INTERCULTURAL POSTCOLONIAL COMMUNICATION IN THE GERMAN TRANSLATIONS OF SELECTED NOVELS OF CHINUA ACHEBE BY EKE, JOSEPH NWAJIRICHUKWU Matric No. 65474 B.A. (Hons) German Studies (Ibadan), M.A. European Studies (Ibadan), M.A. Translation (German) (Ibadan) A Thesis in the Department of European Studies Submitted to the Faculty of Arts in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY of the UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN AUGUST 2011 CERTIFICATION UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY This is to certify that this work was carried out by EKE, Joseph Nwajirichukwu in the Department of European Studies under my supervision ---------------------------- -------------------------------------------- --- Date Supervisor Professor Grace Aduke Adebayo Department of European Studies University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. i i UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY DEDICATION Pa Matthew Ironuegbulam Eke Mama Esther Mgbokwo Eke My Parents A firm source of inspiration and courage My wife, Gift and son, Ironuegbulam Dearly Beloved ii i UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY ACKNOWLEDGEMENT God has been most gracious and kind to me and has shown Himself strong in my education. He has brought me this far. This Ph.D is a testimony of His mercies. To Him be every praise and glory. I immensely appreciate my supervisor, Professor Aduke G. Adebayo without whose support and guidance this thesis would not have been possible. She undertook to supervise this thesis in the spirit of her care for the survival and progress of every section in the Department of European Studies. I am thankful to her for her thorough reading and advice on the thesis amidst the pressure of her work and, sometimes, the challenges of health. Thank you Ma. May God reward you richly and grant you grace and life more abundant. My sincere appreciation and thanks go to my colleague lecturers in the German Studies programme: Frau Maria Akinduro, Frau Sabine Adelio and Herr Lanre Okuseinde who were considerate of my need to finish this Ph.D programme. They also provided insightful and useful discussions on German culture that enriched the study. Mrs. Akinduro, my former teacher and now senior colleague, thank you for paying for my internet access in our shared office; and Mrs. Adelio, I am grateful for your kind assistance and advice that made possible the needed DAAD short-duration Graduate Fellowship in the University of Bayreuth, Germany. I also appreciate the invaluable encouragement of my former teacher, Herr (Dr.) Felix Amanor-Boadu. He voluntarily retired when I was not quite ready for his absence, but his death at the time of submitting this thesis is deeply saddening. Dr. Shaban Mayanja, former DAAD lecturer at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, who read through the draft of the thesis and provided critical comments and recommendations that immensely benefitted the study. Thank you very much. I am very grateful to Rev. Professor Louis Munoz for his advice, support and prayers. Dr. Alla Fawole, Dr. Nwando Babalobi and Dr. Akin Ademuyiwa were of great encouragement. Dr. Tunde Ayeleru and Dr. R. Sanusi thank you very much. I must mention Dr. Oha Obododimma and Professor O.C. Adesina of the Departments of English and History respectively: I am grateful for your in-puts to the success of this study and for your motivation. Thank you very much Dr. M. N. Christopher of the Department of Communication and Language Arts. I am very grateful to the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD) for the graduate Fellowship it offered me, from April to July 2010, towards the improvement and completion of the thesis. I deeply thank Professor Eckhard Breitinger of the Institute of iv UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY African Studies (IAS), University of Bayreuth, Germany, who hosted my stay at the University. Besides making my stay comfortable and memorable, he read through the draft thesis and provided very useful critical comments, materials and guidance that enriched the study. I sincerely thank Professor Susan Bassnett of the Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies, Warwick University, UK and Professor Kirsten Malmkjaer of the Middlesex University Translation Institute, UK for their assistance with sources. They kindly mailed to me on request respective hard copies of their relevant articles on Postcolonial Translation and Translational Stylistics. My heartfelt appreciation and thank you go to my beloved wife and son, who were such a tremendous support and source of cheerfulness. They showed understanding during the study and writing of the thesis but also a disturbing and at once motivating impatience to use the “Dr.” title. Mike would remind me also that he was not the only one that has exams, daddy too. God will continue to keep you in His favour. Finally, there are many more whose various contributions I truly appreciate but whose names I am constrained by space to omit here. To all of you I say a sincere thank you very much. ABSTRACT The translation of African postcolonial literary texts into German is part of the continuing intercultural dialogue between Africa and the West. This dialogue involves the contestation of meaning and the representation of cultural identity. Previous studies on the translation of Chinua Achebe‟s works into German mainly emphasise the linguistic and cultural difficulties of textual transfer ignoring questions of asymmetry and the contestation of cultural identity in textual relations. Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God successfully recover the coherence of an African traditional culture and contest the denigration of the African in Western narratives as accultural, primitive, barbaric and even subhuman. Given also the cultural distance between the German translations and their „english‟ source texts, the study investigates how adequately the German translations convey the cultural meanings and identity markers of the source culture. The meaning theory of intercultural communication associated with I.A. Richards‟ Context Theory of Meaning, Postcolonial literary and cultural theory of Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin and the Skopos theory of Hans Vermeer and Katharina Reiß jointly served as the theoretical framework. Richards‟s theory emphasises that meaning resides in people not in words while Ashcroft et al establish asymmetry in textual relations. Vermeer and Reiß contend that the purpose of the target text determines translation strategies. Text-based descriptive