Eugene A.

Nida

Born November 11, 1914

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Died August 25, 2011 (aged 96)

Madrid, Spain [1][2]

Alma mater University of Michigan

Occupation Linguist

Althea Sprague (m. 1943–1993)

Spouse(s)
 

Dr. Elena Fernandez (1997 to 2011)

Annie Brisset. A Sociocritique of Translation: Theatre and Alterity in

Quebec, 1968-1988. trans. Rosalind Gill and Roger Gannon. Toronto: U
of Toronto P, 1996.

LOUISE FORSYTH

Annie Brisset brings a new perspective to the study of two important decades
in Quebec theatre, from 1968 to 1988, during which both it and the society of
which it is an integral part were undergoing radical changes. 1968 was the
year in which Michel Tremblay's Les Belles-soeurshad its first theatre
performance. It was also the year of the founding of the Parti québécois.

Brisset has chosen a corpus of fifteen translations, most of which were

published by Les Éditions Leméac. This represents all the plays translated
into French and published in Quebec during these two decades. Brisset offers
explanations based on both practical and symbolic considerations for this
negligible number, and for the even more meagre number of translations of
English-Canadian plays. She augments considerably her small corpus of
plays translated into Québécois by including in her study the approximately
250 translated plays which were performed in the major theatres in Quebec
(Théâtre du Rideau Vert, Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, Théâtre de Quat'Sous,
Nouvelle Compagnie Théâtrale, Théâtre d'Aujourd'hui, Compagnie Jean-
Duceppe, Théâtre du Trident). These translations either originated in Quebec
and were unpublished or else were published in France. Most of the
approximately 100 plays produced during this period in Quebec but translated
and published in France were American. Brisset suggests that these seem to
have been included in theatre programs for their entertainment value or for
commercial reasons. She therefore does not analyse them further, except to
suggest that the spirit of contemporary American tragedy stirred chords of
sympathetic recognition in Quebec theatre audiences. Brisset includes these
foreign translations along with translations done in Quebec in her statistics.
They show that even the combined total of translations from other languages
produced in Quebec did not eclipse local Quebec production, despite
allegations sustained to the contrary by Quebec playwrights and literary
critics. During the period studied by Brisset, the not insignificant number of
324 original Quebec plays was performed in the major theatres. Foreign
plays, whether translations or francophone, represent on average 55% of the
total production. The reasons for the commercial success of foreign
translations would have been relevant considerations in Brisset's study, since
such success might have provided a more nuanced understanding in the
study of the ways in which Quebec theatre audiences listened to the voices of
the Other.

Translations included in the programs of smaller, experimental or touring

companies, or companies which did not exist throughout the entire two
decades from 1968 to 1988 were not included in the study.

Brisset raises questions about the choice of foreign works for translation in
Quebec and, particularly, about the changes, displacements, and structural
fragmentation which original texts underwent in the process of translation.
Many of these changes were so radical that Brisset frequently speaks of
"appropriation," "imitation," "adaptation," and "parody," rather than
unproblematised "translation." She argues convincingly that such radical
translation procedures provide important information on discursive practice in
both theatre and society, as well as on the institutions, values and ideologies
in the context of which this discursive practice emerged and evolved. Brisset's
study focuses on Alterity, the collective quest for identity, and the status in
Quebec theatre of languages, texts, people, and cultural artefacts which are
perceived from a nationalist perspective to be different or foreign. She
reminds her readers that the adoption of the Official Languages Act in 1968 in
Canada produced an explosion of translation activity, most of which was
administrative and commercial documents originating in anglophone Canada.
This helps to explain the resistance encountered in Quebec by notions of
translation. Events such as the creation, rise to power and electoral defeat of
the Parti québécois, the October Crisis, the sovereignty referendum and the
defeat of the Meech Lake accord occurred during the two decades studied.
Nationalism was the dominant ideology. Brisset finds without exception that
theatre translation was used to serve the sovereigntist agenda, favoring an
emphasis on Quebec's language, Québécois re-actualisation, and an inward-
looking isolationism, and discouraging curiosity about or dialogue with the
Other, whether that Other represented Anglo-Canadian hegemony, the
French legacy or some other form of heterogeneity inside or outside the
borders of Quebec: "The Other has nothing to say to me. The Other is
irrevocably different, just as I am. The voice of the Other silences my voice. I
must therefore silence the voice of the Other" (58). The study of translated
plays suggests that there were determining forces at play serving to remove
traces of alterity and difference. As a result, the traditional goal of the
translator to be as faithful as possible to the original text was set aside; little
attention was drawn to original authors, languages, and historical periods;
paratextual elements such as cover design suggested that translators,
including the famous Michel Tremblay, were in fact the authors of translated
pieces; translation itself became a subject for dramatic texts.

