Mots Maudits #1: Valoriser

Like any French to English translator of marketing copy, I sometimes come across terms that – although they may seem clear at first glance – make me hesitate between two (or more) potential interpretations.

When this occurs, unless I'm fairly familiar with the subject or the author, more often than not I find myself on the phone with the client politely asking for clarification. Unless you are a professional translator, you would be excused for wondering what the issue is. Allow me to explain.

In the first of what I hope will be a series on “troublesome words”, I would like to examine the case of “valoriser”, and explain why it is the bane of the translator.

Larousse gives the following definitions of "valoriser":

- Donner, faire prendre de la valeur à quelque chose

- Donner une importance accrue à quelque chose, le mettre en valeur

That seems fairly clear, so what’s the problem? The problem is that French copywriters use it a lot, to convey many different ideas, and unless you are familiar with the subject then it isn’t always obvious exactly what they mean. Incidentally, only rarely is it intended to communicate the notion of economic value.

For example, in this article date 14 November 2018, the term is used as follows:

"[...] les élus de la Région [...] ont rencontré des étudiants [...]. Le but de ce rendez-vous : valoriser les métiers du soin [...]".

This is fairly common usage. In a literal sense, the writer apparently really does mean that the purpose of this meeting or event was to “cause people to value” this profession. However, that’s more than a little clunky in English, so how could you rephrase it? There are a dozen ways that you could translate “valoriser” in this context. To find the most suitable turn of phrase, you first need to establish exactly what the students’ aims were and what the author wants to emphasise.

For example, you could say that the aim was to “raise the profile of” or “promote” care professions, but was it simply a question of “generating publicity” or “increasing visibility”? Maybe they sought specifically to “improve the image” or “increase the status” of care professions, or “show them in a positive light” to attract young people to the profession. Maybe, on the other hand, the stakeholders wanted to “highlight the value” of care professions in order to lobby for higher wages.

When I explain this type of issue, many clients sigh wistfully that English is more precise. Maybe, but that’s certainly not the whole story. By some accounts, English has more words, but how often do you hear francophones say, “what?! There is no English word for [insert obscure idiom here]”. This is just a case where there is no word-for-word translation and more context is required to faithfully render the original idea, assuming of course that the original idea was clearly formed.

Another issue, which arises when proofreading English copy written by French speakers, is that they frequently use “valorise” for “valoriser”. I would (and often do) argue that this is not the most idiomatic choice of words.

Collins provides the following primary definition for “valorise”: “to fix and maintain an artificial price for (a commodity) by governmental action”. It does give a secondary meaning, in American usage, which is closer to the French sense ("to confer value or greater value upon"); however, the phrase "valorize the profession" yields 6,120 Google hits (with a suspiciously high number of French sources) whereas there are 172,000 hits for the French equivalent "valoriser le métier".

This would seem to confirm my impression that this usage is marginal, if not archaic or completely out of date.