and comparative analyses of randomly selected cultural units of translation were adopted in the study. The translations of Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God are mostly inadequate to intercultural postcolonial communication. The German translations possess traces of ethnocentrism, which is compounded by the translators‟ insufficient knowledge of the source culture and faulty use of translation techniques. Errors erase identity indicators of source cultural imagery and structures of expressions, distort and misrepresent source culture beliefs and values, impose the beliefs and views of the target culture on the source culture. They further silence authorial voice, obscure or obliterate the rational capacity of v UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the source culture, mock the source culture through incongruous substitution of words and imagery, and lost cultural knowledge and depth of cultural meaning. The translation errors appear as counter-narratives that reveal a mode of rewriting cultural identity in postcolonial literature. The claim of the source culture to a differentiated and authentic self is both considerably conceded and simultaneously subverted or minimalised in order to consolidate the impression of inferiority of the excolonised cultural identity. Intercultural Communication foregrounds cultural inequality and conflict in textual relations such that narration as dialogue emerges as a contestation of meaning and cultural identities. Implicitly, there is the need to base the translation of African literary texts from one European language to another on postcolonial and intercultural hermeneutics. This is to ensure not only the preservation of the cultural knowledge and identity carried in the African texts, but also to forestall misrepresentation and motivate a constructive, progressive dialogue of cultures which is imperative for canon formation. Key words: German translation, Postcoloniality, Cultural knowledge, Intercultural Communication, Chinua Achebe. Word count: 475 TABLE OF CONTENTS Title Page i Certification ii Dedication iii Acknowledgement iv Abstract v Table of Contents vi Chapter One: Introduction. 1.1 General Background 1 1.2 Research Problem 6 1.3 Research Questions 8 1.4 Objectives of the Study 9 v i UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 1.5 Justification of the Study 9 1.6 Organisation of the Study 14 Chapter Two: Review of Literature 2.1 Postcolonial writing and translating; Translating Achebe into Euro-languages 15 2.2 Culture, Meaning and Language 23 2.3 Cultural Identity, Culture-Knowledge and Discursive-Narrative 30 2.4 Interculture, the „Other‟, Interculturality and Communication 36 2.5 Translation as Intercultural communication 46 2.6 The Literary Translator as an Intercultural communicator 52 2.7 Text-Types, the Literary text and the Translation of Culture 59 2.8 Equivalence, Adequacy and Translation 66 2.9 Ethnocentrism and Translation 72 2.10 Post-colonialism, Literature and Translation 74 2.11 Translating Approaches, Strategies and Techniques 84 2.12 Summary to Review of Literature 94 Chapter Three: Theoretical Framework and Methodology 3.1 Theoretical Framework 96 3.2 Methodology 109 Chapter Four: Background to the Novels and their Translations. 4.1 The cultural background to the Novels 115 4.2 The Language and style of the Author 127 4.3 The authorial Communicative Purpose 140 4.4 The post-colonial context of the novels 144 4.5 The German and The Igbo Cultural and Religious Environments 148 Chapter Five: Analysis and Discussion of TFA 5.1 The translation of Proverbs 169 5.1.1 The Nature of Proverbs 169 5.1.2 The translated Proverbs: Techniques used and Analysis 174 5.2 The Translation of Cultural Idioms 216 5.2.1 Cultural Idioms and Figurative Expressions 216 5.2.2 Analysis of translated Cultural Idioms and Expressions 219 5.3 Culture-Specific Terms and Concepts (CSTC) 243 5.3.1 Personal and place Names 243 5.3.2 Kinship Names, Terms and Honorifics 249 5.3.3 Event names, Ceremonies, Rituals and Cults 258 5.3.4 Material Culture and Artefacts 261 5.3.5 Organisations, Customs, Activities, Procedures, Concepts 268 5.4 Body-Text Cultural Signifiers (BTCS) 273 Chapter Six: Analysis and Discussion of AOG 6.1 The translated Proverbs: Techniques used and Analysis 286 6.2 Translation of Cultural Idioms and Expressions 302 6.3 Translation of Culture-Specific Terms and Concepts (CSTC) 329 vi i UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 6.3.1 Translation of Personal and place Names 329 6.3.2 Translation of Kinship Names, Terms and Honorifics 331 6.3.3 Translation of Medical terms, Ceremonies, Rituals and Cults. 342 6.3.4 Translation of Material Culture and Artefacts 353 6.3.5 Organisations, Customs, Activities, Procedures, Concepts 360 6.4 Body-Text Cultural Signifiers 362 Chapter Seven: Conclusion 7.1 Summary of analysis and findings and Implications 370 7.2 Contributions 379 7.3 Recommendations 381 7.4 Suggestion to Further Research 385 7.5 Postscript 386 WORKS CITED 388 Appendix 420 vi ii UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Chapter One Introduction 1.1 General Background One of the means, perhaps the most passive and effective, through which the knowledge of a people and their culture is gained, is by reading their literature, especially those literary works from a cultural and linguistic background that is different from that of the reader. This is because each work of literature is embedded in a particular culture. Ukoyen (77, cf: Ketkar par. 8) points to this interwovenness of literature and culture when he states that a literary text is first and foremost a cultural and artistic product that belongs to a particular culture and civilisation being rooted in history and ethnicity. Consequently, a work of literature “is the offshoot of a specific heritage, a particular culture whose imprint it inevitably bears”. Struemper-Krobb (211) affirms this position in maintaining that “literary texts can become an important part of intercultural learning. They deal with basic beliefs and conflicts and explore them from different perspectives”. This means that both those engaged in the active study of other cultures through the study of literature and those who read literary works for sheer pleasure and entertainment as well as those that read them as part of their classroom work are prone to absorb information and knowledge of other cultures, sometimes without further inquiry into the veracity of the information they have read or gathered. Such body of knowledge of a people‟s culture gained can not only create and enforce a deeply rooted