Critique des traductions en classe : humour et ironie

In the classroom and during college classes, philologists-to-be learn translating and interpreting from foreign languages into their mother tongue (version in French) and from their mother tongue into foreign languages (thème). Certainly, they do numerous errors which result mostly from: i) lack of understanding of text components, ii) literal translation of idioms, iii) linguistic and cultural incompetence, extreme as far as C language and civilisation are concerned (C stands for different than A, language of the original, and B, language of the translation). Unfortunately, a lot of so-called basic errors emerge in published works translated. In this paper, abundant examples of ridiculous mistakes in tranlsations of books from Romance languages (Romanian included) and English into Polish are quoted and discussed. Some books published can be called festivals of translational incompetence. High school or college students do still learn their job, so teachers and lecturers should point out their mistakes, but they should not be ironic nor deride at student's work. Students are vulnerable persons, teachers may not discourage them with being venomous. On the other side, printed translations peppered with comical errors are shame and scandal in the family. The author postulates mocking them without mercy.