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French to English translations [PRO] Marketing - Architecture / Architect's portfolio
French term or phrase:fonction symbolique
Context: Son [referring to architecture] essence même et les expériences qu’elle recouvre échappent au comptage : ce sont celles de l’appréhension personnelle, intime, prégnante, de l’espace, de la lumière et du rapport au temps ; Celles qui relèvent de l’être et de sa relation au cosmos. L’architecture se distingue, par sa faculté à émouvoir, à interagir avec notre sensibilité, par sa capacité à signifier aussi, qui en ont fait historiquement, ***le vecteur privilégié de la fonction symbolique***. « Art de construire », elle est fille antinomique de la liberté (l’art) et de la contrainte (construire), et oscille perpétuellement entre ces deux pôles, qu’elle entend concilier.
I've managed to work my way around everything else, but the end of that marked sentence has thrown me. Short of translating it literally, which is not at all how I'm handling the rest of the text, I don't know how to phrase it in English. Okay, the "vecteur priviligié" will translate as "preferred/special medium", I imagine. But of what? What do you understand by this "fonction symbolique"?
Explanation: Many buildings are conceived to have a symbolic function, representing or embodying, for instance, a company's status, or a nation's ideas about itself.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 14 mins (2015-04-16 14:23:02 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
The earlier part of the sentence explains it really. Its symbolic function lies in what a building signifies or evokes in the viewer/user, too.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 18 mins (2015-04-16 14:26:29 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
And I think the privileged carrier (that's how I would translate it) bit makes reference to ideas about architecture's primary role within the arts, as potentially housing, and thus being superior to, all the other arts. It is the Gesamtkunstwerk notion.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 18 mins (2015-04-16 14:27:14 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
So I would translate the end of the sentence as 'privileged carrier of symbolic function'.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 20 mins (2015-04-16 14:29:15 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Society requires that architecture not only communicate the aspirations of its institutions but also fulfill their practical needs. Differences in expression, apart from differences in planning, distinguish the forms of architectural types (the house from the church, etc.), the kinds of use (the Catholic from the Protestant church), and the traditions and customs of users (the English from the Swiss Protestant church). When architectural forms become the vehicles of content—in plan, elevation, and decoration—they are symbolic. Their symbolism can be understood consciously or unconsciously, by association (e.g., spire = church) to a building one has seen before and by the fact that it suggests certain universal experiences (e.g., vertical forms “rise”; low roofs “envelop”). One comprehends the meaning of symbols that are new, as well as those that are known, by association, because the laws of statics restrain builders from putting them into forms so completely unfamiliar that they do not suggest some tradition, just as the structure of language permits endless new meanings but retains a fairly constant vocabulary. The meaning of architectural symbols—or of words—may even change, but the process must be both logical and gradual, for, if the change is irrational, the purpose—communication—is lost. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/32876/architecture...
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 26 mins (2015-04-16 14:35:17 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Alternative translation: its primacy as a carrier of/vehicle for symbolic function.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 3 hrs (2015-04-16 18:05:02 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Please stop me if this is redundant, but I wondered whether this would help. The architect is broadly talking the language of semiotics, where things are broken down into signs (symbols) and that which is signified (the meaning). So a building, at one and the same time, functions simply as a means of shelter (or whatever), but also uses a particular architectural language to makes its function clear. Many objects and products do this, too. Tomato ketchup is generally packaged in a ketchupy kind of way and is never packaged like washing powder, and vice versa. It's a sort of short-cut to help us negotiate around the world more easily.
As I explained before, architecture has often been thought of as having a privileged status. So in this sentence, the author says that it is the privileged carrier/bearer of the meaning, and not just any old meaning, but meaning relating to its symbolic function. An architect has to make clear to the viewer/user what the building is for - so you get officey-looking offices, churchy-looking churches and so on. Same as ketchup bottles, there are certain visual markers or conventions that denote the purpose of a building in a short-hand way.
I hope that made sense and is of some help. If not, at least I tried!
Architecture stands apart … It is architecture’s “faculté à émouvoir + (sa faculté à) interagir + (sa faculté à) signifier” = which historically have made architecture a fine conveyor of the symbolic function. For “vecteur privilégié” I thought that “worthy purveyor” might do the trick?
Absolutely! My point, really, was that you have to have some familiarity with the field in order to tell the difference. Quite a lot of people find all theoretical discourse pretentious twaddle because they're not used to it.
Believe me, I for one understand your position very well. You get inured to the way these people express themselves, but if you don't deal with artspeak regularly it does often seem unnecessarily, sometimes infuriatingly, verbose and pretentious (with all due respect to you and your professional colleagues, Helen!). Architecture, within the art world, tends to be particularly theory-ridden, in my experience.
But of course with any marketing text the audience has to be considered, and it's quite likely, in principle, that this architect is addressing people who expect him to express himself like this; indeed, you might almost say that his professional credibility depends on him not expressing himself in a simpler way, if you see what I mean.
