Norme, pragmatisme et frustration

The television travel documentary is a curious thing: it can have elements of a commissioned report, a mannered travel guide and, more rarely, a personal creative work. Whatever its level of originality, it immerses the translator in a world s/he is more or less familiar with for a relatively short time, typically one to three weeks. The translation (or not) of proper nouns plays an important role in this exercise, of course. Beyond the sources and strategies employed to render and/or Gallicise place and people’s names, we will find out the special features of translating proper nouns in this specific genre, including the need to combine translating with writing phonetic instructions, given that a documentary text will subsequently be recorded by an actor. We will also detail the constraints of the genre: the choice of standard and so-called “reference” sources related to translation and pronunciation, as well as the pragmatism that the translator has to show when translating for a mass media with limited time available. Lastly, we will see in what way this compromise is often a source of frustration for the translator.