representing africa through translation: ferdinand oyono's une vie de boy and le vieux nègre et la

212 Pages·2017·0.9 MB·English

by  Dora Du Plessis

REPRESENTING AFRICA THROUGH TRANSLATION:
FERDINAND OYONO’S UNE VIE DE BOY AND LE VIEUX
NÈGRE ET LA MÉDAILLE IN ENGLISH

Felix Nkwatta Awung

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements in respect of the doctoral degree
Doctor of Philosophy
in the subject of
Language Practice
in the
Department of Linguistics and Language Practice
in the
Faculty of Humanities
at the
University of the Free State
Bloemfontein, South Africa

Promoter: Prof Kobus Marais
Co-promoter: Prof Paul F. Bandia

January 2018
DECLARATION
I, Felix Nkwatta Awung, declare that the research thesis that I herewith submit for the
doctoral degree Doctor of Philosophy qualification in Language Practice at the
University of the Free State, is my independent work, and that I have not previously
submitted it for a qualification at another institution of higher education.

…………….........………. ………………………………
Felix Nkwatta Awung Date

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my profound gratitude to my promoter, Prof Kobus Marais,
without whom this research would not have been completed. His support, guidance
and patience, and constructive feedback were immensely useful. I am equally
indebted to my co-promoter, Prof Paul Bandia, for his insightful guidance. His
knowledge, experience and direction were immensely valuable to me.
My gratitude goes to John Reed, James Currey and Keith Sambrook for accepting to
participate in the study. The information they shared during the interviews was very
resourceful. It is unfortunate that John Reed passed on before I completed the thesis.
May his soul rest in peace.
I would like to thank the Faculty of Arts and Design of the Durban University of
Technology, for supporting me with TDG funding that catered for some of the cost
related to my studies.
I am also grateful to my colleagues and friends: Ebenezer Talla, Sibusiso Dlamini,
Michael Mombe, Tasneem Seedat, Maleshoane Rapeane-Mathonsi, Sylvia Zulu and
Tankiso Motjope-Mokhali, whose support and advice have been invaluable assets
throughout the course of my research.
Finally, I would like to thank my wife and children for their love, understanding and
patience.

