Translating 'Harry Potter' into French.

In this posting, I want to begin to talk about how the Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling have been translated into French by the translator Jean-François Ménard, who is also a writer of original children's literature of his own, in French. In the same way as i've spoken, in earlier postings to this blog, about the translations of various aspects of Jules Verne' novels from French into English, I want to talk about the Harry Potter renderings into French from the viewpoint of Descriptive-Explanatory Translation Studies (DTS) and especially norms of translation as one of the underlying causes of translation decisions and outcomes.

Gideon Toury is the 'father' of Descriptive-Explanatory Translation Studies and of norm theory in translation; when I wrote my MA dissertation on the translation of Rowling into French, one of my main sources was Toury's seminal monograph Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond (1995). Other translation scholars who have written extensively on topics of multiple causation of translation outcomes include Siobhan Brownlie, Andrew Chesterman and Anthony Pym. Victor Longa has written about complexity science as applied to translation, while Lawrence Venuti has written about the concepts of foreignization and domestication in describing translation types; the former concept has similarities with Toury's notion of adequacy or source text-orientedness, the latter concept being somewhat akin to Toury's acceptability or target-orientedness, e.g. idiomaticity of target language, use of target culture familiar references, and so on.

What were the norms of translation which were apparently followed by the French translator of Rowling's bestselling novels? And why were such norms followed? Who and what were the different multiple influences on the final form which Harry Potter took in his Francophone reincarnation? These are the sort of questions for which I try to suggest explanations in this and in future postings.


I should mention at the outset that the norms of translation of Anglophone children’s literature into French appear to have shifted over the last number of decades. In the 1950s, Enid Blyton’s children's novels, such as the stories from such series as the Famous Five and the Secret Seven were translated, sometimes anonymously, into French (i.e. the publishers didn't bother to give the translator's name) and all characters and place names were given French equivalents. These translations were thus totally target culture (TC)-oriented.

On the other hand, Rowling’s novels show, through their French translations, that a hybrid orientation is now the norm, as some character names and place names have been kept in their original English forms, while others have been creatively rendered into French by clever, witty choices on the translator's part.

Blyton’s novels are perhaps considered to be of less literary merit than Rowling’s. The Blyton novels may seem less original, being more repetitive and, in a sense, ‘mass-produced’. I therefore suggest that Blyton’s novels had lower status, and were, and indeed probably still are, perceived as being less canonical than Rowling’s within the polysystem of French-language literature for younger readers. For this reason, it was probably uncontroversial to completely domesticate Blyton's novels when translating them into French, disguising their British origins and, indeed, concealing the fact that they were translations. But Rowling's novels are global bestsellers, cultural sensations; therefore, as French readers would have been hugely aware of all things Potter-related through publicity and films, the translator may have had less freedom to alter ST details in his rendering.


Though major characters such as Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley and his family thus do not have their names altered by the French translator, some of the other characters' names as coined by Rowling have been inventively rendered in French by Gallic-sounding equivalents which show the translator's creative, personal imprint. It is a notable feature of Rowling’s novels that the names of many characters are chosen for comic effect, and help to communicate essential personality traits. Thus, the character Madam Hooch becomes Madame Bibine – the term ‘hooch’ in English refers to an alcoholic drink, whereas ‘bibine’ in French signifies weak beer or dishwater. Professor Sprout is rendered as ‘le professeur Chourave’, the latter French term referring to a type of cabbage – this character is a teacher of horticulture. Mad-Eye Moody becomes Fol Oeil Maugrey, the latter word recalling the French verb ‘maugréer’, meaning to grumble. Moaning Myrtle is translated as Mimi Geignarde, the latter word perfectly conveying the notion of whingeing or whining, while the name Mimi is typically French. Professor Snape, a name suggesting a snappy, irritable character, becomes ‘Rogue’ in translation, this being a French adjective conveying the notion of a person being haughty or arrogant, qualities which describe this character appropriately. The school caretaker, Filch ( a word meaning to pilfer or take surreptitiously, thus conveying the slyness of the character), becomes Rusard, a name recalling the French word ‘rusé’, meaning sly or cunning. Furthermore, the suffix ‘-ard’ is derogatory. Adalbert Waffling becomes Adalbert Lasornette – the lexical item ‘sornettes’ communicates the notion of balderdash, thus being an apt equivalent to the source text (ST) surname’s connotations. Bartemius Crouch becomes Bartemius Croupton – in French, the term ‘être à crouptons’ signifies the idea of crouching. Emeric Switch is suitably rendered as Emeric Changé. Miranda Goshawk is rendered as Miranda Fauconnette, the latter word conveying the idea of a young, perhaps also female, falcon or hawk. The French suffix ‘-ette’ is, of course, sometimes perceived negatively as a deprecatory appendage indicating female gender. Quentin Trimble, the author of a textbook on the Dark Arts, whose surname comically suggests fear, becomes Quentin Jentremble, a cleverly chosen equivalent. The caretaker’s cat, Mrs Norris, who is portrayed as sharing her owner’s unsympathetic persona, becomes ‘Miss Teigne’, the latter lexical item communicating the concept of a shrew or vixen, with the term ‘Miss’ being, perhaps, a fashionable Anglicism in French.

