La traduction dans la culture multilingue: À la recherche des sources, des cibles et des territoires

The present article discusses some basic concepts of Descriptive Translation Studies by focussing on translation in multilingual societies, e.g. translations of Flemish novels into French in interwar Belgium. In multilingual geopolitical contexts, geo-linguistic barriers between ‘source’ and ‘target’ cultures are indefinite so that translations, both as a process and as a product, also function in the source culture, co-determining e.g. the textual translation strategies and the reception of the translated novels. The notion of ‘interculture’ becomes fundamental and the roles of intercultural agents (authors, translators, critics) are interchangeable. Still, ‘sources’ and ‘targets’ do survive in the perception of these actors, their actual definition being function of the internalisation of social structures and socio-cultural power relations by these individuals and of their positions in both ‘source’ and ‘target’ cultures. In order to redefine these basic concepts in a sufficiently flexible way, a more sociological orientation of DTS is thus necessary, integrating and elaborating the ‘habitus’ concept in the model.