Taivalkoski-Shilov, Kristiina

Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert

Versus: la version réfléchie is the latest book
by Michel Ballard, who has previously
tackled the didactics of translation and
specifically the practical problems of version,
i.e. translation into the native language
(English-French), in various books, for
example La traduction: de l’anglais au
français (Nathan, 1987-94), Les faux amis
(Ellipses, 1999), Le nom propre en traduction
(Ophrys, 2001). In the foreword of his new
book, Ballard states that the book’s aims are
down-to-earth. His goal is to make university
students and their teachers aware of the main
factors that pose translation problems, in
order to ease their solution. The approach is
contrastive and (for some, perhaps rather too)
normative. Ballard points out that the
problems of version differ from those of
thème, i.e. translation into a foreign language.
In version, as opposed to thème, a sufficient
understanding of the source text is not self-
evident, especially at the initial stage of
studies, and that is why Ballard devotes all
of 51 pages of the first part of the book to
the topic of translation as reading (Chapters
II and III). The producing of a natural
target text in version is not unproblematic
either (tendencies such as interference are
discussed), even though in this case the target
language is the mother tongue of the
translator. The university course in version
is a useful exercise both for the mastery of
the foreign and of the native language, but it
requires attentive thought; la version doit
être réfléchie, concludes Ballard.
The didactic aims of the book can be
seen from its practical form. There are 12
chapters, each of which contains a useful list
of further readings on the same subject. All
new terms that are introduced to the reader
are explained on their first occurrence. The
book ends with a bibliography that is divided
into two parts (references p. 263-273 and
corpus p. 273-278), followed by a fairly
comprehensive subject index (p. 279-283).
There is also a list of abbreviations and
symbols at the beginning of the book. The
presentation of each topic is mostly at a
general level and easy to understand. There
are plenty of well-chosen examples presented
with their context —which is rare. However,
they are almost all taken from fiction; this is
a drawback since the majority of professional
translators deal with non-literary texts…
Some subjects are treated more profoundly
(language-specific factors in translation,
Chapters VIII and IX), some are more
sketchy introductions (reported discourse in
translation, part 4 in Chapter VI).
Ballard deals with ten major topics that
the beginner in translation should take into
consideration. In Chapter I (Aspects de la
traduction), Ballard presents the whole field
of translation and the different text types
(Delisle, Reiss) that translators deal with.
As the text type influences the way
translators render their source texts, the
student of translation should learn to
consider how the text type will influence
his/her global translation strategy. In this
chapter Ballard also describes the process
of translation. According to him, translating
has three major, partly overlapping stages:
reading, rewriting and the comparison of the
source and target texts for the purpose of
judging the adequacy of the translation. In
his view, the translator must be capable of
self-evaluation, of assessing how s/he is
rendering the source text and what other
solutions there might be.
As said before, the Chapters II (La
traduction comme lecture 1: Les éléments
constituants du sens) and III (La traduction
comme lecture 2: Les mauvaises lectures)
are dedicated to the problems of reading,
and hence understanding the source text. In
Chapter II, Ballard mentions different factors
that produce and fix the meaning of a text:
Ressenyes Quaderns. Revista de traducció 12, 2005 259
BALLARD, Michel
Versus: la version réfléchie. Anglais-français. Volume 1. Repérages et paramètres
Montréal: Éditions Ophrys, 2003, 283 p.
the communication situation, the context,
extratextual allusions that require general,
encyclopaedic or cultural knowledge,
semantic and grammatical factors. Here,
Ballard takes the reader by the hand, even
giving advice concerning the proper way to
read the source text or the usage of
dictionaries. In Chapter III, he lists several
reasons for misunderstanding a foreign text,
or creating a false meaning in the target text.
Here he includes examples of translation
errors taken mainly from the work of
anonymous university students. These are
followed by a translation —an existing one
or Ballard’s suggestion— that would render
the source text more accurately.
Chapter IV (Concepts pour la
structuration de l’équivalence) opens with a
definition of the unit of translation, a concept
that Ballard has been working on for a long
time (cf. for example Ballard 1999). The
introduction is admirably clear: Ballard shows
convincingly that the unit of translation
cannot be fixed a priori since it is neither a
segment of the source text, nor a segment
of the target text. It is only by comparing
the two texts and by following the logic of
the translator —who can be surprisingly
creative— that one can define a translation
unit of a particular translation. The latter part
of the chapter is rather harder to follow. Here
Ballard links the unit of translation to the
concept of equivalence (according to him,
this is the relationship between the source
and target segments) and lists two kinds of
equivalence (direct and indirect). In the
presentation of these kinds of equivalence,
he then offers a (non-exhaustive) list of
different translation strategies, which is
somewhat confusing. All in all, maybe a bit
too much subject matter for a short chapter?