I understand what you are both saying. My problem stems from the fact that I'm most definitely NOT an an architectural historian. I normally deal with much simpler marketing texts, but this is an architect who needs to market himself. I am battling, successfully I hope, to overcome my urge to simplify, shorten and rephrase absolutely everything in this text. So please don't "butt out", Helen - your input is extremely useful.
On the whole, I agree with Helen here. By the standards of academic discourse in this field, French or otherwise, this doesn't strike me as particularly wordy, pretentious or obscure. It is far less so than a lot of the stuff I wrestle with regularly. Nor is there anything to worry about when a couple of consecutive words are cognates of those in the ST. It would be rather surprising if this didn't happen now and then, and in my view trying to avoid it systematically can be as mistaken as doing it all the time.
I don't see that the phrase you asked for help with is too wordy when rendered in EN in all its parts. I'm an architectural historian and if this is an academic article, it really shouldn't be watered down. But you know your audience and the purpose of the text, so I'll butt out.
I agree with you polyglot45 that it's really too wordy for effective English communication. However, I think that I need to accurately reflect the meaning of all of the original words. My problem is that I find it difficult to extract the real meaning of these bloated sentences. If only there were a campaign for "langage clair" in French.
This is a discussion area, so I was discussing. Kudoz would very probably work better, if we could get into one another's heads, though it's not something I would particularly favour!
less so in English - why, historically, it has always had a vital symbolic role
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
1 hr confidence:
symbolic purpose
Explanation: An alternative, if you prefer not to use "function".
www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1278 Dr John Gibney, review of Protestant Dublin, 1660-1760: Architecture and .... particular buildings regardless of any obvious aesthetic value or symbolic purpose.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?isbn=1135803978 Roger Stonehouse, Gerhard Stromberg - 2004 - Architecture 29 Wilson, 'Speer and the fear of freedom', Architectural Reflections, p. ... one hand and architecture, which is seen as being of a principally symbolic purpose, ...
B D Finch France Local time: 09:52 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 163
11 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +9
symbolic function
Explanation: Many buildings are conceived to have a symbolic function, representing or embodying, for instance, a company's status, or a nation's ideas about itself.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 14 mins (2015-04-16 14:23:02 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
The earlier part of the sentence explains it really. Its symbolic function lies in what a building signifies or evokes in the viewer/user, too.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 18 mins (2015-04-16 14:26:29 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
And I think the privileged carrier (that's how I would translate it) bit makes reference to ideas about architecture's primary role within the arts, as potentially housing, and thus being superior to, all the other arts. It is the Gesamtkunstwerk notion.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 18 mins (2015-04-16 14:27:14 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
So I would translate the end of the sentence as 'privileged carrier of symbolic function'.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 20 mins (2015-04-16 14:29:15 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Society requires that architecture not only communicate the aspirations of its institutions but also fulfill their practical needs. Differences in expression, apart from differences in planning, distinguish the forms of architectural types (the house from the church, etc.), the kinds of use (the Catholic from the Protestant church), and the traditions and customs of users (the English from the Swiss Protestant church). When architectural forms become the vehicles of content—in plan, elevation, and decoration—they are symbolic. Their symbolism can be understood consciously or unconsciously, by association (e.g., spire = church) to a building one has seen before and by the fact that it suggests certain universal experiences (e.g., vertical forms “rise”; low roofs “envelop”). One comprehends the meaning of symbols that are new, as well as those that are known, by association, because the laws of statics restrain builders from putting them into forms so completely unfamiliar that they do not suggest some tradition, just as the structure of language permits endless new meanings but retains a fairly constant vocabulary. The meaning of architectural symbols—or of words—may even change, but the process must be both logical and gradual, for, if the change is irrational, the purpose—communication—is lost. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/32876/architecture...
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 26 mins (2015-04-16 14:35:17 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Alternative translation: its primacy as a carrier of/vehicle for symbolic function.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 3 hrs (2015-04-16 18:05:02 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Please stop me if this is redundant, but I wondered whether this would help. The architect is broadly talking the language of semiotics, where things are broken down into signs (symbols) and that which is signified (the meaning). So a building, at one and the same time, functions simply as a means of shelter (or whatever), but also uses a particular architectural language to makes its function clear. Many objects and products do this, too. Tomato ketchup is generally packaged in a ketchupy kind of way and is never packaged like washing powder, and vice versa. It's a sort of short-cut to help us negotiate around the world more easily.
As I explained before, architecture has often been thought of as having a privileged status. So in this sentence, the author says that it is the privileged carrier/bearer of the meaning, and not just any old meaning, but meaning relating to its symbolic function. An architect has to make clear to the viewer/user what the building is for - so you get officey-looking offices, churchy-looking churches and so on. Same as ketchup bottles, there are certain visual markers or conventions that denote the purpose of a building in a short-hand way.
I hope that made sense and is of some help. If not, at least I tried!
Helen Shiner United Kingdom Local time: 08:52 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 110
Grading comment
Thanks to everyone who contributed.
Notes to answerer
Asker: Thanks ever so much for your help, Helen. Every word you've written has been helpful.
