Traduction et transmission des savoirs dans les ressources de vulgarisation scientifique

Abstract

Designed as a discursive practice whose origins date back to the seventeenth century, the popularization of science today is becoming more and more the preferred strategy for the transmission of knowledge and learning of science. Nowadays it uses all the means offered by the mass media, including the magazines, who still maintain their dominant role in this great communication operation. We propose here to analyze the role of the translator in the practice of popularization of science, by taking as our corpus the translations in French and Italian of eleven articles of the journal “Scientific American”. In this perspective, a reflection on the current status of popularization of science seems necessary: our goal is to highlight the choices and strategies used by the translator, considered a “fourth man” involved in this discursive practice.