Chapter V (Typographie et ponctuation)
is purely contrastive: Ballard compares the
typographical and punctuation systems in
French and in English, in order to analyse
and predict translation problems. This, and
some other parts of the book (especially
chapters VII-X), are very useful also for
foreign students of the two languages.
Ballard points out that punctuation does not
only affect the style but also the meaning of
an utterance.
In Chapter VI (La composante orale en
traduction), Ballard deals with another topic
that has interested him before (cf. Ballard
2001): translation problems caused by the
orality of written language. Here Ballard’s
chapter is rather a light introduction to the
subject. He mentions some means of iconic
language use such as onomatopoeia, giving
examples as well as translation suggestions.
As he proceeds to the markers of orality in
written language he again, albeit rapidly,
deals with typography. This feels a bit
repetitive right after the previous chapter.
However, the examples he gives, showing
for example how one can render by a certain
kind of word order in French the emphasis
expressed by italics in an English source text,
are again highly appropriate. Other markers
of orality he mentions are the truncating of
words and syntactic and stylistic means such
as ellipsis and dislocation. After that follows
a (too) brief discussion on reported speech
and the difficulties it causes in translation.
However, Ballard’s observations and the
advice he gives concerning the translation of
the reporting verb are plausible. One can see
throughout the book that the writer is very
experienced not only in teaching or doing
research on translation but also as a translator
(it turns out that he has translated English
fiction into French). The very last part of the
chapter deals with stylistic factors such as
euphony and rhythm, and how to avoid
awkward turns of phrase in French. Needless
to say, this is beneficial for non-French
speakers as well.
Chapter VII (Le paradigme culturel),
deals with cultural factors influencing
translation. Since not only languages but
also extralinguistic reality differs from one
country (or culture) to another, realia (which
Ballard terms «désignateurs culturels») are
a frequent cause of translation problems.
This chapter contains a lot of valuable
practical information that makes the book
seem partly like a handbook of translation.
260 Quaderns. Revista de traducció 12, 2005 Ressenyes
At the same time as Ballard introduces the
subjects he deals with, he gives lists of
toponyms, historical terms, money units etc.
in both languages. This is succeded by a
choice of translation strategies that Ballard
finds suitable for rendering culture-bound
elements. The second part of the chapter is
about translating proper nouns (with useful
lists again) and cultural allusions. At the end
of the chapter Ballard gives some references
for checking culture-bound elements.
Chapters VIII (La composante
idiomatique 1: Énoncés, expressions,
syntagmes) and IX (La composante
idiomatique 2: Les spécificités des langues),
form a whole since they are both about
language-specific factors in translation,
namely idiomacy. As Ballard puts it,
idiomatic forms of language are often
translated in an automatic way, by
substitution, and the translator only needs to
recognize them in order to act accordingly.
In Chapter VIII, Ballard enumerates different
subtypes of idiomacy such as proverbs,
idiomatic expressions, collocations, etc. (with
good lists of examples in both languages).
In Chapter IX, which seems somewhat brief,
he deals with lexis (giving some examples
of differences in some semantic fields),
morphology (contrasting e.g. verb formation)
and syntax in the two languages. Here there
are far too many references to the second
volume of the book, forthcoming.
The following two chapters, Chapter X
(La composante sociolinguistique: variétés
d’anglais et niveaux de langue) and XI
(Sociolinguistique et communication) are
also partly overlapping since they both are
about sociolinguistics. Chapter X is a
delightful presentation of different varieties
and registers of English. Special attention is
given to the differences between American
English and British English. Here Ballard’s
examples are again numerous. The
introduction to the different registers of
English is also instructive. Translation often
causes shifts in register, and these are treated
at the end of this chapter. According to
Ballard, shifts are sometimes excusable;
there might not be an equivalent for the
source-language item in the target system
or the cotext demands the shift. However,
some might not find this kind of explanation
acceptable, admits Ballard.
Chapter XI returns to some aspects of
the orality of language (cf. Chapter VI). In
this chapter, Ballard describes the way
language depicts the interpersonal relations
of speakers. There are indeed differences in
the usage of interjections, appellatives,
impersonal forms etc., not to mention forms
of address (tu/ vous vs. «you», or the archaic
«thou/ you») in French and in English. As
Ballard notes, special attention should be
paid to forms of address since they denote
different relations (closeness or distance,
even impoliteness) according to the
circumstances.
The closing chapter, Chapter XII (La
traduction comme contact de langues), is
about the way the source language acts on
the target language via translation. The way
it does this might be positive (enriching loan
words) or negative (interference, false
friends). In this chapter Ballard also
introduces an interesting concept called
pseudo-emprunt (pseudo loan). This is an
English word integrated into the French
vocabulary that has been given a completely
new meaning (e.g. baby foot, meaning «table
football» or slip meaning «panties»). These
can naturally cause translation problems both
in the translation from French to English and
from English to French. The chapter ends
with a brief typology of translation errors
caused by interference.
