Department of Afrikaans and Dutch

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Browsing Department of Afrikaans and Dutch by browse.metadata.advisor "Du Toit, Catherine"

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    'n Direkte vertaling versus 'n abbavertaling met verwysing na kulturele oordrag
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2014-04) Steyn, Johanna E. T.; Feinauer, A. E.; Du Toit, Catherine; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Afrikaans and Dutch.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Most Afrikaans novels that are translated into French are piggyback or relay translations, which means translations of translations. Although piggyback translations have been done since the earliest times and are still being done, they are at best seen as a necessary evil and little research is done on this phenomenon – in fact so little that there is not even a uniform term among scholars to refer to this practice. Translation is the ideal space for different cultures to meet and interact, especially when the translation strategy is to foreignise by retaining cultural elements form the source culture in the translated text. Each translation is however adapted to a certain extent to its own target culture in order for the target public to have a better understanding of the text. When a translator works directly with the source text, he is in control about the way in which cultural references will be conveyed and explained to the target public. In the case of a piggyback translation the translator has to translate a “source text” that has already been adapted, or not, for a specific target public. The piggyback translator has to deal with a text where some cultural references might have been retained and others not. If the piggyback translator has no first-hand knowledge of the source culture, it means that he will not be able to distinguish which references have been adapted, nor to what extent they have been adapted. This study is an investigation into the French translations of two novels by Etienne van Heerden, namely Toorberg and Die swye van Mario Salviati. Le Domaine de Toorberg is a piggyback translation of Toorberg and Un long silence has been translated directly from the Afrikaans source text. The aim is to determine in which of the two French translations cultural transfer was the most successful. In translation studies great emphasis is placed on the fact that translators should not only be bilingual, but also bicultural, which means that the translator should understand both source and target cultures. In the case of the direct translation investigated here, the translator is not only bilingual, but he shows a South African and French biculturality. In the case of the piggyback translation however, the translator’s cultures are French and North American. This means that the piggyback translator has no first-hand knowledge of the source culture with the result that the cultural references are unknown to her. I hope to determine through this study whether piggyback translations are a viable method to present Afrikaans novels to (in this case) French readers and if not, whether alternative methods should be investigated, for example using translators who do not necessarily translate into their first language, as often suggested in translation studies.