La retraduction de Huckleberry Finn: Huck a-t-il (enfin) trouvé sa voix ?

Abstract

The various French translations of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn have often been criticised for their translational flaws, especially in the way they have handled the language specificities in the novel. The aim of this article is to see how the new transla tion by Bernard Hœpffner, published by Tristram in 2008, breaks with some earlier ver sions as to the way Huck’s voice has been translated. Attention will be devoted to the project underlying the new translation, which will be put to the test through the examina tion of quantitative but mostly qualitative aspects and the study of various markers (lexical, phono-graphological, morphological, syntactic and grammatical) that show how inventive the translator has been. The last part of this article will focus on the reception of this translation in France and on the qualifications that might be brought to bear on this unanimously acclaimed work.