Versus is a book that the targeted
audience will find helpful. University
students, as well as their debutant teachers,
will certainly benefit from Ballard’s error
analysis, from his lists of translation strategies
and tips concerning the right way to translate
e.g. foreign names or idiomatic expressions.
For post-graduate students and scholars it
serves mainly as a repetition of the familiar.
The book is clearly written and it reads
nicely, thanks to the already mentioned
multiplicity of examples and some nice
Ressenyes Quaderns. Revista de traducció 12, 2005 261
touches of humour. The only weak spot in
this general reader-friendliness is the
somewhat confusing layout of some parts of
the book: lack of consistency in the usage of
e.g. bold-face, missing page numbers and
names, repetitiveness, overlaps and multiple
references to Volume II, forthcoming. In spite
of these minor errors, I would recommend
Versus to be used as a textbook especially in
departments of philology where languages
are traditionally taught via didactic
translation. This book might help teachers to
brush up their teaching methods.
Kristiina Taivalkoski-Shilov
University of Helsinki
262 Quaderns. Revista de traducció 12, 2005 Ressenyes
CHAUME, Frederic
Cine y traducción
Madrid: Cátedra, 2004, 336 p.
Fins ara, tot el que s’havia escrit sobre tra-
ducció audiovisual (TAV) (1) tenia un èmfa-
si particular (teoria enfront de pràctica,
procés enfront de producte, doblatge enfront
de subtitulat…) o (2) era massa imprecís en
els seus límits amb altres disciplines (estudis
literaris, estudis cinematogràfics, estudis
culturals…), i li mancava un autèntic enfo-
cament traductològic, o (3) abordava única-
ment algun problema particular de traducció
o (4) abordava problemes generals de tra-
ducció amb la pretensió de ser problemes
específics, sense un veritable enfocament
audiovisual. El llibre de Chaume supera
aquesta situació dels estudis de TAV, i hi
marca un abans i un després, atès que aques-
ta obra guarda un extraordinari equilibri i
rigor davant aquelles debilitats que marca-
va la producció sobre TAV. Chaume ja no
és un especialista d’una modalitat, d’un sol
nivell o d’un sol problema, sinó que els
maneja tots amb el mestratge del gran espe-
cialista, coneix a fons absolutament tots els
plecs i racons de la TAV amb la ciència que
deriva de qui és al mateix temps aficionat,
entusiasta, professional i estudiós del tema,
amb l’autoritat pròpia de qui, a més a més
d’estudiós de la traducció, ho és dels estu-
dis cinematogràfics, de la lingüística i de la
semiòtica. He participat en un bon nombre
de cursos que pretenien transmetre aproxi-
madament el mateix rang de coneixements
que els inclosos en aquest llibre; tots aquests
cursos han exigit el concurs d’un bon nom-
bre d’especialistes diferents i els continguts
dels cursos no han sigut de cap manera tan
harmònics ni tan eficaços com el llibre que
ressenye.
Chaume no es limita a fer seus els conei-
xements dels altres; els dóna un marc comú,
els homogeneïtza i a, més a més, aporta per-
sonalment una bona part d’aquests conei-
xements. Els autors que constitueixen les
seues fonts estan curosament elegits, com
només es pot fer quan es coneixen en pro-
funditat absolutament tots ells, i en el llibre
ofereix detalls que no són habituals, com
poden ser la justíssima i necessària revindi-
cació de l’obra de Natàlia Izard o el recurs a
algunes aportacions de Tino Martín.
Chaume ha fugit sempre del sectarisme
i del reduccionisme teòrics; no descarta cap
aportació teòrica que puga ser útil per al seu
objecte d’estudi: el seu enfocament és
necessàriament multidisciplinari, integrador
i eclèctic. El seu sentit comú li permet esca-
par de totes les trampes que aguaiten a l’es-
tudiós de la TAV (descripcions teòriques no
directament aplicables a la TAV; informació
i explicacions massa òbvies per banals o per
ja conegudes; falta de relació entre els pres-
supostos teòrics i l’estudi empíric; dicoto-
mia estèril entre doblatge i subtitulat;
explicació de la imposició del doblatge amb
arguments merament polítics; debat estèril
sobre el que és i el que deixa de ser comu-
nicació i traducció audiovisual partint d’una
definició establida; falta d’especificitat dels


BALLARD, Michel. Versus: la version réfléchie. Anglais-français. Volume 1. Repérages et paramètres

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Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert