CHAPTER 4: Internal factors
4.2 Problems in lexical translation
4.2.6 Forms of address and terms of endearment
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The finale challenge for this section is a reference to the Afrikaans version of the song
‘Happy Birthday’. In the text, there is a reference to the words ‘baie jare spaar’ (Opperman, 2008:52) that are in the Afrikaans version of the song, but not in the English version. In this case, the reference to the lyrics had to be omitted because any attempt to retain the lyrics would sound awkward and the reference would be lost on the target language audience. In this unit, the most important value to retain is Father’s acknowledgement that it’s unfair to let Elna sing about having a happy birthday when everyone else knows that the person in question is in fact terminally ill. This is accomplished by stating the fact that the person for whom the song would by sung will not be with them for much longer.
106 Example 10:
10.i. Afrikaans source text unit: …het Ma en Pa al besluit (Opperman 2008:) 10.ii. English target text unit: …have you and Mom decided
In Afrikaans it is also possible to use the second person pronoun u to show respect but, in general, this is seldom done (Donaldson, 1993:124); u is never used in Kaburu because it is much too formal for the context of the play. Instead, when the characters in Kaburu address an older person, they use the third person vocative as is common in Afrikaans (Donaldson, 1993:124,125). Using the third person in these contexts is not acceptable in the English language system because English consistently employs ‘you’ as a respectful form of address between family members regardless of who enjoys seniority. In the rendition of these units, all instances of third person form of address were changed to English second person you, as is appropriate for the target language system. Further examples of the use of the vocative instead of you include:
Example 11:
11.i. Afrikaans source text unit: Ma weet goed waste woord. (Opperman, 2008:7) 11.ii. English target language unit: You know very well which word.
Example 12:
12.i. Afrikaans source text unit: Het Ouma lekker gerus? (Opperman, 2008:34) 12.ii. English target language unit: Did you enjoy your nap?
107 Example 13:
13.i. Afrikaans source text unit: …as Pa nie omgee nie (Opperman, 2008:17) 13.ii. English target language unit: …if you don’t mind.
Kinship terms are sometimes used in Afrikaans as endearments, for example, when spouses address each other as my vrou (my wife) and my man (my husband), as is demonstrated in examples 14 and 15 below, or when parents address their children as my seun (my son) or my meisiekind (my daughter) instead of using a name. See examples 16 and 17 below.
Example 14:
14.i. Afrikaans source text unit: My man, jy sal ’n baksteen eet… (Opperman, 2008:16)
14.ii. English target language unit: My darling, you would eat a brick…
Example 15:
15.i. Afrikaans source text unit: Soos altyd, my vrou, pragtig. (Opperman, 2008:12) 15.ii. English target language unit: Lovely, as always, my darling.
Example 16:
16.i. Afrikaans source text unit: Ai tog, my kind. (Oppperman, 2008:29) 16.ii. English target text unit: Oh, my darling.
108 Example 17:
17.i. Afrikaans source text unit: Ek’s jammer, my seun. (Opperman, 2008:45) 17.ii. English target text unit: I’m sorry, my son.
It is noteworthy that Bertus, who is a son-in-law, also calls his parents-in-law ‘Ma’ and ‘Pa’
and his wife’s grandmother ‘Ouma’. This is not the case in all English-speaking cultures, but a common occurrence in South Africa. For this reason, Bertus’s forms of address for his family-in-law were retained in the target text, as is demonstrated in examples 18 and 19 below.
Example 18:
18.i. Afrikaans source text unit: Ma, Pa soek sy braaitang. (Opperman, 2008:31) 18.ii. English target text unit: Mom, Dad is looking for his braai tongs.
Example 19:
19.i. Afrikaans source text unit: Naand, Ouma. (Opperman, 2008:15) 19.ii. English target text unit: Evening, Gran.
It is also noteworthy that Boetjan addresses Bertus as ‘swaer’/‘brother-in-law’ (Opperman, 2008:23), showing that they are not blood relatives. Boetjan uses the term in a friendly, affectionate manner and this quality needs to be retained in the target language rendition.
