This dissertation also discusses translation challenges specific to translating the source text, Deon Opperman's Kaburu, from Afrikaans to English. The source text, Kaburu, was chosen because of the playwright's interesting use of African language and the many culture-specific references in the text.
Contextualisation
- Contextualisation
- Literary translation
- Theatre and Opperman
- Research questions and the thesis statement
- Methodology
- Chapter outline
- Summary
The meaning of the title of the piece will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 3 of this thesis. To definitively determine the suitability of the source text, a provisional (pilot) translation of Kaburu has been made.
Theoretical basis of research study
Introduction
Finally, it is also necessary to briefly discuss the particular challenges that the genre of the text used for this study presents. Kaburu is a literary text, more specifically a dramatic text, and in the next section I will briefly explain common challenges related to the translation of literary texts, followed by a more in-depth discussion of the unique challenges that translation presents. of a theater text set. .
Translation of literary texts
Windle (2011) points out that dramatic translation has long been an integral part of the work of literary translators. However, it should be noted that although the translator has extensive influence on the production of the target text, this influence does not extend far into the production of the actual performance.
Equivalence
Formal equivalence focuses on the culture and context of the source language, while dynamic equivalence focuses on the culture and context of the target language. For Nida, the most important purpose of using equivalence is to find and preserve meaning.
Translation shifts
Structural shifts occur when the translator makes a change in the grammatical structure of the source text translation unit when it is translated into the target language (Catford, 1965:77). Shoshana Blum-Kulka has developed a theory of shifts that occur at the level of the text.
Domestication versus foreignisation
At one end of this scale, a highly nationalized text will contain many foreign items that clearly indicate that the text originated in a foreign language and culture, possibly to the extent that the target language reader needs an extensive knowledge of the source language culture. In the Afrikaans source language text, the play's setting is contemporary South African and contains a great many cultural items that will present challenges in the translation process.
Nord’s model for analysis
Extratextual factors are those factors which relate to the communicative function of the source text and are therefore classified as "situational factors" (Nord, while intratextual factors relate to the content of the text itself, including non-verbal elements (Nord, 2005: 42 ) Nord emphasizes that the communicative function of the source text, represented by the factors of the communicative situation in which the text functions, is of critical importance for the analysis of the source text.
Summary
Pre-translation: analysis of the source text
Introduction
The translator as reader
In order to ensure a careful and accurate reading and understanding of the source text and the multiple levels of meaning it contains, the translator must begin with a systematic analysis of the source text. I will only discuss the external and internal factors in Nord's model that relate to the comprehension stage of Kaburu's translation.
Extratextual factors
- Sender, intention and motive
- Text-function, medium, literariness and non-verbal aspects of the text
If the text is intended to be thought provoking for the source language audience, then part of the sender's intent will be lost if this purpose cannot be achieved for the target language. Effect can only be observed after receiving the text and can be defined as "the result of the reception". Nord (2005:55) advises the translator to consider extratextual and intratextual features of the text in an attempt to discover the author's intention.
In the case of verbal communication, aspects may include telephones, microphones, production, reception and comprehension of the text. In the stage directions, the playwright often specifies certain gestures and the movement of the characters. It is important to retain these culture-specific non-verbal elements in an alienated translation because they contribute to the unique, foreign sense of the text.
Intratextual factors
- Subject matter and themes
- Presupposition
If the text is released in South Africa in the near future, most if not all audiences will be able to relate to the characters. The main theme of the text is migration and displacement and how these affect a particular cultural group in South Africa. This implies that the cultural and historical references that underpin the play's themes will be retained to portray the culture portrayed in the source text, namely that of Africans, which may be quite "foreign" to the target language audience.
When it is assumed that the target language audience does not know the information necessary to understand the reference, the translator must use a clarification strategy. Larson points out that the target language audience will “decode the translation” based on their own culture and experience, not on the culture of the source language. However, since their production of the target language involves lexical selection, they are considered as part of the production phase in the next chapter.
