La traduction du langage des fêtes roumaines d’hiver : communication interculturelle enrichissante
The translation of the language of Romanian winter celebrations: an enriching intercultural communication
Starting from general considerations encompassed in the context of cultural anthropology, our study undertakes to be mainly an onomasiological approach, based on decrypting the elements of a special as well as specialized language: the language of Romanians’ holy winter celebrations (from Saint Nicholas to Saint John). One of the objectives is to identify, at an intentional level, the strategy of translating into French the acknowledged Romanian carols, certain terms carrying a particular socio-cultural meaning, expressing the universe of ancestral customary laws, rural cuisine and the Romanian traditional costume, all highlighted during Christian celebrations.
The translator of the language of popular culture, equally knowledgeable about its regional versions, emphasizes, therefore, the cognitive frames and the cultural blueprints established in the Romanian language at no less than three terminological levels: the food-related one, the dress code one and, not lastly, the religious one. The cultural transfer overcomes the simple linguistic transfer from a language to another, identifying itself at most with an emotional transfer. Using their perilinguistic self-adjusting competence, explanatory of the strongly idiomatic terms, the translator plays the sacred role of a mediator between civilisations and cultures, while at the same time opening a window through which they can communicate.
Keywords: popular/religious language, Romanian winter celebrations, cultural transfer, adaptation, intercultural communication, Romania