impression of their Otherness but can also shape the perceptions, attitudes and responses that could be projected towards them at various levels of relations. This is possible because “culture identifies and represents a people” (O`Hear 746-748). In a study of what values and what kinds of knowledge are prevalent when actors on the international scene such as heads of states, diplomats, pressure groups, directors of multinational corporations, technical experts, and so on come into contact with different cultures and when public opinion reacts to issues affecting cultures, Preiswerk and Perrot (x-xi) show that the distortions and derogations of non-Western cultures in the history textbooks used in Western classrooms have necessary connections with the images and prejudices to be found in Western social thought and behaviour. This means that the 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY knowledge of other cultures, whether distorted or not, can flow from culture diffused texts like history and literature to the learner or reader, and this cultural knowledge can indeed influence conduct and responses towards the other culture. Theodor Bercem, literary scholar, vice-chancellor of the University of Würzburg and president of the German Academic Exchange Services (DAAD), in his encomium on Chinua Achebe on the occasion of the award of the peace price of the German Book Trade on the latter corroborated Preiswerk and Perrot as much when he stated that European writing and teaching about Africa must replace its Eurocentric stance with a true knowledge of one another and foster cooperation between Europe and Africa that will benefit the entire world. According to him: Wir wissen zu wenig voneinander, und es ist sogar wahrscheinlich, daß man in Europa weit weniger über Afrika weiß als umgekehrt: zu lange haben wir uns in der Geschichts- und Literaturgeschichtsschreibung darauf beschränkt, die erfolgreiche „Erkundung“ des Kontinents aus unserer Sicht zu glorifizieren und dabei die andere Seite auszublenden … Und wenn es zu einem wirklichen Dialog und zu gedeihlicher Zusammenarbeit für eine bessere Zukunft der ganzen Welt kommen soll, dann werden wir als erste die Historie an unseren Schulen nicht weiterhin so selektiv vermitteln dürfen wie bisher: Noch immer beginnt die Geschichte Afrikas in unseren Schulbüchern – im Kapitel „Zeitalter des Imperialismus“ – mit der Akunft der Europäer ( par. 39-40) We know too little of each other and it is even likely that one in Europe knows far less about Africa than one in Africa knows about Europe: for too long our history and literary history writings have stopped at glorifying the successful „exploration“ of the African continent from our viewpoint [only] while we shut off the other sides[other view points] … If we must achieve true dialogue and beneficial cooperation for a better future to the whole world, then we have to begin by discontinuing the selective teaching of history in our schools: The history of Africa still begins in our school books with the chapter – “The Age of Imperialism” - with the coming of the Europeans (Our translation). Furthermore, knowledge in such cultural media or systems like literature can, as well, be useful to hybrid identities like African-Germans and African-Americans in 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY redressing the problem of their cultural dislocation. Molefi Asante places the African- German within the context of the German society and explores the problems that he faces due to the racist construction of identity and nationality in Germany. African-Germans are people of mixed German and African parentage who live and regard themselves to be Germans but who are marginalized and socially discriminated against by their supposedly fellow Germans because they are racially and culturally „contaminated‟ by their part African ancestry. Rejected within the German society and ignorant of their African roots, “they are denied a full measure of being German and simultaneously disconnected from African cultural traditions”. Asante concluded that for African-Germans to free themselves from the terror of this situation, they have to “become connected, attached and situated in the historical place of the African people by a conscious commitment to the discovery of the self in every dimension”. (10). While Asante‟s conclusion is capable of provoking a stimulating debate on what should be the appropriate solution to the African-German question, his suggested solution nonetheless implies that this process of discovering their African roots and identity would require that the African-Germans use a multiplicity of sources to inform themselves of their African roots and culture. One of these sources is African literature written in or translated into German. 1 The absence of a developed African system of writing in the past predisposed the preservation of African culture in such oral forms as proverbs, idioms, myths, legends, A purely oral culture, such as the West African culture obviously was before the introduction of the Roman and Arabic scripts, embodied its values and attitudes in its proverbs and fossilised sayings, its beliefs in its myths and religion, and its consciousness of its historical life, collective outlook and ethics in its legends, folktales and other forms of oral literature. All those have been embedded in the consciousness of the West African people as cultural groups. 1. Exceptions are the Tigrinya language spoken by the Tigray-Tigrinya people in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, and in central Eritrea. It is presently one of the two official languages of Eritrea. The earliest written example of Tigrinya is dated from the 13th century. The Geez language of Ethiopia writing began about 500 BCE It was followed by the Amharic Ethiopian language writing from the 19th century. The oldest to the two African language writings above was the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing that began about 3000 BCE. (cf: www.imp.ucla.edu/ and www.science.jrank.org/) 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY songs, folktales and anecdotes, among others. As Obiechina (26) succinctly puts it: These oral forms constitute part of written African literature today, especially those oral forms that, in the context of the civilisation and postcolonial dialogue between Africa and particularly the Western World, are written not only to express and reveal but also to reclaim the African culture and identity. In these literary texts and the oral forms, which they incorporate, language or language units, considerably become the