Summary
These references often have connotative meanings that the translator must take into account when producing the target language interpretation; I will elaborate on these meanings in section 4.2.2 and discuss selected interpretations for the target text.
Internal factors
Introduction
Problems in lexical translation
- Historical references in Kaburu
- References to the current socio-political climate in South Africa
- Expletives
- Word play
- Idiomatic expressions
- Forms of address and terms of endearment
This is important information for the target language audience, because it sheds light on the feelings of the Afrikaner people. It is expected that the target language audience will not know about this war and may be curious about the facts of the war referred to in the play. The mood has lightened and the target language unit is a goner, reflecting Vader's short, to the point, slightly resigned tone as well as the connotative meaning of the source text unit.
In this case, the elaborative nature of the source text unit is sacrificed to maintain the appropriate tone and quality inherent in the target text. The translation 'for the sake of goodness' was chosen because it carries a tone of impatience and preserves the defamatory quality of the source text unit. Example (b) was translated with the target language equivalent of the literal meaning of the source language unit, namely, "wheel".
There is no exact target language equivalent for this entity, so it is up to the translator to produce a target language entity that is a dynamic equivalent of the source text entity. Rendering this unit with an appropriate target language unit requires some creativity on the part of the translator, because a literal rendering sounds very unnatural in the target language.
Discourse-level translation challenges
- Register as a characterisation device
- Shifts in levels of explicitness
These references were retained in the target language renderings by choosing the endearments 'little bug' and 'ladybug'. The following example, Example 21, will show a distinct aspect of register, namely the difference in the tenor of the characters. Shifts of coherence are about obvious markers in the text (shifts in levels of explicitness and shifts in levels of meaning), and much depends on how the audience interprets the text.
In this study, this kind of shift was not a problem in the production of the target text. An example of a transitivity shift that occurred in the production of Kaburu's target text is a discourse shift. This deliberate change in discourse was made to create a unity that sounds more natural in the target language, and included making an agent explicit in the source text implicit in the target text.
Grammatical shifts
Structural shift refers to changes in the grammatical structure of the translation unit when it is rendered from the source language to the target language. This can occur when the verb needs to be moved to be grammatically correct in the target language. In this case, it is impossible to produce a grammatically correct target language unit without changing the structure.
Structural Shift Target Language Unit: …all around you hear lions roaring and hyenas calling. In this case, there is a shift of the unit from the classification of words in the source language to the classification of phrases in the target language. In kaburu, the source language unit braaitang (Opperman, 2008:31) was translated with the target language unit barbecue tongs.
Summary
Another example where a change in flexion is inevitable is when Elna tells her mother that she is not adjusting to life in Canada (Opperman, 2008:31). She uses the Afrikaans verb sukkel / 'struggle' in the unit 'Ek sukkel, Ma', which was translated 'I struggle, mom'. These internal factors include the display of expletives, historical and socio-political references, forms of address and idiomatic expressions and endearments, as well as shifts at different levels and certain aspects of cohesion and coherence.
I was able to give many examples from the original text, as Kaburu is a text that contains many translation challenges (due to the author's style and the many idiosyncratic expressions used by the characters in the play). Context proved to be a decisive factor in the decision-making process underlying the production of the target text, especially regarding forms of address, expletives and idiomatic expressions. Examples of such challenging cases are puns and jokes, as well as historical and culturally specific items that are particularly problematic or even impossible to translate.
Conclusion
Approaching the text as a translator means paying close attention to the language choices of the author. Towards a paradigm for the study of the translation of children's literature in the South African educational context: some reflections. At the back right is a curved corridor and on the left another one in the middle of the imaginary wall.
And this is where the income statement comes into play - the main source of the balance sheet. Meanwhile, Father walked into the back right of the living room-cum-dining room and began pouring two drinks from the cupboard. Mom and Elna walk out of the hallway on the left, in the back of the lounge area.
She sat on the side of the bed with the chaplain's letter in her hands. Dad: Then he took the bomb out of the sand to put it in the tent pen.
