sans endetter ni promettre

English translation: without creating a debt or promising

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)

French term or phrase:	sans endetter ni promettre
English translation:	without creating a debt or promising
Entered by:	philgoddard

16:18 Aug 15, 2013

French to English translations [PRO]
Art/Literary - Art, Arts & Crafts, Painting / performance

French term or phrase: sans endetter ni promettre

Hi

This is part of a quote from Derrida on the performative. The whole quote is:

« un acte performatif, en peinture, ne saurait être intentionnel ni traduisible en discours : il agirait, comme un passe-partout, sans endetter ni promettre de vérité » 1978
I think it's from La Verité en Peinture

I'm hesitating on the 'endetter' bit...
There must be a standard translation out there somewhere on the net but I haven't been able to find it. Might even have it in the loft, but haven't been able to find that either!! Grrrr!!

thanks
L

Richardson Lisa KudoZ activity Questions: 56 (4 open) (1 without valid answers) Answers: 54 France
Local time: 04:58

without creating a debt or promising

Explanation:
Or creating indebtedness.
There's no right or wrong translation in texts like this - other people may have translated it before you, but that doesn't mean it's set in stone for all time.

Selected response from:

philgoddard
United States

Grading comment

thanks Phil
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

Summary of answers provided

4 +1

without creating a debt or promising

philgoddard

without compromising or undermining

Cécile A.-C.

3 +1

carrying no pledges or guarantees

Andrew Bramhall

without stinting or guaranteeing/promising/ensuring

Helen Shiner

without IOU or promising

Jocelyne Cuenin

...that contracts no debt nor makes any promise to the truth

SafeTex

Summary of reference entries provided

Existing translation(s)

Yolanda Broad

Discussion entries: 2

Answers

14 mins confidence:

without compromising or undermining

Explanation:
in the sense of not losing one's soul.

Cécile A.-C.
United States
Local time: 22:58
Works in field
Native speaker of:

French

24 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +1

without creating a debt or promising

philgoddard
United States
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 61

Grading comment

thanks Phil

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)

neutral

Andrew Bramhall: or promising what?

20 mins

-> Vérité is the French word for truth. I imagine Lisa didn't include it in the question because she knows what it means.

neutral

writeaway: and to think I actually took a French lit course taught by Derrida../was for a whole semester so yes. Was actually very fascinating. I learned enough to know that this is highly specialised stuff. Derida is subject all on his own.

29 mins

-> And stayed awake?

neutral

mill2: No right or wrong translation? Hardly. Asker should track down the published translation IMHO//Quoting a published translation is no more plagiarizing than quoting the original. If the existing one is wrong it can be ammended, but it has priority.

15 hrs

-> Why? That's just plagiarising someone else. And supposing there's more than one published translation, or the existing one is wrong?

agree

Shivaun Conroy: without creating debt or promising truth... is how I found it quoted, but still think this should be verified.

12 days

44 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +1

carrying no pledges or guarantees

Explanation:
"It works like a skeleton key (i.e.,granting the holder universal access) whilst in truth carrying no pledges or guarantees";

Best to get away from the literal 'endetter' here, and render it metaphorically whilst keeping to the original register;

Andrew Bramhall
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:58
Native speaker of:

English

59 mins confidence:

without stinting or guaranteeing/promising/ensuring

Explanation:
... without stinting on, or promising, the truth. Essentially, a performative act of this kind does not hold back any part of the truth (to the degree to which the person who has access to it, or performing it, comprehends it (the truth) to be) nor does it promise to convey the truth (presumably in its entirety or maybe even at all) beyond that which is possible (for it).

Helen Shiner
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:58
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 348

2 hrs confidence:

without IOU or promising

Explanation:
Je penche plutôt pour l'idée que celui qui "perform" est celui qui a une dette.
Au départ, il y a la phrase de Cézanne à partir de laquelle Derrida écrit Passe-partout traduit ci-dessous.

On pourrait aussi dire "without debt" !

"Je vous dois la vérité en peinture, et je vous la dirai", écrit Cézanne dans une lettre à Emile Bernard, le 23 octobre 1905.

„The Truth in Painting“ Translated by Geoff Bennington
and Ian McLeod

The Truth in Painting is signed Cezanne. It is a saying of
Cezanne's.
Resounding in the title of a book, it sounds, then, like a due.
So, to render it to Cezanne; and first of all to Damisch, who
cites it before me, I shall acknowledge the debt. I must do that.
In order that the trait should return to its rightful owner.
But the truth in painting was always something owed.
Cezanne had promised to pay up: "l OWE YOU THE TRUTH IN
PAINTING AND I WILL TELL IT TO YOU" (to Emile Bernard, 23 Oc
tober 1 905).
…What does Cezanne do? He writes what he could say, but with
a saying that does not assert anything. The "l owe you" itself,
which could include a descriptive reference (I say, I know, I see
that I owe you) is tied to an acknowledgment of debt which
commits as much as it describes: it subscribes to
…Does speech-act theory have its counterpart in painting? Does
it know its way around painting?
Since it always, and necessarily, has recourse to the values of
intention, truth, and sincerity, an absolute protocol must im
mediately stick at this first question: what must truth be in order
to be owed [due], even be rendered [rendue]? In painting? And if
it consisted, in painting, of rendering, what would one mean when
one promised to render it itself as a due or a sum rendered [un
rendu]?
What does it mean, to render?
…
Cezanne's trait is easily freed from an immediate context… But it only acts as a passe-partout, this is only an
appearance: it does not mean everything and anything.
…
Thus one dreams of a painting without truth, which, without
debt and running the risk of no longer saying anything to anyone
[of not interesting anyone: ne plus rien dire i1 personne-TRANS . ],
would still not give up painting. And this "without," for example
in the phrase "without debt" or "without truth," forms one of
the lightweight imports of this book.

http://antropologias.descentro.org/files/downloads/2012/04/J...

Jocelyne Cuenin
Germany
Local time: 04:58
Native speaker of:

French

4 hrs confidence:

...that contracts no debt nor makes any promise to the truth

Explanation:
or sth similar like

.... that neither contracts a debt nor makes any promise...

SafeTex
France
Local time: 04:58
Native speaker of:

English

Reference comments

2 days 0 min peer agreement (net): +1

Reference: Existing translation(s)

Reference information:
From what I can find from online searches, there is one English translation of Derrida's essay, "The Truth in Painting."

La vérité en peinture. Paris: Flammarion, 1978. English translation by Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod, The Truth in Painting. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1987
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo5976923...

I would recommend getting hold of that translation and locating the quotation there. (You might want to take a look, too, at the link on the left of the page, "Rights, Permissions & Translations, Licensing from a Book")

Yolanda Broad
United States
Works in field
Native speaker of:

English

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sans endetter ni promettre

English translation: without creating a debt or promising

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