La langue mondiale: traduction et domination par Pascale Casanova (review)

Reviews 235 the reported message. The diachronic studies analyze the semantics and evolution of a range of expressions, such as puisque and il m’est avis que, commonly found in earlier stages of French. Scholars, editors, and translators of historical texts will find useful insights including, for example, the importance and reliability accorded to dreams and visions in the Middle Ages; speakers’certainty in the veracity of dreams is reflected linguistically in the marking of evidentiality. The volume largely succeeds in demonstrating the interplay of médiativité, polyphonie, and modalité, while revealing subtle semantic and pragmatic properties of a range of high-frequency constructions. Authentic corpora data complement careful analyses, although the acceptability judgments proffered in one study of Old French are suspect and demand further justification: By definition, native speakers are not available for this stage of the language. Globally, one wishes that the findings had been related more thoroughly to previous work on these issues, either in French or more broadly. Nevertheless, the volume is a worthwhile addition to university libraries, and individual chapters could find their place in graduate or advanced undergraduate courses on French linguistics. University of California, Santa Cruz Bryan Donaldson Casanova, Pascale. La langue mondiale: traduction et domination. Paris: Seuil, 2015. ISBN 978-2-02-128060-9. Pp. 130. 18 a. The 2016 Semaine de la langue française et de la francophonie offered yet another forum to keen the Cassandra-like prophecies of the fall of the French language, a victim of Anglo-Saxon imperialism.With this oft-repeated trope in mind, I cautiously opened Casanova’s volume. Happily, the reflexive list of proscribed Anglicisms was absent. Instead, the author presents a carefully articulated, textually-based argumentation framed by translation theory and furnishing a powerful perspective on the notions of linguistic and cultural dominance. Although Casanova acknowledges the desirability of linguistic diversity, she insists that diachronically, languages have been hierarchized according to their proximity to power and prestige. The directionality of translation signifies the value of the respective languages in the linguistic marketplace: Thus, translation typically proceeds from a nonprestigious language to the dominant language. Casanova begins her case studies in the Middle Ages, when Latin was the instrument of the Church, civic affairs, and knowledge-producers. Later, Du Bellay’s Défense et illustration (1549) sought to enrich the language and assert its domination, in part through an appropriation of Latin lexical items. Such an act should be accomplished by translators-as-embellishers, who increase linguistic capital rather than by faithful copiers. Whereas Du Bellay referred to translation as an act of pillage, English Renaissance translators, drawing on French as well as the Classics, referred to “conquest,” a “hijacking of wealth and power” (67). Their activity was that of the “ornamentalist” who enriched, rather than labored as a hack to fidelity. It was only with nineteenth-century German philosophers and poets that the goal of fidelity became primal. Through the agency of fidelity, German would accumulate its capital, becoming the unique language of reference, the“Latin of Moderns.” Returning to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Casanova considers the subversion of fidélité by the invention of les belles infidèles, the aesthetic adaptation of classical works to the mœurs of the period. Their appearance coincided with the rise of the literary salon, animated by women who often lacked access to classical texts. As a final case study, Casanova analyzes the offensive posture of Giaocomo Leopardi (1798–1837) in his attempt to destabilize the dominance of French. Italian’s spontaneity and audacity are a useful foil to the sterile“reason”governing French production. Casanova’s conclusion rejoins contemporary concerns, lamenting not only the dominance of English, but also the effacement of translators. Their production is viewed as self-evident, a mere rendering of facile textual relationships. Casanova’s volume impresses and delights with its rigorous focus on texts, complemented by insightful reflections on the signifying power of languages in the act of translation. Her démarche, couched in Bourdieu’s sociological framework, offers powerful insights into the dynamics of linguistic hierarchies. Yet her conclusion disappoints: Condemning the linguistic domination of English, Casanova offers no remedy. Perhaps globalization has institutionalized the linguistic marketplace...