encoding of culture or cultural mores. As Talgeri and Verma (3 in Ketkar par. 7) rightly observe with particular reference to culture in literary texts “a word is essentially a cultural memory in which the historical experience of the society is embedded”. The diversity and relativity of language, and the increasing contact between people of different languages and cultures make translation a welcome approach in making the knowledge of one culture in a literary work available to the readership in another culture (Binkert 478-479; Bachmann-Medick, Vorwort v; Gerding-Salas par. 7). However, translation errors can and do occur in translations. A point on which there is an overwhelming consensus in translation studies is that translated texts can never be without loses and gains in comparison with their source texts. Tymoczko notes strongly in this regard: It is abundantly clear from the theory and practice of translation that no text can ever be fully translated in all its aspects: perfect homology is impossible between translation and source. Choices must be made by the translator; there are additions and omissions in the process, no matter how skilled the translator (23) In the context of cultural knowledge transfer and the possible reconstruction and representation of the images and identities of cultures, these mistranslations can have wider implications than to be regarded only as mere linguistic errors. This is of significant interest considering also the fact that translation can be very well used to privilege cultures to the detriment of others. Bassnett and Trivedi (2) declare that translation is a highly manipulative activity, while Chesterman (Empirical Status of Prescritivism par. 11) put it even more elaborately when he says: 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Translations change things, and so translators themselves are also agents of change, not just of preservation. Translations affect readers in multiple ways, they affect target and also source cultures and they affect intercultural relations and perceptions. Furthermore, Postcolonial considerations in translation studies point to the fact that the manipulations or changes that occur in translations can be the consequence of unequal power relations between the ex-colonised cultures and the ex-coloniser, imperial cultures. In these relations, translations/translators can privilege the dominant position of the excoloniser by upholding the views or ideas about the former colonised peoples on which his dominance is based (Niranjana 3 in Fawcett 106) or the translations/translators can deliberately or inadvertently erode these views or ideas (Döring par. 11-12) This study is an attempt to evaluate the relationship between the Source Texts (ST) and the Target Texts (TT) in English and German languages respectively. It will consider how the knowledge and identity of the African culture in the literary source texts have been represented to the German reading world using translation approaches and techniques. Within the context of intercultural communication, translation and postcolonial theories, it will examine the influence of translating techniques and the choice of equivalence on the representation of concepts and images, perspectives and practices, and the environment of the source culture. It will as well examine the significance and potential implications of this influence to understanding between cultures. Furthermore, notwithstanding that the advancement in information and communication technology, the coming together of economies and markets, migrations and conflicts, education and so on, have increased the contact of peoples and cultures, they have not necessarily changed how some cultures perceive themselves and how they perceive and behave toward others. Speaking particularly of the American society, Samovar and Portar (Samovar and Porter 8) observe a universally valid fact in this regard. According to them: 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The difficulty with being thrust into a global village is that we do not yet know how to live like global villagers; there are too many of “us” who do not want to live with “them”. Ours is a culture in which racism and ethnocentrism run deep. The translation of African literatures, written by Africans, into German provides a means of communication to deliberately inform the German readers of African literature about African people and their cultures. However, this translation can also be a means of communication that makes it impossible or difficult for this autochthonous and authentic knowledge about Africa, written by themselves, to reach the Germans. This is considering also the fact that Germans translated the two novels by Chinua Achebe under consideration in this study. Dagmar Heusler and Evelin Petzhold translated Things Fall 2 Apart (TFA) into German as “Okonkwo oder Das Alte Stürzt”, meaning “Okonkwo or The collapse of the Old”; while Arrow of God (AOG) was translated into German by M. von Schweinitz as “Der Pfeil Gottes”, meaning “The Arrow of God”. This German authorship of the translations compels interest within the critical observation of Ekundayo (15) that: Many African writers have so localised the use of the languages of colonization by passing them through the matrix of their own cultural background that much may be lost to the the uninitiated European translator whose only title to competence is that he is working into his own mother-tongue 1.2 Research Problem: Much study has been carried out on the intercultural translation of African literature into European languages and cultures that examines the linguistic and cultural difficulties of textual transfer. 2 There was an „East German‟ translation of TFA by Richards Moering with the same title as that of the „West German‟ version: “Okokwo oder Das Alte Stürzt” published 1959 in Stüttgart by Goverts Verlag. This „East German‟ version is, however, no more in print and its publisher no longer exists. Besides with the reunification of the two Germanys in 1990, the dominant translation of TFA is the „West German‟ version that is used for this study. 