French and Francophone Studies Masters Theses

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  • Publication
    Writing Trauma: George Perec's W ou le souvenir d'enfance and Philippe Grimbert's Un secret
    (2012-05) Werbe, Charlotte F
    This Master’s thesis examines the ways in which the Holocaust continues to figure in French-Jewish autobiographical fiction. I examine texts by two leading authors, Georges Perec (1936-1982) and Philippe Grimbert (b.1948). I treat Perec as a first-generation survivor of the Holocaust as he was a child during the war and suffered the loss of both his parents, while Grimbert was born to Holocaust survivors shortly after the war and thus belongs to what has come to be known as the second generation. In both Perec’s W ou le souvenir d’enfance (1975) and Grimbert’s Un secret (2004) the body plays a central role as a site on which traumatic memory is inscribed. Trauma also determines the form and language of both novels, influencing not only the narrative structure but also the semantics utilized by the narrators. These post-Holocaust autofictions confront similar themes: both deal with the concept of the “unspeakable” and attempt to address the “emptiness” in the wake of the Holocaust and come to terms with the tremendous loss of life. Although thirty years separate Perec’s W and Grimbert’s Un secret, the overwhelming parallels between the two texts suggest that the trauma of the Holocaust has been passed on from one generation of survivors to the next through the disturbances of language. In my analysis, I illuminate common tropes that appear in these two works as instances of transgenerational traumatic transmission. The introduction provides a description of both works, a discussion of the autofictional genre and its use in both texts, and an overview of the trauma and literary theory with which I engage. The first chapter, “Traumatic Memory and its Inscription on the Body,” offers a close study of the body in both works. Both works juxtapose athletes who possess superior physical capabilities to weaker individuals who are marked by deformities, wounds or symbolic scars. I discuss the location of the narrators’ wounds in both texts and what this might suggest in psychoanalytic terms. I argue the location of the wounds, on the narrator’s mouth in W and on the narrator’s eyebrow in Un secret, are linked to what type of work these narrators undergo throughout both texts vis-à-vis trauma. Specifically, I use Freud’s Das Unheimlich to discuss the wound above the narrator’s eye in Un secret, linking it to the processes of testimony and remembrance. The second chapter, “Doubled Narrators and Narratives,” focuses on the various instances of doubling present in both works. I pay close attention to the doubled narrators, Gaspard Winckler in W, and Simon in Un secret, as well as to the presence of two alternative narratives in each text. I use Lacan’s theory of the mirror stage to support my argument that the doubling present in both texts provides a mirror that is crucial to the narrators’ processes of remembering, witnessing, and recording. In addition, Gabriele Schwab’s text, Haunting Legacies: Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma is fundamental to my argument that the legacy of trauma is inherited by the second generation. The third chapter, “The Influence of Trauma on the Production of Time” comprises an in-depth analysis of the poetics of time in Perec and Grimbert. Identifying Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu as an influential model for Perec and Grimbert, I explore the opening paragraphs of all three works, noting particularly how the interaction between the adverb “longtemps” and the passé composé destabilizes the representation of time in order to convey the fragmentary nature of memory.
  • Publication
    "Madame ma chère fille": The Performance of Motherhood in the Correspondence of Madame de Sévigné, Marie-Thérèse of Austria, and Joséphine Bonaparte to their Daughters
    (2012) Moreland, Meagen E
    This paper conducts a critical comparison of the correspondence of Madame de Sévigné, Empress Marie-Thérèse of Austria and Joséphine Bonaparte. These women instruct their daughters through a writerly exchange that implements a remarkably similar use of language that indicates a “performance” of her maternal role, meant to implement a personal or political agenda that requires the daughter’s acknowledgement and reciprocation. This project explores theories of speech acts and subjectivity to conduct a literary analysis of the construction of the maternal figure in a historical context, its representation in the letters of each woman with their daughters, the motivations for a “performance” of the maternal role, and the subsequent characterization, reaction, and liberation of the daughter’s voice.
  • Publication
    Subtitling American Comedy Programs into French
    (2011-09) Peyroux, Remy
    This paper deals with issues related to the translation of humor specific to the medium of subtitling. It focuses on the ways of preserving the quality of the original material in spite of the limited space and time allotted to subtitles on the screen. The main themes include the translation of culture-specific content, how well or badly certain types of humor travel across languages and cultures, the linguistic challenges inherent to a successful renderingof humor, and humor translation as a creative and artistic process. Concrete examples are drawn from the included corpus of three American television programs of mass media subtitled into French by the author.
