Negotiating the currents: Translation and translationality in Acadie

Abstract

Described as the ‘berceau de la traduction’ in Canada (Gallant 1985), Acadie no longer has legal boundaries but lives on in the language and culture of a Francophone community located primarily in Atlantic Canada. Doubly minoritised in contrast to Anglophone-Canadian and Québécois-Francophone majorities, Acadie experiences translation broadly and in ways that have yet to be thoroughly researched. This thesis investigates the particularities of translation in Acadie, producing Franco-Canadian case studies within the larger frameworks of English-to-French translation in Canada and of minority translation. To accomplish this, it begins by identifying translationality from societal, geographical, and cultural perspectives in three defining periods of Acadian history: sociopolitical neutrality (1713–1755), the Grand Dérangement (1755–1763), and the renaissance (1860s-1880s). It then goes on to analyse literary translation practice in Acadie des Maritimes by considering shifts between translations by Rose Després, Sophie M. Lavoie, Georgette LeBlanc, Antonine Maillet, Sonya Malaborza, and Serge Patrice Thibodeau and their respective source texts. Lastly, the study turns to geocritical, linguistic, and publishing perspectives to outline translational forces within the Acadian diaspora, namely in Québec and Louisiana. Together, these analyses tease out the particularities of translation in Acadie, the results of which are grouped according to, and correlated with, four aspects central to the Acadian imaginary. The ‘aboiteaux’ provide an apt metaphor for the paradoxically porous nature of walls and of regenerative possibilities held within the landscape; ‘défrichetage de parenté’ highlights dual storyteller and genealogist dynamics that enact a search for and an invention of ancestors in an Acadie emptied of its Francophone inhabitants; ‘grands dérangements’ harness mobility to illustrate the Deportation in translation, linguistic disruptions, and geopoetic transpositions; and the ‘mascaret’ facilitates moving through the Acadian diaspora from a decidedly maritime perspective that fosters flow and cyclicality. Ultimately, the study yields a vocabulary of Acadian translation that materialises in an ‘épreuve de la marge’ (Lord 2002). This contributes to establishing translation in Acadian studies, to challenging rigid bridges and monoliths in Canadian translation theory, to engaging minor perspectives in translation studies, and to addressing pressing environmental questions.