The wizarding exams known as OWLs (Ordinary Wizarding Levels) are cleverly translated by the term BUSE (Brevet Universel de Sorcellerie Elementaire). This translation is oriented towards TC norms, given that the lexical item ‘brevet’ refers to educational certificates. The ST pun on the acronym ‘owl’ is matched, in that the French word ‘buse’ signifies a buzzard. Similarly, the ST item NEWTs (Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests), the Leaving Certificate of wizards, is rendered as ASPIC (Accumulation de Sorcellerie Particulièrement Intensive et Contraignante), with the French word ‘aspic’referring to an asp, and, humorously, to a type of meat jelly. These two translations, while unable to precisely reproduce the ST items ‘owl’ or ‘newt’, are nevertheless competent attempts at achieving equivalent effect. The French translator is here being individually creative and self-inscribing, in choosing alternative humorous French 'jeux de mots', just as the various translators of Jules Verne's wordplays chose their own English equivalent puns, as discussed in a previous posting to this blog.

The wizarding newspaper known as the ‘Daily Prophet’ is altered to ‘La Gazette des sorciers’, the word ‘gazette’ having literary or humorous connotations in French and thus constituting a TC-oriented translation, and a sort of neutralization which cancels out the slightly more humorous title of the original. The Sorting Hat, an artefact used to choose which of the four houses of the school of wizardry each new pupil will be assigned to, becomes ‘le Choixpeau Magique’, a pun which cleverly conveys the notions of ‘chapeau’ and ‘choix’. This example involves the substitution of a source text non-wordplay by a target text wordplay, which is one of the procedures for translating wordplay which have been documented by the translation scholar Dirk Delabastita. This target wordplay also compensates, perhaps, for the 'loss' of other ST wordplays and of other ST humorous effects. Compensation is an important strategy within the translator's armoury of approaches.

The ST neologism ‘Muggles’, which refers to non-magical humans, is creatively rendered by a TT neologism ‘Moldus’, with 'molle' humorously having the sense of 'soft', to try to convey equivalent effect to the notion of 'mug' in the original. Yet the name of the wizarding game of ‘Quidditch’ (a neologism which has now found its way into the Collins English Dictionary) is unaltered, perhaps because of copyright constraints. It is reported that a video game version of Quidditch is about to be marketed, so that this label no doubt represents a valuable international brand name which it was advisable to preserve cross-culturally.

There is a hybrid but principally TL orientation evident in the rendering of the shop name ‘Quality Quidditch Supplies’ as ‘Magasin d’accessoires de Quidditch’ – while the title of the game Quidditch itself is transferred, the rest of this title is toward the TL in normative orientation, being in French and also having only the first word ‘Magasin’ capitalised (apart from Quidditch). This capitalisation of the first word only is the norm in French organisational titles. The alliteration in the ST shop title is not reproduced in the TL, partly because of material differences between English and French and also perhaps because of conflicting choices here facing the translator, between achieving semantic accuracy and achieving equivalent poetic effect; accuracy was prioritized. This is also another example of neutralization and standardization.

‘Gambol and Japes Wizarding Joke Shop’ becomes ‘Pirouette et Badin, le magasin de farces et attrapes pour sorciers’. This translation clearly seeks out Gallic equivalents for ST connotations. The notion of ‘gambolling’ is rendered by the TL item ‘pirouette’, with similarly playful connotations. The ST pun on the name ‘Japes’ is skilfully matched by the TT item ‘Badin’, which refers to ‘un farceur’. There is modulation to TL idiomatic usage in the rendering of ‘Dr Filibuster’s Fabulous Wet-Start, No-Heat Fireworks’ as ‘Pétards mouillés du Dr Flibuste. Explosion garantie sans chaleur’, which also preserves the humour of the original.