  • Publication
    L’Être Parlant et L’Être Pensant : La Question de Langue Chez Montaigne, Pascal, Descartes et Rousseau
    (2011) Jean-pierre, Marky
    Le but de cet essai est d’interroger la questionne de la langue, en tant qu’outil privilégié dans la communication humaine, dans son rapport avec l’existence de l’être humain et de faire le point sur le débat, plutôt littéraire, se rapportant sur les aspects convergents et divergents entre les moyens d’expressions chez l’être humain et l’animal. La langue est l’un des éléments le plus manifeste dans la vie de l’être humain mais elle est tellement évidente qu’on a souvent tendance à l’écarter dans les débats concernant les phénomènes humains. De même, mis à part certains auteurs qui se sont penchés sur la question de la langue, ce sujet fait rarement objet de choix de ceux qui se donnent pour tâche d’approfondir les œuvres des hommes et femmes littéraires et les œuvres philosophiques françaises. En fait, on a beaucoup parlé de Montaigne, Pascal, Descartes, et Rousseau ; mais l’aspect de la langue dans les œuvres de ces auteurs est sous exploré. Néanmoins, c’est un sujet qui est encore à examiner et qui, en fait, joue un rôle prépondérant dans les œuvres de Montaigne, Pascal, Descartes et Rousseau. En entamant ce débat on n’est pas sans savoir que les archives littéraires et philosophiques françaises sont multiples et divers. Il serait donc utopique de vouloir entreprendre une revue exhaustive de la question de la langue dans les œuvres des auteurs français. Les discussions dans cet essai sont basées notamment sur une partie des œuvres de Montaigne, Descartes, Pascal et Rousseau. En particulier, ce dossier esquisse une revue critique des points de vue de Montaigne et Descartes sur l’animal et l’être humain par rapport à la communication, le duel entre Pascal et Montaigne et les points de vue exprimés par Rousseau concernant la langue. Ce dossier conclut avec un penchant sur Descartes qui établit une relation étroite entre la pensée, la langue et l’existence de l’être humain. Abstract (English Version) The purpose of this study is to interrogate the question of language as related to human existence and to delve into the literary debate with regard to the relationship between the ways human beings communicate among themselves and the way animals express themselves to each other. Language is one of the most important aspects in the life of human beings. It is so evident in our daily activities that one often has the tendency to neglect it in debates that surround the many phenomena that are influential in the existence of human beings. Likewise, scholars interested in the works of the French thinkers rarely examine the role that debates on language play in their writing. In fact, the works of the French authors Montaigne, Pascal, Descartes, and Rousseau are broadly known both in the milieu of French and Francophone Studies and other branches of knowledge such as the Humanities, the Social Sciences, and even the Mathematics. However, debates related to language in the work of these authors have not been explored sufficiently. Given what language represents for human beings, it is a subject that should continue to occupy an important place in the reflections of the academic community. The works of these authors i.e. Montaigne, Pascal, Descartes, and Rousseau offer grounds on which one can raise important debates related to language. This study draws on the works of Montaigne, Pascal, Descartes, and Rousseau to interrogate the issue of language as related to human existence and to discuss whether language is a phenomenon exclusive to human beings or if it is a shared attribution between human beings and animals. In particular, this study makes a critical review of the viewpoints expressed by Montaigne and Descartes on the relationship between human beings and animals with regard to communication, the conflicts between Pascal and Montaigne, and the viewpoints expressed by Rousseau with regard to language.