Brisset devotes considerable time to close textual study of certain texts and
translations. The work is well done. Theatre scholars will read with fascination
and interest her perceptive reading of, for example, Jean-Claude Germain's A
Canadian Play/Une plaie canadienne and Les Faux Brillants de Félix-Gabriel
Marchand, Réjean Ducharme's Le Cid maghané, and, particularly, Michel
Garneau's Macbeth, where Scotland is represented as the equivalent of
"Not'pauv'pays" and where the language of the play resonates with the turns
of phrase of the beloved militant Quebec poets of the period. Brisset sees as
an objective of such translations the elevation of a vernacular language to a
national, literary and cultural language.

However, Brisset's book is not primarily about theatre. It is instead about

translation. Brisset's stated purpose in this book is, specifically, to study "the
conditions of operation for the translative function in a given society at a given
time." Since translation is a discursive act which is "fundamentally bound to
the time and place of its realization" and "subject to 'the order of discourse' of
the target society," she has examined "how and under what conditions the
'discourse' of the foreign text becomes an integral part of the 'discourse' of the
target society." Because the phenomenon of discourse is social in nature,
involving multiple utterances, Brisset needed a body of work to study, and not
just a few sample texts, for her examination of the translative function. She
chose a body of dramatic literature for this case study: translation into
Québécois theatre between 1968 and 1988: "Our aim is to analyse
the relation between translation and social discourse in a field which happens
to be that of the theatre in Quebec" (see "Introduction"). Brisset demonstrates
through careful analysis that the selection of literary texts to be translated and
the discursive choices made by translators are determined in large part by the
norms, values and dominant ideologies in the receiving society as established
by literary institutions. This is particularly the case in theatre, an essentially
social cultural form. Brisset perceives close links among socio-political events
in Quebec, the languages of politics and literature, and translation in and for
the theatre. Her study led her to a fascinating recognition of the mutations
which the genre of 'translation' itself underwent during the period in response
to discursive imperatives of Quebec society, its theatre, and its literature. She
arrives at the important conclusion that: "When translation becomes an active
participant in the development of a literary genre, as it did in the theatre in
Quebec, an examination of translation practices can reveal how works
emerge and become legitimized within the literary institution" (200).

Brisset has used polysystem theory for her study of translation in

contemporary Quebec theatre. According to this theory, translations can be
appropriately understood only in the rich and complex context of multiple
systems in both source and target societies: knowledge, institutions,
ideologies, representations, political situations, visions for the future, collective
memories, etc. It is these frequently concealed systems which dictate the
relations of subjects to nature, others, themselves, and cultural representation
systems. It is also these complex systems which make culture and
communication possible through the production of postulates shared by all
members of a given collectivity in a given place at a given time. Brisset's use
of translation in contemporary Quebec theatre as a case study to demonstrate
the validity of this theory is thorough and convincing.

Less convincing and less thorough, however, is her study of Quebec

theatre as theatre from 1968 to 1988. The reader who happens to use this
book in order to obtain an overview of Quebec theatre for the period can
receive only distorted information. The absence of mention of theatre
programs in small, experimental, or touring companies has already been
noted. There is no mention of important playwrights of the period who were
not involved in translation initiatives, not even of playwrights, such as Marco
Micone, who wrote francophone theatre although their first language is not
French. Nor is there any mention of important new initiatives such as feminist
theatre. Critics of theatre and dramatic literature were consulted only to
support the thesis of a literary institution strongly backing the social discourse
of nationalism and the quest for identity. They were not consulted for a richer
appreciation of the theatrical and literary qualities of the works discussed. This
leads too often in the book to generalisations about theatrical quality while
Brisset is paying attention only to aspects of the translative function and not
acknowledging other rich qualities of the work. Brisset's failure to distinguish
at any point between the written language of the dramatic text, whether
original or in translation, and the multiplicity of verbal and non-verbal
languages of performance, leads to an impoverishment of her appreciation of
these texts as theatre and encourages her to make generalisations about the
"cognitive impact on the consciousness of the spectator" which has probably
not been empirically observed or verified.

In her sensitive discussion of Réjean Ducharme's Le Cid maghané, Brisset

acknowledges that despite the massive displacements in structure and
language carried out on Corneille's original Le Cid in response to pressures of
social discourse, the play, which "presents a new state of affairs, a new vision
of the world and of man in the world" (86), has many other important aesthetic
qualities. Brisset also suggests in her conclusion where she looks at the
present and the future that the "main focus of the new Québécois theatre is
aesthetic experimentation" (198). She usually fails throughout the book,
however, to acknowledge the rich aesthetic experimentation which took place
from 1968 to 1988 in Quebec theatre. As a result, she creates the unfortunate
impression of a parochial, prejudice-ridden theatre and society, which, while
demonstrated through her analysis of the translative function, is not a fair or
adequate reflection of the larger and more complex phenomenon of Quebec
theatre.