Femmes, joual et figure du traducteur: version polonaise d’Albertine, en cinq temps de Michel Tremblay

Abstract

Women, joual and the figure of a translator: a Polish versi on of Albertine, in Five Times by Michel Tremblay

The aim of the present article is to present the problem of translating into Polish the joual,
which is one of the important elements of the oeuvre of the Quebecois playwright Michel Tremblay. Using the play Albertine, in five times and its Polish translation by Jacek Mulczyk-Skarżyński, the present authors demonstrate both the specific nature of the original text and the characteristic features of the joual as well as the strategies applied by the translator. Albertine, in five times is a unique combination of the world of female characters and joual, inextricably connected with them, which means that such an important element of the text should be rendered in a translation with particular care. In the analysed corpus, the translator acquits himself well on the whole, although the technique he chose compensation, mainly on the lexical level brutalises the target language text. Of significance is the translator’s young age, which is also revealed in the lexical items he chose. Thus the translation itself shows the translator’s influence on the final text.