Translating the Other: Lapland in French travel accounts and Finnish translations

摘要

This paper presents the preliminary results of an on-going research project on the image of Lapland in French travel literature and the ideologies in translation. The study examines the discourses, identities, and ideologies in the representations of the Finns and the Sami in both the source and target texts, with the methods of critical discourse and translation analysis. The results of the register analysis suggest that travel depictions are highly concrete texts with strong evaluative and classifying qualities and that they typically have a built-in point of view of the Other. The analysis of the target texts, however, indicates changes on both a functional and a semantic level. The paper discusses the possible reasons for the occurring translational shifts and the implications they have for the representation of the Other in the translated texts.