By Deepti Dhir
A French literature professor I once had used a simple expression to refocus our attention in class. After a few minutes of talking about something not immediately relevant to our seminar, Professor Rivers would say, “Revenons à nos moutons.” We would then promptly turn our attention back to the French author of the day. Revenons à nos moutons is a French idiomatic expression that means ‘let’s come back to the subject we are discussing’ or ‘let’s return to the main topic at hand.’
Translated literally, revenons à nos moutons reads “to come back to our sheep.” Of course this doesn’t make too much sense in English and a native English speaker would likely have trouble dissecting the expression. As a writing consultant, if a student came in with “let’s come back to our sheep” in a comparative essay, I would probably stop my student and use one of my acquired consultant strategies to help the student notice the supposed error. This kind of communication could take several forms but likely would be some version of “I am not sure I know what you mean here?” or “you might want to rethink the wording” or even “I stopped here, so as a reader I am confused about something.”
As consultants, we can hear ourselves saying these lines in response to expressions students translate literally from their native language, or in reaction to attempts at English expressions that have hints of students’ own language and culture still in them. While my strategy up to this point has been to stop my student and figure out what he or she “really means,” I now question my approach.
Some of these perceived errors that enter student texts can instead be seen as attempts at “rewriting English.” At a recent conference at the University of Connecticut, the keynote speakers Bruce Horner and Min-Zhan Lu talked extensively about the notion of “rewriting English.” Similar thoughts arose from literary translators at the conference. These professionals often struggle with how to word and reword expressions when they translate. Hearing such discussions, I was inspired to be more open to students challenging English at the Writing Center, and to suppress my desire to revise expressions that don’t fit English language rules.
So “Revenons à nos moutons” expressed as “let’s come back to our sheep” may have a place in my students’ writing after all.
Published April 6, 2015