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The study of these transfers as the continuing intercultural dialogue between Africa and the West has, however, been largely ignored. The same applies to the study of these transfers as the contestation of meaning and cultural identity in textual cultural relations between former colonised and former coloniser cultures that involves translation and the translator in reducing or intensifying misunderstanding and strife, especially in the translation of African postcolonial literatures from one European language into German. How this conflict played out in the translation of the African postcolonial source texts, „Things Fall Apart‟ and „Arrow of God‟, under study into German and how translation can maximise the possibility of increasing understanding and healthy relations interest this study. The translation of the literature of former colonised nations i.e. Postcolonial Literature, which includes almost all of the African peoples, into the language and culture of a European, ex-coloniser or imperial nation, in this instance German, involves an encounter between two opposing views and representations. On the one hand is the Euro- Western view of the former colonised cultures and people and on the other hand is the view of themselves and their culture held by the former colonised cultures and people. The former colonised people aim to subvert this Eurocentric view and to present a non- contaminated and authentic picture of their own cultures and identities. This contestation of cultural identities and meanings creates dialogic exchanges in the narration, renarration and counter-narrations of the Self and the „Other‟ in written textual communication and relations that can extend to actual personal and collective cultural relations. This is because written cultural narrative texts can create stereotypes of people and cultures that are usable in real life contacts and relations. The translator of the postcolonial narratives is caught in the twists and turns of these opposing narratives, contestations of meanings and identities and asymmetry of cultural relations and becomes involved, deliberately or not, in creating modes of writing or rewriting the Self and the Other. His/her task is exceptionally marked by the challenges of cultural difference that inhabits the African postcolonial text. The result of his/her translation will affect how the source culture may be read, understood and viewed in the target culture and can, as a result, encourage intercultural understanding or excercebate misunderstanding and strife. 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The scanty attention paid to these contestations of meanings and cultural identities and the involvement of the translator in the translations of African postcolonial literatures into German calls for a closer engagement with this problem from various (theoretical and even methodological) perspectives. This study is an attempt to interrogate the adequacy of the translated German texts in the representation of the African cultural Identity and to contribute to intercultural understanding. 1.3 Research Questions: This thesis proceeds from the premises that translation-mediated knowledge of culture is a type of communication between and across cultures and that it is potentially relevant in promoting understanding between cultures as well as shaping perceptions, attitudes and responses in the relations between people of diverse cultures. It can also assist hybrid identities to redress their cultural dislocation. Furthermore, this cultural knowledge, so mediated through translation, identifies and represents a people. Therefore, considering the much-celebrated translation of African literature into many foreign languages and considering also the fact that translations can serve multiple purposes (Grace 1988:1), this thesis explores, from an intercultural and postcolonial analytical perspective, these critical questions:  Have the postcolonial literatures under study been translated in such a way that the target audience or readership can gain an adequate and authentic knowledge and possible understanding of the source culture?  Have the translations permitted the full emergence of “difference” or “Otherness” of this African Culture to the German readership as well as shown points of comparability with the German Culture?  In the loss and gain that usually occur in translating, what has been lost or gained in the translation of the chosen postcolonial literary/cultural texts?  Within the contexts of intercultural communication and postcolonial relations, have the translations preserved the purpose intended with the source texts or has a new purpose or function been found for the source texts in the target culture? 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 1.4 Objectives of the Study: The general objective of this study is to evaluate the relationship between the ST and the TT in translation-mediated transfers of cultural knowledge in intercultural postcolonial interactions taking into consideration the aims of the literary texts and their translations. Specific objectives include:  To examine the translators‟ freedom in the translation of African postcolonial literary texts, which are intended to communicate cultural knowledge and identity between cultures.  To examine the precise nature of the challenges, if any, which the translators deal with in the translation and communication of African postcolonial literature and culture into German.  To examine possible approaches and strategies or techniques in the translation and communication of African postcolonial literature and culture into German.  To examine the implications of the translations for the teaching and study of Chinua Achebe‟s literary work in the German studies context. 1.5 Justification of the Study: The quest of Europe to appropriate global economic, political and cultural th th advantages and privileges from the late 15 and early 16 centuries (cf: De Souza 14) led it to construct a hierarchy of race to justify domination and colonization as exploration th turned into conquest in the 18 century. In this hierarchy, “the people called „black‟ were considered to be at the lowest scale of human development” (Carson 1). Narratives were produced by Europe to present Africa as a place of negations and Africans as barbaric, primitive, accultural and even subhuman; their histories were subverted and their cultures distorted resulting to their being denied cultural identity and voice (cf: Mbembe 245-8). th The African response to these denigrations and denials from the 20 century in the form of counter-narratives that seek to reclaim authentic African history, assert an authentic African cultural identity, and validate the humanity of Africans created a dialogic communicative situation that envisages further exchanges between Europe and Africa until “a balance of stories” is achieved (Achebe in Bacon par. 12). Given the 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY strategic importance of cultural identity in the assignment of worth and significance and in the