c’est que ceux que nous aimons ne meurent pas. Mais une fois cadavres, eux sont partis dans un autre monde, et nous ne savons pas trop ce qu’ils peuvent se mettre dans la tête, là-bas. Sans doute pas la même chose que ce qu’ils y avaient de leur vivant ; car depuis leur mort, ils en ont vu d’autres. Ils ont vu d’autres morts, qui ne peuvent leur avoir donné que des idées de morts.