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ABSTRACT
The aim of this study is to use Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological approach in
investigating the social factors that influenced the translation of Ferdinand Oyono’s
Une Vie de Boy (1956) and Le Vieux Nègre et la Médaille (1956). It is argued in the
study that the decisions made in the process of translating Une Vie de Boy and Le
Vieux Nègre et la Médaille were influenced by the social forces prevalent in the
literary field at the time the translations were produced. This is why Bourdieu’s model
has been adopted; it offers us the tools with which to understand the dialectic
relationship between social agents and the fields in which they operate. It has thus
been used in the study to demonstrate that there was a mutually influential
relationship between the actions of the agents involved in the translations of Une Vie
de Boy and Le Vieux Nègre et la Médaille and the field in which the works were
translated. In this regard, the study has done a macro-level and a textual level
investigation of the actions of the agents involved in the translations of Une Vie de
Boy and Le Vieux Nègre et la Médaille.
At the macro-level, the study has mapped out the positions that made up the
structure of the African literary field in which the translations were produced, the
agents who occupied the said positions, and how this was influential to translation
action at both the macro-level and the textual level. The findings reveal that John
Reed’s role in The African Writers Series as a critic, an advisor and a translator
contributed in constructing the field of African literature in which Oyono’s novels were
translated, which in turn constrained his actions during the translation of the two
novels. This study also argues that translation action at the textual level is
constrained by the norms of the target literary field, as well as the translator’s
individual habitus. In this regard, an examination has been done on John Reed’s
strategies in the translation of culture-bound terms in Une Vie de Boy (1956) and Le
Vieux Nègre et la Médaille (1956). The data reveals that the translator’s actions were
influenced by a complex combination of the norms of the field, his individual habitus,
as well as other constraining factors.
Key terms: Literary translation, Pierre Bourdieu, translation agents, African literature
in European languages, culture-bound terms, Une Vie de Boy, Le Vieux Nègre et la
Médaille, The African Writers Series, John Reed.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION ................................................................................................................i i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iii
ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................i v
TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................. v
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS............................................................ viii
Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 1
1.1 Background of the study ......................................................................................... 1
1.2 Research problem .................................................................................................. 2
1.3 Aim of the research ................................................................................................ 2
1.4 Research questions ................................................................................................ 3
1.5 Research methodology .......................................................................................... 3
Data collection instruments...................................................................... 5
Data analysis ........................................................................................... 6
1.6 Significance of the study......................................................................................... 6
1.7 Scope of the study .................................................................................................. 7
1.8 Outline of chapters ................................................................................................. 7
Chapter 2 TOWARDS THE SOCIOLOGY OF TRANSLATION .................................... 8
2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 8
2.2 The emergence of the sociological turn in translation studies ............................... 8
2.3 Translation studies from the 1950s ...................................................................... 11
2.4 The sociological turn in translation studies .......................................................... 20
2.5 Outline of Bourdieu’s social theory ....................................................................... 22
Bourdieu’s theory of practice ................................................................. 23
The notion of field .................................................................................. 24
The notion of habitus ............................................................................. 27
The notion of capital .............................................................................. 29
Criticisms of Bourdieu’s theory .............................................................. 33
Bourdieu’s model in translation studies ................................................. 35
2.6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 40
Chapter 3 AGENCY IN TRANSLATING AFRICAN LITERATURE IN
EUROPEAN LANGUAGES ......................................................................................... 41
3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 41
3.2 Conceptualising agency ....................................................................................... 41
3.3 Agency in translation studies ................................................................................ 43
3.4 Agency and the translation of African literature ................................................... 54
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The translational nature of African literature .......................................... 56
Translating African literature in European languages ............................ 57
3.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 65
Chapter 4 THE CONTEXT OF PRODUCING UNE VIE DE BOY AND LE VIEUX
NÈGRE ET LA MÉDAILLE IN ENGLISH..................................................................... 66
4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 66
4.2 Research methodology ........................................................................................ 66
Research design .................................................................................... 68
Data collection instruments.................................................................... 70
Data analysis ......................................................................................... 71
Limitations ............................................................................................. 72
4.3 The context of translating Une Vie de Boy and Le Vieux Nègre et la Médaille ... 72
The African literary field in the 1950s and 1960s ................................... 73
4.3.1.1 Original works of African literature in European languages .... 74
4.3.1.2 African literature and the publishing sector ............................. 77
4.3.1.3 African literature in translation ................................................ 79
4.3.1.4 Reception and the translation of African literature .................. 80
Agents of the translations of UVB and LVNM ........................................ 82
4.3.2.1 The publisher-agent of UVB and LVNM in English ................. 82
4.3.2.2 The translator-agent of UVB and LVNM in English ................. 92
4.3.2.3 Implications for agency in translation studies ........................ 103
4.4 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 105
Chapter 5 TRANSLATING THE CULTURAL WORLDVIEW OF UNE VIE DE BOY
AND LE VIEUX NÈGRE ET LA MÉDAILLE INTO ENGLISH ................................... 107
5.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 107
5.2 Methodology ....................................................................................................... 107
Data collection: Culture-bound terms .................................................. 107
Data selection criteria .......................................................................... 109
Data analysis: Field and habitus .......................................................... 110
5.3 Textual analysis of the translations of Une Vie de Boy and Le Vieux Nègre et
la Médaille........................................................................................................... 112
Synoptic overviews of Ferdinand Oyono’s novels ............................... 112
5.3.1.1 The author ............................................................................ 112
5.3.1.2 Une Vie de Boy and Le Vieux Nègre et la Médaille .............. 113
The translation of culture-bound terms in UVB and LVNM .................. 114
5.3.2.1 Proverbs ............................................................................... 115
5.3.2.2 Idiomatic expressions ........................................................... 121
5.3.2.3 Ideophones and expressive lengthenings ............................. 127
5.3.2.4 Forms of address .................................................................. 133
5.3.2.5 Use of vernacular words and expressions ............................ 136
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5.3.2.6 Distorted words ..................................................................... 139
5.3.2.7 Invectives .............................................................................. 143
5.3.2.8 Semantic shifts ..................................................................... 147
5.3.2.9 Proper names ....................................................................... 151
5.3.2.10 Hybrid language forms .......................................................... 154
5.3.2.11 Race-related terms ............................................................... 159
5.4 Implications for agency in translation studies ..................................................... 163
5.5 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 167
Chapter 6 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................... 168
6.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 168
6.2 Synopsis of the study ......................................................................................... 168
6.3 Research questions revisited ............................................................................. 170
6.4 Contributions of the study ................................................................................... 172
6.5 Suggestions for future research ......................................................................... 174
LIST OF REFERENCES ............................................................................................. 176
Appendix A EMAIL INTERVIEW WITH JAMES CURREY AND KEITH
SAMBROOK ............................................................................................................... 189
Appendix B EMAIL INTERVIEW WITH JOHN REED ................................................ 196

