On Teaching the Translation of Hybrid African Literatures

Posted: 22 Mar 2013

Date Written: 2013

Abstract

The distinctive feature of Cameroonian Francophone literature is authors’ recourse to linguistic ‘miscegenation’ as a narrative paradigm. Cameroonian fiction of French expression exists at an intersection of French as an imperial language and its regional variant on account of linguistic appropriation that often engenders a third code—Camfranglais. In an attempt to convey Cameroonian cultural specificities, worldviews, imagination and sensibilities in a European language, in our case French, Cameroonian fiction writers consciously deconstruct French in a bid to fabricate a new language. Recourse to Camfranglais as a mode of writing poses daunting challenges for literary translators. Jacques Derrida reminds us in “Des Tours de Babel” (1985) of one of the limits of theories of translation: all too often they treat the passing from one language to another and do not sufficiently consider the possibility for languages to be implicated more than two in a text. How is a text written in several codes to be translated? How is the effect of narrative plurality of source texts to be ‘rendered’? The dilemma is no easier to solve for practicing translators as seen in Reid’s translation of Nganang’s nouveau roman, Temps de chien (2001). Nganang’s purposeful lexical manipulation and code-switching constitute an effective medium for depicting the bilingual and bicultural matrices within which his story unfolds. Regrettably, source text linguistic plurality is often lost in the translation process. The “foreignization” of French in Temps de chien fulfills the communicative function of underscoring otherness; it also underlines the multiplicity of voices associated with different characters and settings in the novel. The end product of Nganang’s linguistic hybridity is a stylistically rich text laden with a plethora of significations. The intent of this paper is to discuss the practicality of a pedagogical model that this author has conceived to facilitate the teaching of translation as it pertains to hybridized literary texts such as Temps de chien (2001), Moi taximan (2001) Je parle camerounais: pour un renouveau francofaune (2001), and Branle-bas en noir et blanc (1999).The model equips instructors of translation with the tools necessary to adopt a multi-pronged approach to the teaching of literary translation. For the purpose of this study, a corpus of four novels considered germane, has been selected.

Suggested Citation

Vakunta, Peter, On Teaching the Translation of Hybrid African Literatures (2013). ASA 2013 Annual Meeting Paper , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2237241

Peter Vakunta (Contact Author)

Defense Language Institute ( email )

Monterey, CA 93944
United States

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