Chapter 3: The Translation of Cultural Categories
3.4.1. Translation principles for the transfer of cultural categories
Prescriptive translation theorists such as Nida (1982:73) have pointed out that:
The most serious problems involved in transfer derive from the fact that the same objects or events may have quite different symbolic value. In translating a particular text with different symbolic values, it is neither necessary nor wise to change one symbolic value in the source language into another in the target language, but it is certainly necessary to provide some supplementary footnote or as to identify the different cultural values involved.
In the same vein, other scholars have outlined guidelines within which the translator should operate in the translation process. For instance, Newmark (2001:62) asserts that:
It is surely useful to set up some general principles or guidelines of adaptation,
Particularly in the increasingly important fields of translating drama and children’s literature. In both cases, my principle is: the more important the language of the play or the story, and usually the more serious the text, the more closely it should be translated, and the less is adaptation in this or that particular specific item(s) warranted; contrariwise, the less serious or the lighter the play or the story, the more justified a full or partial adaptation […]. Bear in mind moreover, that in general, adaptation should be kept to a (comfortable, not strict) minimum.
Adaptation as a strategy for translating culture-specific items, based on the above principle outlined by Newmark or on any other principle, is examined in detail below (cf. section 3.4.2.1.).
Kwiecinski (1998:186) has pointed out that much of the recent writing on translation which draws on functional linguistics in the broadest sense adopts domestication as a default translation strategy. Snell-Hornby (1988:53), for example, advocates a model of translational practice which strives to recreate those dimensions of the source text that are deemed significant by the translator after considering factors such as readership and purpose, from the perspective of target readers in their own cultural sphere. This is achieved chiefly through creating target culture-specific imagery, in accordance with target language textual conventions. As a practical aid to translators in “creating a natural and idiomatic translation”, she advocates that they consult parallel texts, i.e. independent texts in the two languages, conceived and functioning in similar situations.
Talking about the translation of children’s literature and with specific reference to Germany, Nord (1991) states that in modern German translations for children, translators are expected to replace proper names and culture-specific references with more familiar ones. Similarly, Oittinen (1993) declares categorically that foreignness and strangeness should be avoided at all costs in translations of children’s literature.
Nord (1991, 1994) recommends a detailed analysis of intratextual and extratextual factors with the aim of either recreating or altering these factors in the translation on the basis of a hierarchy of target functions. This hierarchy is formulated by the
translator and guides his/her work. In principle, Nord’s approach is dynamic and open to the possibility of adopting foreignizing strategies. With the frames advocated by Snell-Hornby (1988:53) and Nord (1994:63), the ‘foreignness’ of some culture- specific aspects is considered justified if, for instance, the initiator of the translation stipulates that a literal translation is required, or if the source text itself has some deliberately foreign, unidiomatic or culturally exotic qualities which the translator deems necessary to be preserved. Nord (1994:63) clearly states that “translational conventions which ask for ‘literal translation’ (in a given culture community) have to be taken into account as seriously as translational conventions which allow an adaptation of some or all text dimensions to target culture standards”. She equally envisages a situation where the purpose of a translation is primarily to produce “a target-culture document of a source- culture communication” (documentary translation) rather than “a communicative instrument for the target culture”
(instrumental translation) (cf. Nord, 1991:11).
It could, however, be remarked that functionalist approaches normally take it for granted that even when foreignizing strategies are justified, they must include the necessary degree of either covert or overt explication in order to avoid obscurity and reduced intelligibility. Besides, as Nord (1994:63) asserts, they must conform with established target language conventions of exoticism. Consequently, the production of normalized or domesticated target texts remains the recommended norm of competent translating. It could further be remarked that the extratextual conditioning factors listed by functionalist approaches do not seem to account for the overwhelming tendency to foreignize some textual aspects of texts produced in some cultures rather than others, particularly as concerns the rendition of culture-specific items.
In this regard, we have already cited the example of the abundant pre- and post- independence Cameroonian and indeed African literature (before 1960 and 1961- 1980) written in European languages targeting the European colonial colonizers and intruders (cf. section 2.1.5 above). This militant literature depicts the very rich African culture and sharply satirizes the European violation of the customs, traditions, values
and indeed the entire cultural heritage. This literature has as leitmotiv the portrayal of the desecration of a culture. A translation of such literature, if it has to achieve the intended objective, must capture such portrayal for the consumption of the intended (European) target audience. It could therefore be posited here that the translation of the abundant militant pre- and post-independence Cameroonian/African literature for the European/Western target audience would have as principle the adoption of a foreignizing default strategy which preserves in the target texts the exotic culture depicted in the source texts and which constitutes the leitmotiv of the authors of that literature. This point is further buttressed below in Chapter 5 by the concrete examples drawn from Cameroonian and African literature wherein Oyono Mbia’s translation strategies are explained in the light of the prevailing trend and attitude with regard to literary creation at the time he wrote his plays.