La bourse mondiale de la traduction : un baromètre culturel ?

International Market of Translation Translations seem to be an ideal field to research for cultural studies focused on the users' aspect of culture, for they are governed mainly by a real demand of the public. The examination of the translations mode throughout the world these last fifty years (the Index Translationum supplying the data) permits us to maintain that this is a highly structured field. The destiny of any author depends on the destiny of the group he belongs to much more than on the intrinsic value ofhis work. Several rules determine the high and lows ofeach group in this « stock market ». Thus, when non-legitimate literature (thrillers, children books) goes up, legitimate literature (Goethe, Tolstoy) goes down; there is a direct correlation between non-legitimate literature and that of the XXth century; a modernization of the market tends to precede its de-legitimation. And the most striking discovery we mode concerns the role of the Second World War in our « stock market »—it stopped an accelarated process of delegitimation in the 1930th and even reversed it temporarily.Milo Daniel. La bourse mondiale de la traduction : un baromètre culturel ?. In: Annales. Economies, sociétés, civilisations. 39ᵉ année, N. 1, 1984. pp. 92-115