global allocation of economic, political and socio-cultural goods and privileges (cf: Moya par. 10), the channels for its construction, deconstruction, affirmation and disaffirmation like the media, discourse and narratives and their accompanying translation of texts become key sites for intercultural communication, intercultural politics and relations. Translations/translators can privilege the dominant position of the „excoloniser‟ by upholding the views or ideas about the former colonised peoples on which his dominance is based (Niranjana 3 in Fawcett 106) or the translations/translators can inadvertently erode these views or ideas (Döring 1). This is possible through the manipulation of cultural knowledge in the translation process. The translation of African literatures into German provides a case of intercultural communication and interaction within a postcolonial context. Germans belong to a culture that is different from African cultures, and they share in the general thinking and attitude of Europe, and the West in general, towards Africa. The aim, which informs Chinua Achebe to write to Europe and the entire West using Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, applies equally to the Germans. In the substantial body of critiques on Achebe‟s literary works, particularly on Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, not much work has been undertaken to examine the translations of his works into European languages, and very few studies on the translation of his works into German. What there are are not evaluated within the combined contexts and theories of intercultural communication and postcolonial relations. Previous studies emphasise the linguistic and cultural creativity and difficulties of textual transfer ignoring the view of these transfers as continuing dialogues in the relations of asymmetry in cultural identity ascription and representations. The present study is expected to contribute in filling this gap in the study of Achebe‟s works by examining their translations into a European language and culture within intercultural communication and postcolonial relations theories and contexts. It hopes to demonstrate the significance and possible implications of cultural encounters in the translation of African postcolonial literature. Chinua Achebe`s two novels Things Fall Apart (TFA) and The Arrow of God (AOG) selected for this study are interlinked by their setting in the African traditional 10 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY past (Achebe, the novelist as a teacher 45) and in the narration of traditional African culture seen through an Igbo worldview. Arrow of God is both a “flashback and a consolidation” of Things Fall Apart (Emenyonu xix). Both have attained worldwide repute in their projection of African traditional culture and in the formation of the African literary canon. Things Fall Apart is regarded as the first “classic” in English from tropical Africa (Larson in Ryan B 7), while Arrow of God is considered Chinua Achebe`s „master-piece‟ (Ogunba 8). TFA alone has been translated into no less than 51 foreign languages (Gbede 36); including German, and sold close to 20 million copies (Lasisi 50). Achebe, himself, has been described by critics as the „finest‟ of Nigerian novelists (Ryan 6) and universally acclaimed to be „the progenitor‟ of modern African literature in English (Nkosi par. 2). The German reading and literary cultural world equally acknowledges the outstanding qualities both of Achebe and his works and the universal relevance and acceptance of, especially, his twin works, TFA and AOG, in forcing European and Western attention to a different and authentic perception of the African cultural self. In a television feature presentation on “Afrikanische Erzählungen”(African Narrations), Dagmar Heusler, one of the translators of TFA, referred to Chinua Achebe as “Klassiker zu Lebzeiten”, i.e. “a classic in his lifetime”(in Bercem, Laudatio ). Furthermore, Theodor Bercem, in his encomium on Achebe addressed to about 700 prominent guests from the cultural, economic and political world in Germany including former German president Richard von Wezsäcker, the then German Minister of State for Culture, Julian Nida-Rümelin and his predecessor, Michael Naumann (Laudatio), highlighted the literary and creative genius of Achebe in his unique use of the English language to establish the reality and authenticity of an African culture that has been before European imperialism: a fact that Europe denies. We quote him in detail: Das es Achebe dabei gelingt, ein authentisches Bild der traditionallen Gesellschaft, auf die Engländer trafen, zu rekonstruieren, ohne einen anthropologischen Trakat zu schreiben, ist eine literarische Meisterleistung und unterscheidet seine von vielen anderen früheren Werken der afrikanischer literatur. Gleichzeitig bestechen seine Romane durch ihren kunstvollen Umgang mit der englischen Sprache: um die Erzählkunst seines Volkes in die schriftliche Form(der 1 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY ursprüngliche Gattung Roman) zu gießen, ohne dass ihre Originalität darunter leidet, lässt Achebe in Diktus und Idiomatik weitgehend seine Muttersprache, das Ibo, aufscheinen und flacht eine Fülle von Sprichtwörtern seines Volkes ein, mit denen die Protagonisten ihre Erfahrungen einordnen, ihr Vorgehen begründen und ihre Debatten rhetorisch würzen … Achebe‟s Afrika ist keine unschuldige Idylle, aber es hat Kultur, was ihm in der Europäische Literatur abgesprochen wurde. (par 11). Furthermore, Nkosi (par. 17) lists Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God among Chinua Achebe‟s four novels that are his lasting legacy to African literature. Both are Achebe‟s pioneering classics in the creation of modern African literary canon not only in the thematic concerns of the novels but also in their aesthetics. Both novels are listed by an th international jury in February 2002 to be among the best 100 African books of the 20 century (Bercem par. 1), and in 2005, the TIMES Magazine lists Things Fall Apart in the 100 best English novels from 1923 to the present (Kelly, Grossman and Lacayo, Time‟s List). Gbede (36) declares that the weightier reason why Things Fall Apart remains Nigeria‟s, and indeed Africa‟s, foremost novel is that it has become “a basis for evaluating the aesthetic of every subsequent novel”. He states further: For writers of the pioneer generation, Things Fall Apart embodies their collective vision of a future Africa that would be the envy of the rest of the world … It‟s so-called anthropological details recollect the order preceding the