La langue du doublage québécois : un français parlé « sous bonne surveillance »

Abstract

The dubbing of foreign films in Quebec has, in recent decades, received attention in translation studies. Screen characters appear to speak a French that is quite different from current Quebec French with little account for linguistic variation. However, most studies were based on few examples, rendering them potentially anecdotal, and their observations somewhat contradictory. Often, the examples themselves were not further investigated with respect to correlation with the formality of the situation. We measured, in 10 films dubbed in France and Quebec, four linguistic elements explicitly associated with a higher degree of formality: maintenance of the consonant [l] of personal pronouns il and ils and impersonal il, maintenance the final consonant clusters, use of variable liaisons and of the particle ne of the discontinuous negation. This study provided a quantified picture of the phenomenon and verified that the language in Quebec dubbing is exemplary of a high degree of formality.