Abstract

The thesis analyses the sociological determinations of the French translation of Agatha Christie's detective novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. The novel published in English in 1926 and translated into French in 1927 by Miriam Dou-Desportes is the first of a long list published in the new collection ±Le Masque» (1927) established by Albert Pigasse at the Librairie des Champs Élysées. In the thesis, the sociological theory of Pierre Bourdieu adapted to translation is applied. The habitus, field, symbolic capital and illusio are discussed concerning The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the author and the translator, the detective novel field and the considerable legitimacy built up from this novel. Their contrastive analysis submit some sociological hypotheses on the way Agatha Christie's novel was translated in France in the 1920s and the impact of the English author's work in France in spite of the defects of its translation.