Rendering this unit with a suitable target language unit requires some creativity on the part of the translator because a literal rendition sounds very unnatural in the target language. The
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rendition ‘brother’ was rejected because ‘brother’ has various other connotations. The rendition ‘bro’ was selected, as is demonstrated in example 20 below. Although the precise kinship status of the original is lost (in other words, the relationship between them is not explicitly stated by the characters), the figurative meaning is largely retained. The audience will be able to deduce the relationship from the dialogue between the characters.
Example 20:
20.i. Afrikaans source text unit: Dankie, Swaer. (Opperman, 2008:23) 20.ii. English target text unit: Thanks, Bro.
Terms of endearment do not have the clear conventions that forms of address have in the Afrikaans and English language systems, and require a more nuanced approach because they rely so heavily on connotative meaning. The goal is to render the source text endearment with a target text endearment that will carry the same connotative meaning for the target language audience as the original unit carried for the source language audience.
In Afrikaans, calling someone my bokkie is an acceptable endearment in a close interpersonal relationship but the literal rendition (‘my little antelope’) in English would be unidiomatic and have an unintended comic effect. It is better to render source language endearments with target language endearments that first language target language users would actually use in a similar relationship. It is therefore not simply a manner of rendering each source language unit with a set target language equivalent because terms of endearment should sound natural to the target language audience. Derivatives of the terms for ‘mother’ and ‘father’ have equivalents between languages (e.g. mom/mommy and dad/daddy that are similar to Afrikaans mamma/mams and pappa/paps).
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Table 4.3 shows forms of address and terms of endearment with possible target language renditions, along with the rendition that was selected for the translation of Kaburu.
Table 4.3: Terms of endearment
Afrikaans SL unit Possible English rendition based on connotative meaning
Selected rendition
(a) Jong man (13, ) Young man, Son Young man
(b) Die mannetjie (18) The little man, the little guy The little man
(c) Apie (21) Little monkey, little animal Little monkey
(d) My kokkerot (21,72) My pet, little bug, ladybug Ladybug
(e) Sus (23) Sis Sis
(f) My gogga (28) My little bug, my pet, my ladybug My little bug (g) my kaffertjie (35,70) Pumpkin, peanut, my little hooligan My little hooligan
(h) Mams (35) Mom, mommy Mom
(i) my skat (37) My dear, my darling, baby, honey, sweetheart My darling
The purpose of using terms of endearment is to demonstrate affection between characters who are in long-term relationships. In Kaburu, terms of endearment are used mainly for children and spouses. The renditions were selected after considering connotative and denotative meanings. In some cases literal translations were possible, for example, ‘Mams’
was rendered with ‘Mom’ (h in the table above), ‘Sus’ was rendered with ‘Sis’ (e), ‘Jong man’
(a) with ‘Young man’ and ‘Apie’ with ‘Monkey’ (c). In other cases, words with completely different denotative meanings were necessary because of the cultural differences between Afrikaans and English audiences. ‘My kaffertjie’ (g in the table above) literally translates as
‘My little kaffir’ and this sounds both odd and offensive because of possible cultural connections with the denotative meaning of the word ‘kaffir’. It can be assumed that the grandmother wants to express fondness for her granddaughter and there are several suitable alternatives with radically different denotative meanings that will convey this
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connotative meaning without causing offense. In this case, ‘peanut’ or ‘pumpkin’ are safe choices. It is, however, noteworthy that the character of Grandmother seems to enjoy being offensive and rude at times and the endearment Grandmother uses for Elna is perhaps better translated with something that depicts this aspect of Grandmother’s personality. This is why, in the end, I chose the endearment ‘my little hooligan’. ‘my kokkerot’ (d) and ‘my gogga’ (f) refer to bugs in an endearing manner. These references were retained in the target language renditions by selecting the endearments ‘little bug’ and ‘ladybug’
respectively. The last endearment ‘my skat’ (i) literally means ‘my treasure’. The finale rendition, ‘my darling’ was selected based on the connotative meaning of the unit in the source text because it is affectionate and conveys the feeling of appreciation that the original unit has in the source text.