Handling Information Structure in French and English. Or how to lose your mind in translation

Have you ever come across a text that looks simple enough but ends up having you tear your hair out in frustration?  Take a look at the following little text from a popular French TV magazine.  It discusses a piece of pastry.

Fauchon: Coup de Cœur d’un jour ou de toujours, l’entremets “Pensée sur le Cœur” se savoure entre amoureux. Son cœur rosé dévoile une fleur intensément pourpre pour faire chavirer romantiques, timides et passionnés. Sur une base de meringue craquante à la fraise se découvre deux cœurs de coulis aux saveurs fraise et agrume yuzu. S’ensuit une mousse au chocolat « Passionato », le tout drapé d’une ganache vanille Bourbon et d’un velours rose. Cette création pâtissière a été réalisée exclusivement, à l’occasion de la Saint-Valentin, par Fauchon. Télérama, N° 3238, Feb. 1, 2012, p. 11

Simple enough, you think, as you sit down to your laptop and start typing.  But little by little you begin to wonder if it is actually translatable.  The language used to describe this little cake lies somewhere between hysteria and mysticism!  No way to get the same effect in English!

At a more mundane level, one of the main problems it poses is how to handle sentence structure, notably what linguists call “theme” and “rheme”.  For a closer look at how to manage the complex structural problems it poses, continue reading.

To start with, here’s the Google Translation version.

A one-day or forever favorite, the “Pensée sur le Cœur” dessert is to be enjoyed between lovers. Its pink heart reveals an intensely purple flower to capsize romantics, shy people and passionate people. On a base of crunchy strawberry meringue, two coulis hearts with strawberry and yuzu citrus flavors are revealed. This is followed by a “Passionato” chocolate mousse, all draped in a Bourbon vanilla ganache and pink velvet. This pastry creation was made exclusively, on the occasion of Valentine’s Day, by Fauchon.

Not satisfied with this, I rewrote it as follows.

Whether you fall in love with it for a day or forever, the Passionflower cream cake can only be appreciated by lovers. The deep purple flower hiding in its pink heart will have the romantic, the timid and the passionate swooning with delight. You discover twin fruit sauce hearts on the strawberry meringue foundation, one strawberry, the other yuzu citrus. Then you come to a Passionato chocolate mousse covered with a Bourbon vanilla ganache and pink velvet. This exclusive pasty item was created for St. Valentine’s Day by Fauchon.

Now for the discussion.

A branch of linguistics which has come to the fore in recent years is called Information Structure (IS).  This concerns the way sentences are constructed in various languages to place certain pieces of information in strategic positions to mark them as pertinent to the context, or not. The traditional terms used here are Theme (alternatively Topic) and Rheme (alternatively Comment), the former being “what is under discussion”, the latter being “what is said about it”.  In the unmarked case, the theme/topic corresponds to the subject of the sentence, the rheme/comment to the predicate.

Now, French and English have different ways of dealing with Information Structure.  English for instance uses the Passive Voice to move pertinent information into the subject/theme, position, while French resorts to a variety of structural moves to achieve the same result.  To see how this works in our little pastry text, let’s take the sentences one by one.

Analysis

• Coup de Coeur d’un jour ou de toujours, ⇒ Whether you fall in love with it for a day or forever,

I think the clumsy calque provided by Google needs to be reformulated as an indirect question.  This is fairly straightforward.  But look at the underlying structure of the second part of the sentence.

• l’entremets “Pensée sur le Cœur” se savoure entre amoureux. ⇒ the Passionflower cream cake can only be appreciated by lovers.

In terms of IS, the French sentence has been reorganized to put the pastry’s name in the topic slot. Its “Deep Structure » (DS) is <les amoureux savourent l’entremets>.  While English uses the passive voice to get the same effect, note that French uses a reflexive verb construction, a frequent alternative to the passive.

• Son coeur rosé dévoile une fleur intensément pourpre ⇒ The deep purple flower hiding in its pink heart

Notice how the translation moves ‘deep purple flower’ up to the subject/topic position. Why?  Because it needs to serve as the instigator of ‘swooning’ in the lower causative construction.[1]  Notice also the modulation[2] that occurs as ‘dévoile’ (literally ‘reveals’) is replaced by ‘hiding’.

• pour faire chavirer romantiques, timides et passionnés ⇒ will have the romantic, the timid and the passionate swooning with delight.

The DS here is: <le dévoilement fait <romantiques, etc. chavirent>>.  In other words, ‘romantiques, etc.’ is the “experiencer” of the swooning experience,. French uses a causative construction, which has the effect of moving the “lower” subject into the sentence final position, thus focalising it. English in this case uses the “have NP doing” (I’ll soon have you swooning with pleasure) construction which combines the notion of causativity (making someone do something) with the idea of intense participation of the subject of the second verb.

• Sur une base de meringue craquante à la fraise se découvre deux cœurs de coulis aux saveurs fraise et agrume yuzu. ® You discover twin fruit sauce hearts on the strawberry meringue foundation, one strawberry, the other yuzu citrus.

DS: <on découvre deux cœurs de coulis>. Notice that there is also stylistic inversion here: the verb and the raised subject change places for stylistic reasons, that is, to place the latter in the rheme/comment position, as it is the important piece of information.  French combines two structures here: a reflexive verb and an inversion construction. The former puts the patient argument in the subject position: On découvre deux cœurs ⇒ Deux coeurs se découvrent

The latter places the verb in the initial position and moves the subject to the focus position: Deux cœurs se découvrent ⇒ (Il) se découvre deux cœurs.

English doesn’t use either of these structures and has to resort to a generic “you” subject and an active voice construction that puts the object back in its place.

• S’ensuit une mousse au chocolat « Passionato ⇒ Then you come to a Passionato chocolate mousse.

DS: <Une mousse au chocolat suit> ⇒ <Il s’ensuit une mousse au chocolat> ⇒< ( ) s’ensuit une mousse…>  Here we find the inversion construction combined with a deleted impersonal subject pronoun which triggers the reflexive verb construction.  The translation maintains topical coherence by continuing to use the generic you and the “discovery” metaphor.

• le tout drapé d’une ganache vanille Bourbon et d’un velours rose ⇒ covered with a Bourbon vanilla ganache and pink velvet.

DS: <on drape le tout d’une ganache> ⇒ < une ganache drape le tout>  Both versions use a past participle modifier, which maintains thematic coherence, reinforced in French by the pronominal « le tout ». English does not need this kind of anaphoric reinforcement here.

• Cette création pâtissière a été réalisée exclusivement, à l’occasion de la Saint-Valentin, par Fauchon ⇒ This exclusive pasty item was created for St. Valentine’s Day by Fauchon

DS : <On a réalisé cette création>  French uses a passive construction since it needs to both topicalize the object, to maintain topical coherence with the preceding text and to focalise the subject, which has high information value. English does the same for the same reasons.

Still got some hair left on your head?  Ready for more of the same?  Go to Chapter 10 of the Linguistic Handbook of French for Translators and Language Students and continue to explore the joys of Information Structure in French and English!

[1] A « causative construction », like ‘John had Mary do the dishes’, involves an agent, Mary, and an instigator, John.

[2] By « modulation » is meant « a change in point of view introduced by the translation, without necessarily changing the grammatical structure of the sentence” (A Linguistic Handbook of French for Translators and Language Students, p. 69).