  • Publication
    Subversive Representations of Education in Francophone Novels of the Colonial Maghreb
    (2011-05) Bevill, Whitney
    Much work exploring alterity and hybridity in the Maghreb ignores representations of education which confront seminal formative experiences, specifically education. French colonial education was problematic because it granted access to the colonizer’s culture, yet it also created a rupture in self-identity for Maghrebi students. In this thesis, I interrogate the literary representations of sites and sources of education by analyzing how these representations discuss the tension between formal French education and informal Maghrebi education. My thesis begins with a historical overview of colonial education in the Maghreb. I then discuss literary methods of negotiating identity, contrasting Arab and Western autobiography especially. Furthermore, I compare writing practices informed by a French education and a North African upbringing. Next, I compare formal and informal sites of education—the school, home and community—which articulate sources of alterity experienced during colonial childhood. Writers interrogate formal settings, including the school, classrooms, teachers, and examinations, and gaze upon the normative space and dominant culture which contradict that of the home. Conversely, informal settings provide subversive sources of education that resist the power structures of colonial France. These sites, including parents, the home, and community, provide an oppositional education and a means of resistance to rejected systems of power. Both settings represent spaces of cultural confrontation that serve as both a means of betrayal as well as benefit to students. The texts I consider discuss the dynamic end of the French colonial period yet were written over a period of time that allowed for personal reflection by the authors as well as for contributions by literary critics and historians that affected the perception and comprehension of the volatile period at the end of French colonialism and the fall of the Fourth Republic.
  • Publication
    Reading in a Second Language Classroom: A Pedagogical Report on Sociocultural Strategies for Reading Texts in the Elementary French Classroom
    (2009) Buescher, Kimberly
    This thesis focuses on reading in a second language (L2) classroom and specifically on Sociocultural strategies for reading texts in the elementary French classroom. This pedagogical report first outlines the theoretical basis of the two pedagogical experiences presented which include Vygotsky’s Sociocultural theory of learning and development (SCT), specifically Cole’s (2003) Question-Asking-Reading (QAR) approach, traditional reading approaches and a literacy approach to teaching reading. The key concepts of SCT that influenced these pedagogical experiences include the zone of proximal development (ZPD), mediation, the shift from interpersonal to intrapersonal, prolepsis, and shared activities based on a specific division of labor. Cole’s QAR approach focused on teaching reading to students who struggled with reading in their first language (L1) and included a clear structure, specific roles, an interesting text, goal talk, and a scaffolding plan. Traditional reading approaches focus on the integration of bottom-up and top-down processing. A literacy approach focuses on meaning, the integration of language, context and content and the use of authentic texts. For the two pedagogical experiences outlined in this thesis, Cole’s QAR approach was adapted for university students in a second semester French class, who were learning to read in an L2. These experiences also included a clear structure, specific roles, an interesting text and a scaffolding plan. The structure included four main steps: (1) read one section aloud – alternating readers, (2) silent reading/preparing role, (3) talk as a group – fulfill roles, (4) change roles and return to step (1). The roles included the person who leads the discussion on: (1) hard-to-pronounce words, (2) hard-to-understand words or expressions, (3) main idea, (4) what will happen next, and (5) hard-to-understand grammatical structures. The text was a French fairy tale, “Roman d’amour d’une patate” by Pierre Gripari. The roles represent the different steps in the reading process and by dividing this process into roles, the group shares in the process of reading. As students learn the tools needed in this group process and internalize the tools needed for reading, they should be able to take on more of the responsibility themselves.
  • Publication
    The Role of Translation Style in Fostering Cultural Connections through World Literature
    (2020-09) Baudinet, Bridget
    While many high school English instructors in the United States teach world literature in translation, few of them explicitly present the literature as translated. High school English students would benefit from learning more about the linguistic origins of the world literature they read. This awareness would increase student understanding of the source culture and benefit their language skills. Various translation theorists have suggested methods to teach translational awareness, but few have offered advice on the type of translation to select. In my research, I examined the question of whether students would derive more cultural knowledge, and specifically language-related knowledge, by reading domesticated or foreignized translations. To explore this question, I created two different English translations of the same French literary texts and presented them to several classes of U.S. American high school students. One translation (Version A) was intended to be a domesticated version and the other (Version B) was deliberately foreignized. Classes read two versions of either Anna Gavalda’s short story “Happy Meal” or of a selection from Joseph Zobel’s novel La Rue Cases-Nègres. Following the reading, they completed a series of multiple-choice and free-response questions. Responses to the readings indicated that students found the foreignized translations more “sophisticated” but did not consistently demonstrate a greater cultural understanding as a result. The results failed to prove one translation method more effective than the other, but they did suggest limitations to Lawrence Venuti’s foreignization approach.
  • Publication
    Proto-Féminisme dans l'Epistre Othéa de Christine de Pizan: Appropriation et Réinterprétation de Deux Figures Mythologiques, Minerve et Médée.
