L’enjeu de la thèse est de résoudre et d’expliquer les problèmes liés au passage des structures textuelles anglaises polysyndétiques ou « parataxiques » à des structures plus majoritairement hypotaxiques dans les traductions françaises correspondantes. Pour ce faire, nous avons commencé par comparer des corpus de traductions multiples (même texte anglophone traduit à de multiples reprises, par des traducteurs différents) afin de dégager des « tendances générales » potentiellement systématisables. Partant de ces observations, et après avoir redéfini la notion de « polysyndète » dans une perspective tant étymologique / historique que littéraire, stylistique et linguistique, nous avons souhaité mettre nos diverses hypothèses à l’épreuve d’un nouveau corpus de textes sélectionnés en vertu de leur caractère ostensiblement polysyndétique, et vérifier en cela que le nœud du problème est bel et bien l’emploi fonctionnel divergent de la coordination entre les deux langues, dû à un rattachement à deux réalités énonciatives complexes et idiomatiques qui, tout en donnant l’illusion de se correspondre, ne sont pas équivalentes dans un nombre non négligeable de cas. La polysyndète, fréquemment décrite comme une figure de style, doit être plutôt considérée en anglais comme une figure de syntaxe, héritée d’une longue tradition allant de l’Ancien Testament aux premiers textes chrétiens, jusqu’aux pièces de William Shakespeare et aux romans d’Ernest Hemingway. Néanmoins, en moyenne, le français utilise jusqu’à deux fois moins la coordination que l’anglais, où la polysyndète semble représenter 4% des mots totaux dans les textes de nos corpus. En effet, le français « lie » les éléments de ses phrases par d’autres moyens, lesquels sont représentés en majorité par : l’effacement simple de tout coordonnant (combiné ou pas à l’usage de ponctèmes), les périphrases coordinatives, et la subordination (verbale ou adverbiale). Nous avons ainsi mis au jour une série de tendances générales de traduction, dans le cadre d’une théorie explicative ; puis la dernière partie de la thèse a consisté à les « valider » de manière expérimentale, par le biais d’une expérience de nature pionnière. Ce qui nous a conduit à tenter de dresser quelques règles pratiques pour la traduction automatique de la polysyndète. / The aim of this doctoral dissertation was to solve and explain a set of problems related to the translation of ‘polysyndetic’ structures within texts originally written in English into more frequently ‘hypotactic’ structures in French. To do so, I started by comparing multiple text corpora composed of original English texts, and followed by their French translations (produced by several translators), so as to point out a few ‘general tendencies’ which I expected to be potentially systematizable. Starting from these empirical data, and after redefining the notion of ‘polysyndeton’ from an etymological / historical as well as literary, stylistic and linguistic point of view, I then endeavoured to check the validity of my different hypotheses using a series of texts that had been selected for their plainly polysyndetic character. This was to verify that the crux of the problem lay, indeed, in a certain form of enunciative divergence between the two languages in their use of coordination – this very divergence being the reflection of two different psycho-linguistic realities which, although giving the illusion of being symmetrical, fail to be perfect equivalents in a large number of cases. Polysyndeton – a figure that is often described as a ‘figure of speech’, coming all the way down from an age-old tradition starting with The Old Testament, then passed on through the first Christian texts and followed by William Shakespeare’s plays, and eventually by Ernest Hemingway’s novels – should rather be described as a ‘figure of syntax’ in English. Nevertheless, the French language – contrary to the English language in which coordination stands for 4% of total words in a text – uses coordinated structures amounting to only 1. 5 to 2% of its global lexical items. Indeed, the French language “ties up” sentence elements by other means than mere coordination, especially the following: simple neutralisation of the coordinating device (whether or not coupled with the use of a punctuation sign), coordinative periphrases, and subordination (whether verbal or adverbial). I have thus worked towards highlighting a series of general translational tendencies, as part of an explanatory theory of polysyndeton. In the last part of my dissertation, I attempted to validate these rules by way of an original experimental test – which led me to put forward a short list of practical rules for automatized translation.

The doctoral thesis compares the style of the “Romance of Horn”, “King Horn”, and “Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild”. Each of them is a different version of the same story; the first is an Insular French romance, the second and third are Middle English romances. The stylistic analysis is both quantitative and qualitative, and it is developed employing the lemmatized edition of each witness of each version. The work begins with an introduction to the concept of style. The first chapter focuses on a review of the literature regarding each version, considering specifically the witnesses and textual criticism, metre and genre, language, date, and style. For the Insular French version, a specific review of the literature about the author is offered. The second chapter introduces stylometry and stylistic analysis with a brief literature review. Then, the protocols for the edition and lemmatization of each witness are described. Finally, the methods adopted for the stylistic analysis are explained. The third chapter develops the study of descriptions, anaphors, and formulas in each version. The collected data and their interpretations are considered altogether through the lens of a group of theoretical concepts: connotation, attribution, horizon of expectations and discursive tradition. Via these concepts, a trajectory of stylistic mutations is traced, and a link between style and socio-cultural context is displayed. The conclusions sum up all the information and inferences, suggesting further possibilities for new research. / La tesi sviluppa lo studio comparativo dello stile come osservato nel “Roman de Horn”, in “King Horn” e in “Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild”, tre versioni della medesima vicenda, la prima in anglonormanno, le altre due in inglese medio. Nella tesi l’indagine stilistica è svolta in maniera qualitativa e quantitativa, lavorando sulle edizioni lemmatizzate secondo codifica TEI dei singoli testimoni di ciascuna versione. Dopo un’introduzione sul concetto di stile, il primo capitolo è dedicato a un’introduzione ai testi e ai testimoni delle tre versioni. Dopo un cappello introduttivo sui rapporti genetici tra le versioni, di ciascuna di esse si opera un'escussione della bibliografia esistente intorno a testimoni ed eventuale stemmatica, metro e genere, lingua, datazione, stile dell’opera; per la versione anglonormanna si aggiunge uno specifico approfondimento sull’autore. Nel secondo capitolo, si inquadrano stilistica e stilometria nel panorama accademico attuale, quindi si espongono i protocolli di edizione e lemmatizzazione adottata, infine i metodi di analisi adottati e le ragioni per cui circoscrivere l’indagine ai fenomeni di descrizione, anafora e formula. Nel terzo capitolo si procede ad analizzare in ogni versione le descrizioni e poi anafore e formule. Per le descrizioni, dopo aver offerto un quadro specifico per versione, si opera una sintesi sulla base dei concetti di connotazione e attribuzione, chiarendo una possibile traiettoria del mutamento stilistico. Parallelamente, dopo un’analisi di anafore e formule in ciascuna versione si offre una visione d’insieme alla luce dei concetti di orizzonte d’attesa e tradizione discorsiva, ponendo così in relazione stile e contesto socioculturale dell’Inghilterra medievale. Nelle conclusioni, si riassumono gli approdi dell’analisi, valutando metodi e risultati e proponendo possibili aperture a lavori futuri.