Represented Orality and Translation: Implicature in Novel Dialogue

Abstract

Novelists have to describe, comment on, or at the very least use phonic markers in ways that will indicate the nuances that their characters have used when speaking. But how can writers do that in a clear, non-ambiguous way? In oral communication, each meaningful intonation that is expressed has its own vocal signal. For translators, the work is equally difficult. Because these units of expression are rarely translingual, what changes have to be made in relation to the original text? Using samples taken from books translated into French, this paper analyses the connections between the written subtext and what would have been said by a French speaker. The paper treats translated vocal markers and meanings, the correspondence with vocal signs, and comparison between the high degree of complexity of specific acoustic signifiers and the limited resources that writers and translators have to explain them.