Glossary entry

German term or phrase:

fil rouge

English translation:

unifying theme

Added to glossary by Kim Metzger
Jul 21, 2002 21:45
21 yrs ago
1 viewer *
German term

fil rouge

German to English Science Social Science, Sociology, Ethics, etc. sociology
This is a problem. I know fil rouge is French but can't really present the question to the French-English community because the context is German.

In einer Präsentation spricht Herr B. frei, mit wenig Körperspannung und dezenter Gestik, wobei er mimisch kaum mitgeht. Er bietet Gedankengänge an, gestaltet diese aber inhaltlich begrenzt aus und hinterlässt damit den Eindruck einer Skizze. Mit seinem Blickkontakt ist er häufig entweder bei den Unterlagen oder bei den Hilfsmitteln. Den Zuhörern macht er punktuell interaktive Angebote, gestaltet diese Beziehung aber nur begrenzt, da er in der Rolle des Experten bleibt. Insgesamt ist in seinen Ausführungen wenig „fil rouge“ und „Drive“ spürbar. Er entwickelt die „Architektur“ seines Vortrags direkt am Flip, was punktuell zu Redundanzen und zu einem etwas improvisierten Eindruck führt. Gesamthaft entsteht das Bild einer wenig spontan-souveränen, aber sachlich sattelfesten Präsentation.

Proposed translations

+4
4 hrs
Selected

unifying thread

or unifying theme. I first heard the term "red thread" from a Swede who translated literally because she didn´t know how to say this in English. Since then I have come across it a few times in continental Europe with this sense.

Why the unifying thread should be red has never been explained to me, but I imagine it is so that you can follow it through complex interweavings.

You could almost translate it as "leitmotif" - without a red thread there is nothing giving the presentations a coherent sense.
Peer comment(s):

agree Raffael Zissu
51 mins
agree Elvira Stoianov : der rote Faden, eben
3 hrs
agree Mike McDonald (X) : Defined in use and origin by Goethe in his 'Wahlverwandtschaften'.
4 hrs
agree Steffen Walter
10 hrs
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks for all the suggestions. Wishing to stick as closely as possible to the original, I went with unifying thread/theme. If I had just remembered that my text is Swiss and that for good reason they tend to toss in a French term now and then, I would have thought of Roter Faden."
7 mins

essential

I guess the french really means "underlined in red ink" or something to that effect.
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38 mins

unfocussed

There's exactly the same figure of speech in German - ein roter Faden. If Hänsel and Gretel had used a this string of red wool instead of bread crumbs, as Ariadne did, they wouldn't have been lost.

It's an element connecting ideas into a logical flow. He was disgressing too much without being able to focus on the logic development of this ideas. I'm not aware of an appropriate English idiom, so this is how I would put it:

Overall, his presentation felt somewhat unfocussed ...

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Note added at 2002-07-21 22:52:22 (GMT)
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\'a lacking story line\' might be better way to describe it, or lacking clarity and structure.
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58 mins

essence / core

Merely a guess :)
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1 hr

had no solid theme or thread ( or: clearly definable thread)

In speech making, a theme allows one to follow the thread.
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19 hrs

coherence

what it appears to me to sum up to.

Or make it negative and use "disjointed" or sth. similar.

HTH
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