coming of the white man, as it also provides a veritable tool for anti- colonial agitation. It also serves to debunk the propaganda that African communities have no history of human development, civilisation or even lifestyles. This declaration was first echoed in the answers of Simon Gikandi to the question on why so many genealogies of African literature seem to start with Achebe despite the fact that that he was not the first African novelist to participate in what amounts to be the founding of a relatively new tradition of modern written literature in Africa. From the style of Achebe‟s writing Gikandi remarks: 12 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Achebe is the man who invented African literature because he was able to show, in the structure and language of Things Fall Apart, that the future of African writing did not lie in simple imitation of European forms but in the fusion of such forms with the oral traditions (in Currey 27) And (in Nkosi par. 10) The inaugural function of Achebe‟s texts … lies in his ability to relate the archeological role of the novel – its narrative investigation of the social and historical conditions of African societies before and during colonisation – with the utopian impulse that underlies the novel as a genre, that is, the desire for a mythical space in which a new society might be articulated. This desire to find “a little more room for African literature than has been allowed it” (Ejinkeonye par. 19) for the articulation and projection of a real and authentic image of Africa, an image that is recovered from Africa‟s traditional past and that refutes the distorted image and view of Africa by colonial and imperial Europe, and the West in general, is what Achebe realises, more than any other African writer, in his twin historical and anthropological novels, Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. These novels also prompted the vigorous interest into the investigation of relations between Europe and Third World countries that were formerly colonised. According to Oxford University Press (OUP) online review to Chinua Achebe‟s Things Fall Apart: A Casebook edited by Okpewo (par.1): Things Fall Apart [which Arrow of God flashes back on and consolidates] is the novel that inaugurated the long and continuing tradition of postcolonial inquiry into the problematic relations between the West and the countries of the third world that were once European colonies. These two interlinked novels thus represent pioneering texts in the canon of modern African literature, a coherent presentation of an African cultural identity, and the projection of both African literature and cultural identity to the entire world. This identity is carried in the translations of these texts into foreign languages and cultures. However, it can be distorted, inhibited or preserved in translations. This distortion, inhibition, or 13 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY preservation has implications for the understanding and interpretation of the African cultural identity in the language and cultural study classrooms of foreign and African countries as well as in intercultural communication and relations. Considering that this is an interdisciplinary study, it should make contributions to several fields such as Translation Studies with regard to the translation of (prose) literature, Postcolonial and Cultural Studies with regard, for example, to the asymmetrical relationships between cultures and the image and identity of the „Other‟, and to intercultural communication studies with regard to the negotiation of cultural knowledge and understanding. The study is thus expected to be relevant to foreign language teachers and students, to students, scholars and professionals of intercultural communication and translation, as well as researchers and scholars in literary and cultural studies. 1.6 Structure and Organisation of the Study: This study is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter forms the introduction. It comprises the general background to the study, the statement of the research problem, objectives of the research, and other relevant information. The second chapter contains the review of literature. Chapter three sets forth the theoretical framework that explains this study as well as the detailed statement of the methodology applied to this research. Chapter four contextualises the novels and their translations under study by examining their cultural and language backgrounds. Chapter five and six comparatively analyse and discuss the translations, while in the last chapter, chapter seven, the findings of the study are summarised and prognosis proffered. 14 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Chapter Two Literature Review. This chapter reviews existing studies or works, knowledge and ideas that have been established on the topic of this study. The aim of the chapter is to set forth the relevance of these studies, knowledge and ideas and their interrelationships within the context of this study. 2.1 Postcolonial writing and translating; translating Achebe into Euro-languages The focus on the intersection between intercultural communication, postcolonial writing, and translation came to the fore of translation studies about two decades ago with the cultural turn in Translation Studies (cf Pettersson, Aveling, Trivedi). Petterson reflects the significance of this „cultural turn‟ when he agrees with Gentzler (xi) and Bassnett (The Translation Turn.., 132-133) that the cultural turn heralded by Bassnett and Lefevere 1990‟s “Translation, History and Culture” signals the real breakthrough for the field of translation studies not only by epitomizing the „coming of age‟ of the discipline but also by including within its broad concern “ a rapproachment between cultural studies and translation studies, seen in the related efforts of both disciplines to understand the process and status of globalization and national identities” Trivedi helps to explain that what in Petterson above is referred to as the „coming of age‟ of translation made possible by the cultural turn is the revitilization and extension of the discipline of translation by liberating it from the relatively mechanical tools of analysis available in linguistics: “the translation of a literary text became a translation not between two languages, or a somewhat mechanical sounding act of linguistic „substitution‟ as Catford had put it, but rather between two cultures” (par. 9). The deep concern of translation with this focus on the intersection between intercultural communication, postcolonial literature and