Les points aveugles de la confiance dans la rédaction et la traduction des textes pragmatiques (part2)

Abstract

The rhetoric of trust is not achieved in the same way when writing original texts as in translations. Given that writing is rarely the strong point of initial authors, the translator’s skills are fully called into play to devise markers of trust which are often lacking or imperfect in the original. But those are not the only differences: the truth or falsity of the arguments is a question better left to the author, whereas it is the translator’s job to ensure that the final product matches the general perception of the world at large. This encounter with the problematic of trust in written texts starts from an ideal model: namely reference scientific texts. It then juggles with various other genres (other scientific texts, real or reverse hoaxes, new age nonsense, multiple choice questions, etc.) and suggests strategies to eventually produce translations which are trustworthy. This paper is the follow-up to a contribution on the mechanics of trust and confidence in the translation market published in Jostrans's second issue.