ABSTRACT

In 1985, Michel Duchein published ‘Les Archives dans la Tour de Babel: Problèmes de Terminologie Archivistique Internationale’ in La Gazette des Archives. To this day, his article remains the most articulate expression of the difficulties linked to the translation of archival terminology between French and English. It was written as a reaction to the publication of the Dictionary of Archival Terminology by the International Council on Archives (1984). Departing from Duchein’s work, this article assesses the current situation regarding the translation of archival terminology from English to French. The article mainly considers four existing tools dealing exclusively with archival terminology: the Elsevier Lexicon of Archive Terminology (1964), the International Council on Archives’ Dictionary of Archival Terminology (1984), the Association Française de Normalisation’s Vocabulaire des Archives (1986) and the International Council on Archives’ Multilingual Archival Terminology database (2012- …). This article is based on an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each tool, and on practical tests carried out during the translation of a corpus of texts for Comma, the journal of the International Council on Archives. This article intends to show that the existing tools for translating archival terminology from English to French lack either up-to-date content or reliability.

摘要

1985年，米歇尔·杜钦（Michel Duchein）在La Gazette des Archives中出版了《通行证》（Les Archives dans la Tour de Babel）：《国际Terminologie档案问题》（Problèmesde Terminologie Internationaliv）。时至今日，他的文章仍然最清楚地表达了与法语和英语之间的档案术语翻译有关的困难。它是对国际档案馆理事会（1984）出版的《档案术语词典》的回应。与Duchein的工作不同，本文评估了将档案术语从英语翻译为法语的现状。本文主要考虑四个专门用于存档术语的现有工具：存档术语的Elsevier词典（1964年），国际档案馆理事会“档案术语词典”（1984年），法语国家标准化协会的“ Vocabulaire des Archives”（1986年）和国际档案馆多语言档案术语数据库（2012-…）。本文基于对每种工具的优缺点的分析，以及在翻译国际档案馆期刊《逗号》的语料库期间进行的实际测试。本文旨在表明，现有的将档案术语从英语翻译为法语的工具缺乏最新内容或可靠性。