Thérèse Raquin d’Émile Zola : Répétitions lexicales, réseaux sémantiques et leurs traductions suédoises

Sammanfattning: The subject of this thesis is Emile Zola’s novel Thérèse Raquin (1867). The principal aim is to examine lexical repetitions and their importance for semantic networks. The thesis studies the use of the noun cou and certain of its co-occurrences, as well as the use of colours and their derivatives. Employing the methods of Greimas and Rastier, the study is based upon two analyses, one narratological and the other thematic, an approach which allows us not only to study the importance of lexical repetitions, but also to study another aspect of the writing, Zola’s various sources of inspiration. This approach aids in showing the stylistic profile of the novel from a new perspective. Our second aim concerns the Swedish translations of the text. The degree of equivalence of lexical repetitions and their transmission has been studied in three versions (Wilson, 1884, Bjurman, 1911, and Bouleau, 1953). Our analysis draws on Berman’s and Heldner’s ideas about the critical evaluation of translated literary texts.The results of this thesis show that Zola, in Thérèse Raquin, uses lexical repetitions to create a stylistic effect that not only draws inspiration from literary and artistic sources, but that is also inspired by real events of the time. These stylistic properties, such as the system of colour leitmotivs, must be conveyed in a translation that is to be considered faithful to the original. The findings of this study suggest that there is a dependency between two of the examined versions and that it would be desirable to produce a new Swedish translation of the novel, equivalent to Zola’s text.