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Glossary entry

French term or phrase:

questionne

English translation:

which is pondered by/has them stop and think

Added to glossary by MatthewLaSon
Nov 28, 2011 13:43
12 yrs ago
1 viewer *
French term

questionne (here)

French to English Social Sciences Geography Urban planning
Can't figure out the use of 'questionne' in the context below... help??!

En effet, les ruines sont des marqueurs de la mémoire urbaine qui véhiculent un message politique et social de manière très efficace, pour diverses raisons : la taille de la ruine la rend plus visible qu’un marqueur de risque plus limité (comme une ligne de hauteur de crue), le choix de l’édifice ruiné conservé se porte souvent sur un édifice doté d’une valeur patrimoniale préexistante (comme une église), la ruine urbaine constitue un élément non fonctionnel dans la ville qui **questionne** l’habitant…
Proposed translations (English)
3 which is pondered by the residents
3 +4 seeks to elicit a reaction/response from
4 challenges
4 which rings a bell (see below)
4 reaches out and grabs
3 "that calls into question"
3 looks for an answer
3 puzzles
2 raises questions about (its inhabitants)
Change log

Dec 6, 2011 19:18: MatthewLaSon Created KOG entry

Dec 6, 2011 19:20: MatthewLaSon changed "Edited KOG entry" from "<a href="/profile/35643">MatthewLaSon's</a> old entry - "questionne (here)"" to ""which is pondered by/has them stop and think""

Discussion

Lorna Coing (asker) Nov 29, 2011:
Thank you both for your thoughts! Gilla, I believe you might be on to something. And Fiorsam, I agree that the text is ambiguous - but luckily, I know the author quite well, so although I want to have a decent stab at translating this, if I really have to, I suppose I could ask him exactly what he means!
Fiorsam Nov 28, 2011:
Possible interpretation Very ambiguous - by extrapolation it could mean that
the empty ruins stand as a question mark vis-à-vis the inhabited area seeking their own inhabitants and wondering why "they" are not inhabited. Just a thought...:)
Evans (X) Nov 28, 2011:
Lorna I wonder if you could stretch the sense of "questionner" here to mean "puzzle". I don't know if this fits with the rest of your text but it might be suggesting that a town's population might be puzzled by the existence of non-functional buildings, especially ones that are in ruins.

Proposed translations

4 hrs
Selected

which is pondered by the residents

Hello,

That's how I read it.

I think it's a source of reflection for the residents.



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Note added at 4 hrs (2011-11-28 18:26:39 GMT)
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In other words, it gets them thinking.

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Note added at 4 hrs (2011-11-28 18:27:19 GMT)
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I think the plural of "habitant" works best in English.

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Note added at 5 hrs (2011-11-28 18:50:18 GMT)
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I'm afraid the meaning may not be overly clear, hence your problem!

The idea, imho, is still about the urban ruins making people stop and think, as it serves no practical purpose.

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Note added at 5 hrs (2011-11-28 18:52:56 GMT)
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In informal contexts, "ça me questionne" can be translated as "it has me wondering", etc.

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Note added at 8 hrs (2011-11-28 22:08:49 GMT)
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Imho, it is not so much that it elicits a response as it is that it makes them (that's to say "the residents") think about what this urban ruins may represent by being left standing.
Note from asker:
Thanks very much for all of your thoughts! I may end up using 'stop and think', as it seems to translate people's common concensus of the meaning here, and sounds like proper English too!
Something went wrong...
3 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "I ended up using 'stop and think'; thank you very much for the suggestion! "
+4
7 mins

seeks to elicit a reaction/response from

might be one possibility (or rather two!)
Note from asker:
I think you might have something here! Thank you!
Peer comment(s):
agree Joshua Wolfe
27 mins
Thanks!
agree philgoddard : Good answer - though I think you could leave out "seeks to", as the ruin isn't actively seeking a response (even if the original building was).
4 hrs
Thanks!
agree emiledgar
5 hrs
Thanks!
agree Nikki Scott-Despaigne : Yes, or "turns to". Otherwise, I agree with Phil.
7 hrs
Thanks!
Something went wrong...
10 mins

"that calls into question"

Je pense qu'ici "questionne" a le sens d'interpeller,remettre en question...
Peer comment(s):
neutral Colin Rowe : I'm not quite sure what "calling the habitant into question" would mean. It sounds like doubting the existence of the habitant.
4 mins
Something went wrong...
12 mins

looks for an answer

which looks to the citizen/townspeople for an answer

it would be easier if we had the phrase that follows it
Note from asker:
Phrase which follows is: D’autre part, les ruines conservées font évoluer le paysage urbain, nécessitent parfois une modification des circulations, et plus généralement remodèlent une identité urbaine, au point que certaines deviennent des symboles urbains extrêmement forts, comme par exemple la Frauenkirche de Dresde, aujourd’hui reconstruite après avoir été conservée comme ruine pendant un demi-siècle ... not sure it helps much, though!
Something went wrong...
21 mins

raises questions about (its inhabitants)

another suggestion ...
Something went wrong...
56 mins

challenges

.
Something went wrong...
3 hrs

which rings a bell (see below)

or perhaps: which is likely to ring a bell for residents...
just a suggestion!
Peer comment(s):
neutral Colin Rowe : Only if the ruin in question is a bell-tower ;-)
18 mins
Something went wrong...
4 hrs

reaches out and grabs

You could equally well use interpeller here - indeed, it would be more usual -, which is what the police do. When I was interpellé in 1996 by a seasoned CRS to whom I had politely made the remark that he was racist because while he had used vous to me and my blond, blue-eyed Canadian cousin, he had used tu to my cousin's equally Canadian but-of-Asian-origin friend, he not only reached out and grabbed me but threw my head against the wall of the metro and punched me, turned my arm up my back and marched me upstairs to the waiting black maria. On the way up, younger members of force asked, goggle-eyed, "C'est un quoi que t'as là?", to which I replied "Ce qu'il a là, Messieurs, est un sujet de sa gracieuse Majesté". I knew I had him worried from the moment I next saw him, without his matricule. I subsequently got my own back on him during a strip search in the toilets of the commissariat in the 18ème arrondissement by humiliating him - while he was attempting to humiliate me - by suggesting in front of his colleagues that it would be unwise for me to remove my underpants lest I turned him on. I waited for the blow but it never came.
Note from asker:
Wow, that's quite a story! Thanks for your suggestion!
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9 hrs

puzzles

why keep a ruin in a city?
Note from asker:
Thank you! I think this is on the right track, and your question is pretty much the question the research paper I'm translating asks!
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