English, a new world language, dominates after French in XVIIIe century. As a sociologist, Pascale Casanova shows that the use of the world language provides authority to those who master it. But what to do, since a global language must exist to allow universal communication ?
More than fifteen years ago, in 1999, Pascale Casanova turned the enchanted vision of the literary world on its head and showed, with supporting examples, that the Republic of Letters was a global field for the production of the universal, with its centers and its peripheries, its “ Greenwich meridian » and its competitive struggles.
From the language of literature to language in general, the author continues his reflection with the same powerful sobering effect: contemporary good conscience but also formal linguistics postulate equality between languages whose diversity is a precious asset, preserve – although in fact dozens of languages die every year. However, today as yesterday, there is a global language, a universal communication medium, central languages, peripheral languages, all striving to exist on the international scene. The interest of this small, impactful book, inserted in a combat collection, rests on the clarity of its epistemological postulates, the sharpness of the analysis in the face of the often soothing comments on the question, and finally on the honesty of its conclusions.
The French reader, a lover of languages, but subject to repeated injunctions to practice English at work as well as in the street, will recognize himself in the paradoxes that Pascale Casanova brings to light. He will even be able to draw from it a sort of practical linguistic morality.
A sociology of linguistic exchanges
Pascale Casanova, French-speaking, uses a language dominated by English, the new global language of XXe century after French had been between the XVIIe and the end of XIXe century: posture of dominated, ex-dominant, which is not the worst, she says, for meditating on the conditions and constraints of linguistic power. Vanity too, because everything passes, including the domination of the world language, as shown by his brief but dense diachronic investigation, supported by numerous works on the history of language. The domination of Latin as a religious and scholarly language from Antiquity to the Renaissance, replaced by French then English in the last century, perhaps waiting for Chinese. Not sure…
This historical sociology of linguistic exchanges, carried out vigorously under the auspices of the thought of Pierre Bourdieu, conceals many surprises and exercises a real power of unveiling. Thus, the global language is not necessarily that of economic or military power. The Romans dominated the ancient world for a long time, while Greek remained the language of elites practicing concrete bilingualism. Likewise, French remains until the beginning of the XXe century the language of international trade, while the British Empire was at the height of its power.
This effect of inertia, revealed by structural analysis, explains the book’s new assessments of what Casanova calls “the translation operations », bilingualism (use of two languages by the same translator) or diglossia (the use of two idioms corresponding to two different functions: language of religion, science, politics, etc.). Usually considered as means of escaping the power of the world language, they only reinforce it.
In reality, if, at the individual level, the use of the world language is valued and provides authority to those who hold it, at the collective level, bilingualism and the abundance of translations is the clearest indicator of domination. . The world language translates little. Its citizens rarely speak other languages. On the contrary, the more peripheral the language, the more polyglot its users will be and the more abundant the translation will be. This is true for English today ; it was just as much XVIIIe century, when French dominated.
The international field of languages
But what are we talking about when we talk about translation? ? The second interest of the book is to historically link different theories of translation, not only with an objective situation of the international field of languages, but with what François Hartog calls the “ regimes of historicity “. Thus, the centuries-old domination of Latin until the end of the Middle Ages rests on the undisputed and indisputable authority of ancient authors, paragons of an unsurpassable world. The feeling of historical decline ends with the Renaissance, when the men of the XVIe century want to create something new through an active, predatory return to the Ancients: a translation-appropriation-imitation of which du Bellay becomes the corypheus in Defense and illustration of the French language. Imitate the Ancients, that is to say translate them, but contraband (without quoting them) and, finally, as our national poet recommends, “ desecrate the sacred relics of Antiquity » !
At XVIIe century, the balance of power between French and Latin changed ; the mood of the times too. From now on, contemporaries no longer have the impression of being these “ dwarves perched on the shoulders of giants » that Bernard of Chartres described in XIIe century. The Moderns, sure of themselves and their language, now advocate a translation that pleases the public and accommodates the clarity, elegance, chastity and taste of an idiom which has, so to speak, naturalized these virtues. THE “ beautiful infidels » (thus named by Gilles Ménage in XVIIe century) are these assumed ethnocentric translations, where Abbé Prévost, translator of Pamela by the Englishman Samuel Richardson, does not hesitate to delete passages that are boring and contrary to French decorum.
In short, nothing here that resembles our contemporary judgment of a necessary fidelity to the original text: this last theory only emerges at the beginning of the XIXe century, on the side of German scholars who thus found reason to contest the supremacy of the French language. French is thus the arbiter of modernity until the middle of the XXe century – like today, the English –, the avant-garde, the future in progress…
Linguistic atheism
Or at least we believe so: speakers of the dominant language, but also others who give credit to English (for example) and attach value to its so-called specific skills. Casanova precisely emphasizes the performative dimension of these phenomena, of a quasi-religious nature: to believe in the power of a language is to make it exist and perpetuate its hierarchy. So what to do, since, in any case, a global language must exist to allow universal communication ?
First of all, replies Casanova, we must adopt an atheist position, that is to say not believe that French is more “ elegant » or English plus « pragmatic » ; use the world language when necessary, integrating the idea that with a language, there are categories, patterns of thought, ways of seeing that we adopt surreptitiously ; avoid using this global language when it is not necessary and prefer the principle of “ each in their own language » if it does not interfere with understanding.
The final judgment is dark: globalization and the interpenetration of languages (but always in a single direction) make domination more fatal. To loosen the grip and preserve pluralism, we would need nothing less than a form of withdrawal of languages and cultures, a greater distance, contrary, obviously, to the logic in progress. Or take refuge in the untranslatable, as promoted by the American theorist Emily Apter engaged in parallel reflections ?
Pascale Casanova, pessimistic but offensive, persists and signs, finding in the Italian poet Leopardi a friendly voice which, at the beginning of the XIXe century, became the melancholy witness of the linguistic domination of his time (French) and the energetic actor of its challenge through the creation of an Italian-Tuscan poetry whose spells ennobled the nascent Italy.