Department of African Languages

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Browsing Department of African Languages by Subject "Achebe, Chinua -- Criticism and interpretation"

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    The translation of Chinua Achebe's Things fall apart into isiXhosa Lwadilik'udonga : a critical analysis
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2005-12) Ntwana, Thenjiswa; Feinauer, A. E.; Jadezweni, M. W.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of African Languages.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Things Fall Apart is an unsentimental novel which appeared in 1958 as Chinua Achebe's first novel. It is regarded as a classic of world literature. It is deemed vital that such rich literature as the one of Achebe, be made accessible to readers in as many language communities as possible. It is through the vehicle of translation that a multitude of readers are endowed with the power to make some form of contact with much of the world's great writings. But translation of literature is a very complex process, which poses some difficult yet interesting problems that demand particular notice and specific attention. In translation of literature one is not just dealing with words written in a certain. time, space and sociopolitical situation, most importantly it is the cultural aspect of the text that should be taken into account. Therefore, translation of literature is not just the transfer of information between languages, but the transfer of one culture to another. Literary texts in isiXhosa and English, which are not only written in different languages but also represent different cultures, differ greatly in terms of linguistic, literary and cultural-social conventions. Challenges such as these make it difficult for a translator, in this case K.S. Bongela, to render the source language text flawlessly in the target language. This study thus investigates how Bongela coped with transmitting the cultural issues in Things Fall Apart into Lwadilik'udonga. It will highlight the various problems the translator encountered in search for equivalence and adequacy, and also analyse the strategies he has employed in this transference of cultural elements to the target text. As will be seen, it is possible to relate the translation of this text to the six general rules mentioned by Bassnett-MacGuire (1988: 116- 117) for the translator.