    (2014-09) Lacarriere, Nathalie D
    This thesis focuses on Christine de Pizan’s mythological allegoric work entitled Epistre Othéa, written around 1400. True to the beliefs she portrays in many of her later seminal works, such as The Book of the City of Ladies, or The Treasure of the City of Ladies, Christine displays in this piece a strong didactic vision. The crucial pairing of text and image in the two manuscripts that I chose to focus on prove the power she exerted as a woman and as an artist but also mark her intention to strengthen her moral and political message through the use of different media. The purpose of this thesis will be to analyze the polyphonic voice that emerges from both the textual and pictorial elements of the Epistre in order to decipher Christine de Pizan’s distinctive ideology. I propose to examine the re-interpretation of two mythological figures, Medea and Minerva, in the Epistre and investigate the impact of this conscious manipulation of sources on Christine de Pizan’s overall works. Furthermore, the comparison between the figures of Othea and Christine herself is analyzed as a way to affirm the author’s idiosyncratic stance and delineate the scope of her proto-feminist views.
  • Publication
    LE CONTE AFRICAIN DANS L’ENSEIGNEMENT DU FRANCAIS : ASPECTS SOCIO-EDUCATIFS ET EXEMPLES PRATIQUES
    (2020-05) Diame, Maguette
    Ce mémoire explore le rôle du conte dans l’enseignement de la langue française. L’étude se focalise sur les aspects culturels, socio-éducatifs et didactique des contes en se focalisant sur le conte Africain d’expression française. Pour ce faire, l’étude a d’abord revu des articles et ouvrages pertinents à la littérature africaine d’expression orale y compris le conte avant d’explorer la place du conte dans la littérature africaine d’expression française. Cette revue de la littérature montre différentes approches utilisées par les écrivains pour inclure les contes dans la littérature. Le recueil de contes et l’intertextualité sont les formes les plus présentes dans cette étude car étant les plus utilisées par les écrivains de contes africains. Sur le plan pédagogique et didactique, cette étude s’est basée sur la méthode communicative d’enseignement de la langue (CLT) pour proposer des cas pratiques d’enseignement/apprentissage de deux contes africains (La Cuillère Sale et Le Roi et Ses Trois Enfants) et un conte français (Le Petit Prince, Chapitre xv). Ces leçons, destinées aux élèves des Collèges D’enseignement Moyen des pays Francophone et aux élèves/étudiants de niveau intermédiaire en français aux États-Unis, constitue un prétexte pour explorer la littéraire et la cultures africaine et françaises à travers des exercices communicatifs. L’étude a montré que le conte est sous exploite dans l’enseignement du français à travers le monde alors qu’il regorge d’aspects socio-éducatifs et culturels bénéfiques aux apprenants. L’étude suggère aussi une formation préalable des enseignants sur la littéraire et l’histoire africaine avant de s’engager sur l’enseignement du conte africain en particulier pour en tirer le meilleur et éviter interprétations inexactes ou de renforcer certains stéréotypes.
  • Publication
    APPRENDRE ET ENSEIGNER AVEC LA BIENVEILLANCE : POUR UNE NOUVELLE PEDAGOGIE FRANÇAISE
    (2018-09) Moinfar, Amena
    This thesis focuses on reflections made my contemporary thinkers in France concerning the wellness of children through their times in French public schools. Journalists, educators, parents seem to agree that the current French pedagogy instilled in the Education nationale system can no longer be acceptable and needs profound change. If academic performances are important, they cannot be the only center of interest in French schools. Instead, these writers propose and advocate for a pedagogy where wellness, benevolence and personal happiness occupy a crucial place. The purpose of this thesis is to identify these voices and to take into account the fact that the world of education is discussed, questioned beyond the walls of education. The pédagogie de la bienveillance, or benevolence pedagogy, transcends one particular field. Instead, people concerned about children’s emotional health advocate for a change in order to help these children become happy adults. Instead of just denouncing a system that they deem unjust, each of the writers presented in this thesis, offer alternatives, solutions. They also document experiments they have conducted and offer their experience as possibilities to teach differently and to consider children differently as well.