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS
AWS African Writers Series
HB Houseboy
LT Literal translations
LVNM Le Vieux Nègre et La Médaille
ST Source text
TOMM The Old Man and the Medal
TT Target text
UK United Kingdom
USA United States of America
UVB Une Vie de Boy

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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
This study aims to adopt Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological model to investigate John
Reed’s translations of Ferdinand Oyono’s Une Vie de Boy (1956) and Le Vieux
Nègre et La Médaille (1956). Translation has contributed greatly to African literature.
However, while much has been said and written about the success of such works,
little attention has been given to the translators who have bridged the intercultural
gaps to make these works available in various languages, thereby representing the
original authors in the target language cultures. Because literature portrays the
norms, beliefs, and traditions of a particular society, its language is bound to be firmly
embedded in the culture of that society. It is therefore interesting to examine how the
translators of literature have managed to succeed in cutting across the world views of
the various authors from one language to another. This is even more intriguing in the
case of African literature written in European languages, since the original texts are
in themselves a form of translation, initially conceived in the African languages of the
authors before being rendered into the European languages (Ojo, 1986). Such is the
case with Ferdinand Oyono’s Une vie de Boy and Le Vieux Nègre et la Médaille in
English.
The fact that Reed’s translations of the two novels fall within what Bandia (1993,
2008) calls a “two-tier translation”, which is a translation of what is, in itself, a form of
translation, gives the research a dimension which has not received much attention
from researchers in the field of African literary translation. Given that every
translation activity takes place within a specific social context, I argue that decision-
making in the translation process is influenced by social factors and a sociological
approach is needed to understand the nature and extent of the influence of the said
social factors on the translation activity. It is in this regard that I adopt Bourdieu’s
theoretical framework because it offers a lens through which to examine how
translation agents construct, and are constructed, by the field in which they operate.
The study thus examines the mutually influential relationship between the literary
field in which the English translations of Oyono’s Une vie de Boy and Le Vieux Nègre
1
et la Médaille were produced, as well as the macro-level and textual level actions of
the agents involved in the translation process.
1.2 Research problem
Recent research in translation studies has underscored the role of the translator as
an agent. In this regard, Baker (2006), Tymoczko (2007), Bandia (2008) and Gentzler
(2008) , among others, assert that a translator is not just a conduit of a message from
one language to another, but someone who is very much involved in the power
interplay that determines the decision-making leading to the translated product. What
this implies is that translators are agents of mediation who represent the original
‘other’ in the target language culture. The efficiency of such a representation is
determined, as Sturge (2007) says, by the degree of the difference between the
source and target cultures. Relating to translating African literature in European
languages in particular, Bandia (2008:159) holds that the agency role of the
translator is even more significant given that s/he is dealing with “a peculiar source
text that is uncharacteristically different from most source texts translated between
relatively close or non-distant languages and cultures”. Given such peculiarity, it
would be of interest to find out how similar or different are the forces that influence
productions in this literary system to those that influence their translations. It is within
this context that this study has as a research problem the investigation of how the
translator of Ferdinand Oyono’s Une Vie de Boy and Le Vieux Nègre et la Médaille
into Houseboy (1966) and The Old Man and the Medal (1967), respectively, has
succeeded in his role as agent of cultural mediation, in representing the cultural world
view of the author, and the social forces that influenced his translations.
1.3 Aim of the research
This study aims to investigate how social factors influenced the actions of the
translator of Ferdinand Oyono’s Une Vie de Boy and Le Vieux Nègre et la Médaille
(hereafter referred to as UVB and LVNM) into Houseboy and The Old Man and the
Medal (hereafter referred to as HB and TOMM), respectively. The study adopts
Bourdieu’s theoretical framework to examine the mutually influential relationship
between the literary field and the translation actions.
2