As regards domesticating translations of certain place names, the village of Hogsmeade is rendered as Pré-au-Lard, a neologism which creates somewhat equivalent effect by reproducing the notion of a meadow and of bacon or the fat of a pig. The School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Hogwarts, is rendered by the neologism ‘Poudlard’ which suggests the idea of a hog’s lice, a translation which parallels the unpleasantness of the ST image, while simultaneously Gallicizing it for heightened acceptability, losing the sonorous, British original name. As regards the four houses which the school comprises, Gryffindor is rendered as Gryffondor, which conveys the image of the claws of the lion who is the symbol on the coat-of-arms; Hufflepuff beomes Poufsouffle, which secures equivalence in suggesting the notion of a puff or breath; Ravenclaw is adapted to Serdaigle, which suggests the claw of an eagle, this change of bird having undoubtedly been made for phonetic reasons, while Slytherin becomes Serpentard, conveying the notion of a snake slithering, with the negative connotations intended by the original author for this name, carried into the TT, but in accordance with French morphology. On the other hand, major place names such as London, Scotland and England are not disguised, but are accorded their established translations.

The rendering of proper names in this corpus thus demonstrates the hybridity of adequacy and acceptability characterising this translation. The more important ST names – those of central characters – have been preserved, thus orienting the TTs towards SL and SC (source culture) norms. Yet in many other cases, the translator has been at pains to devise a TL equivalent neologism, and this tendency illustrates a leaning towards target cultural norms.
There thus appear to be contradictory or opposing norms in operation in the translation of proper names, given that some are transferred directly, even where they would create pronunciation difficulties for the French reader or problems in understanding the allusions, while others are skilfully Gallicized. This is why it is felt that copyright specifications and JK Rowling's own preferences may have dictated or at least influenced the preservation of certain significant proper names in translation. Further, the global reach and celebrity of the Harry Potter stories and characters is such that even readers in non-English-speaking communities such as Francophone regions are familiar with the character names and locations, in English, used by Rowling, and are thus aware that what they read in, say, French, is a translation, and they therefore may expect that the source language principal names will be left intact. Therefore, French readers may have been seen as less tolerant or credulous of a complete French makeover for Harry Potter's world; that world had to remain essentially British.

However, the use of language throughout this corpus conforms to TL norms, in that every effort is made to ensure that idiomatic, acceptable French is used.

In future postings, I will talk about other aspects of the Potter renderings into French. I've also been doing some research on how other contemporary children's literature such as the Series of Unfortunate Events (Lemony Snicket) have been translated into French, and how other contemporary popular fiction, by US writers such as John Grogan (Marley et moi - mon histoire d'amour avec le pire chien du monde) and thriller-writer John Grisham have been translated into French, and I will speak more about these translations in future postings.

Suffice it to say, for now, that the French renderings of Snicket, Grogan, Grisham and of Philip Pullman (the Sally Lockhart series) seem to show similar translation strategies to those observed in the Harry Potter translations. Thus, there is a general use of idiomatic French, producing, therefore, domesticating translations, and complete and accurate renderings are also the norm. Most ST proper names, of characters and Anglophone place names, are transferred without change into French, and there is some evidence of SL interference which can detract from the idiomaticity of the French TL usage; this points to the hybrid nature of these translations, which are mainly domesticating but partly foreignizing, mainly Target Language-oriented but partly Source Language-oriented. In the French renderings of novels by John Grisham, the translator strives to use equivalent French legal terms in order to translate the American legal terms used by Grisham, so this is a domesticating, acceptable, target culture-oriented approach. On the other hand, the French translator transfers, intact, the names of the US characters, place names, and institutional (including judicial bodies) names of Grisham's original, so that there is a hybrid of source culture and target culture orientation in the Grisham French renderings. There are probably similar multiple influences on this hybridity of translation strategy as were postulated for the Rowling renderings, viz. the French readers' awareness of the US setting of the originals, thus, their expectation of 'honesty' in the translation. Loyalty to the US setting entails the transfer of proper names, intact, to the French renderings.

These observations point to the complexity and unpredictability of translation, its multiple causation, and to the nature of translational language as being a sort of Third Code, in which the translator has, as translation theorist Andrew Chesterman has described it, 'reduced linguistic control' and is in a state of what his fellow translation scholar Siobhan Brownlie calls 'disorientation'. I will discuss these concepts from Translation Theory - viz. adequacy, acceptability, foreignization, domestication, Third Code, reduced linguistic control and disorientation - in greater detail in future articles.

I would be interested in hearing from readers about their thoughts on how contemporary popular English-language literature has been translated into other languages. What are people's opinions of the quality of such translations, and how do they describe and explain the translators' strategies?