  • Publication
    Les Corps Démoniaques dans La Démonomanie des Sorciers : Un Examen Ontologique et Épistémologique
    (2018-09) Davis, Steven
    The numerous ontological and epistemological paradoxes found within La Démonomanie des sorciers, a demonological treaty of the 16th century, are studied within the context of demonic corporality: exploiting a rich philosophical and theological intertextuality as well as, more generally, a confessional model of logic, La Démonomanie (1580) constructs a linguistic world of demonic bodies capable of copulation, transformation, and imbuing humans with the power to practice magic. Following in the footsteps of the demonologists who precede him, Bodin constructs a system of the real and of knowledge which is as much dependent upon the authoritative ethos of his intellectual forefathers as upon the increasingly abundant demonological confessions of his own time. Despite the certainty of Jean Bodin’s tone and his fastidious deployment of internal logic, the problematics of such demonic corporality, both with regards to its theological justification as well as to its lack of direct, observable evidence, lead ultimately to an anxious appeal to the political in the text in an attempt to mitigate these aforementioned demonological contradictions and appease those who seek material reassurance. To this end, this orientation from the theological towards the political in the text, which provides a physical anchoring of Bodin’s demonological vision in a protective realm of harmonious, yet divinely necessary opposites to counter the inherent abstraction of its subject matter, certainly provides us with an insight into the divisive and anxiety-laced intellectual landscape of the late French Renaissance, insofar as it illuminates the increasingly prominent naturalist objections to established spiritual orthodoxy. However ultimately efficient this shifting orientation may be in its capacity to mitigate direct concerns, the immediate resolution of the demonic paradox in the text fails to find its complete realization, given that the specter of its own weight is not only a theoretical concern to reasoned away, but also an impossibly elusive, spiritual one—as La Démonomanie becomes as much an apparent political praxis as a demonstration of faith, its ostensibly resolved struggle with demonic corporality still betrays, even at its close, a man’s journey of faith to rid the demonic shadows from an ambiguous reality that even prescribed fire may not be capable of exorcising.
  • Publication
    Precarious Provenance: Legitimacy, Surrogacy and Betrayal in the Value of Art and Family in Honoré de Balzac's Le Cousin Pons and Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch
    (2017-02) Coburn, Ryan
    This thesis focuses on the problematic nature of art valuation, more specifically concerning the ideas of use-value and exchange-value in Honoré de Balzac’s Le Cousin Pons and Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. Written in nineteenth-century France, Balzac’s novel paints a bleak portrait of what he believes to be a morally corrupt society obsessed with the lesser things in life such as money and status rather than what is truly important: culture and art. In her novel, which bears a striking resemblance to Balzac’s, Tartt presents her perception of present-day United States, also plagued with moral corruption and disregard for the cultural significance of art, but ultimately attempts to convey the message that art will prevail and transcend not only time but human weakness as well. This analysis will attempt to trace the evolution of the value of the collections of art in these two novels. Through the examination of the themes of legitimacy, surrogacy and betrayal, I will analyze the paradoxes of value of both art and family structure.
  • Publication
    À LIRE ET À VOIR, ENTRE MOT ET IMAGE: SELECTED TRANSLATIONS OF WORKS BY HENRI MICHAUX
    (2014-05) Arend, Victoria
    This Master’s thesis investigates the language of words and images in the work of Belgian poet and painter Henri Michaux (1899-1984) through the practice of translation. I have chosen to translate texts that serve as critical and poetic inquiries into the nature of verbal and visual representation. In the critical introduction preceding the translations, I analyze Michaux’s relationship to the languages of words and images in the selected works. The selected translations appear in two sections: “On Words and Images” and “Images in Words.” In the first, I translate selections from Michaux’s reflective works on the practice of painting and writing. These include the essay “En pensant au phénomène de la peinture,” first published in Peintures et dessins (1946) and selections from Émergences-résurgences (1972). In the second, I translate selections from works of ekphrastic poetry, including “Dessins commentés,” first published in La nuit remue (1935), “Aventures de lignes,” from Passages (1937-1963) (1950, 1963), Lecture par Henri Michaux de huit lithographies de Zao Wou-Ki (1950) and En rêvant à partir de peintures énigmatiques (1972). I propose that these texts reflect Michaux’s hybrid view of representation. They embody a search for an ideal language that is neither purely verbal nor visual, calling for both words and images.
