La Recherche de Scientificité en Traduction

The motif in this study originates from the question which we had been pondering, namely: how to translate without being a traitor? We utilized specimen translations taken from the work by Camara Laye entitled Le regard du Roi, translated by James Kirkup.We sought to establish the targets envisaged in the SLT (source language text) and the TLT (target language text) in order to arrive at a better assessment of the semantic values assigned to the translation. Efforts to identify a target specific to the work having proved abortive, we were obliged to adopt the course of establishing three orders of sentences for semantic values in the strict sense. We accordingly considered the sentences in the following orders: universal order, alternative order and specific order. We were able to demonstrate that a translation can be objective if the translator is successful in determining his/her target and proceeds by conforming to the orders enumerated above. Then, depending on the target aimed at, the translation can be viewed as either universal, alternative or specific.