  • Publication
    « Notre petite ferme me sera un paradis » : Nature, magie et violence illustrées dans les Nouveaux contes de fées de la Comtesse de Ségur
    (2014-05) Fancy, Benjamin A
    This paper examines the interconnections of nature, magic, and violence in the Nouveaux contes de fées (New Fairy Tales) of the Countess of Ségur and their illustrations. It focuses on the ways in which the Countess reappropriates the framework of the literary fairy tale and subtly breaks with the traditions established by past fairy-tale authors, encouraging a return to nature and a movement away from the perceived corruption of the nineteenth-century city within the context of a timeless magical world. Close study of the Countess’s multiple perspectives on violence as either a motivating form of punishment or as a display of pure malice reinforce the dichotomy of good vs. evil as it is developed in the text, reflecting the author’s desire to create an ordered world in which obedience is rewarded and cruelty is justly punished.
  • Publication
    Translating Françoize Boucher’s Le Livre Qui t’Explique Enfin Tout sur les Parents for US Audiences: Playing with Words and Images
    (2015-02) Bugaeva, Evgeniya
    The focus of this thesis is my translation of Le livre qui t'explique enfin tout sur les parents by Françoize Boucher from French into English. Chapter one begins with a brief history and definition of children’s literature, as well as children’s literature in translation. I discuss the subgenre of informational picturebooks—its objectives, characteristics, and current trends. What follows is a short biographic and bibliographic sketch of Françoize Boucher. Then, I discuss the content, format, style, and illustrations of Le livre qui t'explique as well as examine the work’s audience, aims, and values. Finally, I discuss my English translation of the work—providing an overview of the translation strategies and methodologies that I used. Chapter two focuses on specific challenges encountered during the translation process. The chapter begins with the challenge of translating culturally significant topics such as French cultural references, brands, slang, and metric measurements. Then, I discuss the translation of linguistically bound terms such as wordplay, the use of English in a French text, and onomatopoeia. Finally, I discuss the translation of taboo subjects. Chapter three is my complete English-language translation: The Book That Finally Explains About Your Parents.
  • Publication
    La Circassienne: A Study of the Female Circus Artist in French Literature
    (2022-09) Menninga, Crystal
    This study examines how the female circus artist is represented in twelve pieces of French literature ranging from the late nineteenth century to the modern day. The books are divided into three categories by author type: first, authors without a circus background; second, male authors involved in the circus world; and third, women involved in the circus world. Although predicted that the first section would reveal the largest use of stereotypes and misogyny, the second would show the sexist expectations of the circassienne onstage and off, and the third would call out these stereotypes and suggest improvements, there was less variety found than expected. Only two authors—one from each of the first two categories—used circassienne stereotypes in an extremely negative manner, authors who were unfamiliar with circus but did research as well as the majority of the male authors familiar with circus bluntly stated some of the bias but did not offer solutions, and the majority of the female circus artist authors also stated the bias they faced but were limited in their opportunities to challenge stereotypes. Eleven of the books focus on artists from traditional circus, and only Circassienne looks at contemporary circus. Whereas there is a variety of literature about the contemporary circus scene in Quebec, Circassienne was the only book found to be written by a French circassienne that deals with normalizing the life of a circus artist in who lives in a house, sends their children to school, and creates pieces designed to expose children to contemporary circus as well as pieces with calls for activism. Overall, it was found that the situation for the female circus artist in traditional circus in France has not greatly changed in the past century. She is still expected to be feminine, to wear revealing costumes, and to flirt with the audience, often serving as the “female element” in an otherwise male-dominated group of performers. Reducing sexism in circus and the fight for gender equality remain part of the agenda of circus going forward, and progress is being seen faster in contemporary circus than in its traditional counterpart.
  • Publication
    Textual Analysis of Two Translated Transcripts: 2012 Presidential Debate and a Speech Presented by Cyrille de Lasteyrie
    (2014-05) Witty, Laryssa M
    Delia Chiaro (2010) describes humor in two broad categories: referential and verbal. The former focuses on the meaning of a story or event and the humor embedded within. In the case of the latter, idiosyncratic features such as word play displays humorous undertones. This Master’s thesis examines oral text transformation to another language via transcription. The transcripts themselves consist of 10 minutes of the 2012 Presidential debate between François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy and 10 minutes of a monologue presented by French animator Cyrille de Lasteyrie. Both transcripts are linked by the commonality of humor and exhibit the two categories previously outlined. Additional attention will be given to the translation challenges that arose such as: transferring the overall meaning of each idea, maintaining as much of the humor within the text as possible and conveying each speaker’s style. This study aims to provide future translators guidance in their translation endeavors by pinpointing scholarly research and discussing the various translator techniques implemented in overcoming challenges such as metaphors and collocations.