translation is the translational processes, procedures and products involved in the communicative interference between imperial and excolonised cultural systems - languages, literatures and societies - in 1 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY asymmetrical relations (cf. Even-Zohar and Toury 1981; Bachmann-Medick, cultural misunderstanding ). Bachmann-Medick (cultural misunderstanding) reveals that translation in an intercultural and postcolonial context involves an encounter between cultures that can be resolved with recognition and respect for difference. This resolution is, however, possible with a redefinition of world literature that is not dominated by the Western canon, culture and aesthetic norms but includes regional cultures, for example, postcolonial literatures, non-canonical works that often explicitly point to cultural differences from the peripheral point of view, and Third World literatures. Others include literatures of minorities, of resistance, of migrants, of exiles. Bhat (Translating the translated) in a critical study of the acceptance or legitimization of Indian literatures in the Western literary establishment observes that only texts which satisfy the Western criteria of being hybrid, i.e. being international or post-national, are accepted within the Western canon. This means that texts, which fully reflect the diverse, national and uncontaminated culture of a „Third World‟, are rejected by the Eurocentric Western canon. “We are accepted only if we are articulated as translated, hybrid and post-national selves”. Such notions like „hybridity‟ and „post- nationalism‟ in post-colonial theories, the study notes, mediate the Western ideologies and norms, which dominate translation in the postcolonial period. Bhat‟s solution to this Western disposition is to challenge the hegemonic Western critical discourse by constructing an alternative national discourse, which through translation will facilitate and strengthen the cultural ambience of the Indian (or any respective „Third World‟) nation. With regard to postcolonial writing, Bandia (Sociolinguistics and sociocultural aspects of translation) in his Ph.D thesis discusses the problems involved in translating between two alien, divergent, non-related or non-cognate languages and cultures using sociolinguistics, pragmatics and discourse analysis as tools. Drawing illustrations from passages taken from the creative works of African writers, he shows how the African writer „bends‟ the European language by the profuse „transposition‟ of aspects of the oral narrative into the European language to convey African sociolinguistic and sociocultural reality. This practice leads to the „contextualization‟, „acculturation‟ and „nativization‟ of 16 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the European language. Bandia demonstrates that the „Africanness‟ of this European language may become an obstacle not only in verbal cross-cultural communication between a speaker of the African variety and a speaker of the European variety of the European language, but also in translating works of African literature into other European languages. Similarly, Döring (Translating cultures) discusses with illustrations from Chinua Achebe`s works (No Longer At Ease and Things Fall Apart) how postcolonial writers by their unique use of the coloniser‟s language subvert the excolonisers representation of the excolonised and also ensure that the translation of their postcolonial literatures into imperial cultures and languages preserve the self-representation of former colonised peoples and cultures. Through this strategy, the translator of postcolonial African literature into imperial languages becomes an inadvertent betrayer of the excoloniser‟s representation of the excolonised. In a study of Ngugi wa Thiongo, Tymoczko (Postcolonial Writing) emphasizes the conscious importation of African words and language structures into African postcolonial writings in order to create hybrid texts and local variations in the standard language. This type of writing defamiliarizes the imperial language and enables postcolonial writers to bring readers face to face with the reality of cultural difference and to question the supremacy of the standard language. Jacob (African writers as Practicing translators) and Kehinde (English and Postcolonial Writers‟) further demonstrate respectively, with illustrations from the works of Ahmadou Kourouma (Les Soleids des Independence and Monne, outrages et defies), and the work of Femi Fatoba (My Older Father and Other Stories) how African postcolonial writers reconstitute the French and English languages through different translation and linguistic strategies to domesticate these foreign languages of former colonisers and thus be able to portray the realities of African cultures as well as to teach their foreign readers “that Africa was not a cultural desert before the arrival of the colonisers”. These strategies include adaptation, explanation, and commentary. Others are transliteration, direct translation, fidelity to the syntactic and semantic structures of the African native tongue, verbalisation, loan coinages, loan blends, pidginization, etc. 1 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY In relation to the translation of African postcolonial literatures between two European languages, D`Almeida (Literary translation, translating Achebe) discusses the cultural, linguistic, stylistic and translator problems of translating an African novel namely, Chinua Achebe`s Things Fall Apart into French. These problems border on disparities between the correlate of Igbo, English and French languages and cultures, stylistic differences, and also translator interference in the translation process. These problems affect the choice of equivalence and meaning. In a similar study, Aire (Evaluation of French version of Things Fall Apart) evaluates the French versions of Chinua Achebe‟s Things Fall Apart and A Man of the People respectively translated as Le Monde s‟effondre by Michel Ligny and as Demagogue by A. Diop using the criteria of accuracy, authenticity and pleasantness of reading. He finds on the whole that Ligny translated Things Fall Apart more successfully than Diop translated A Man of the People. The weaknesses in both translations include differing degrees of outright mistranslations, omissions, unnecessary additions, alterations, and the use of wrong registers. However, Ligny was able to capture the tone and intentions of Achebe in Things Fall Apart, and to achieve linguistic homogeneity with little variation to the English register used by Achebe, while the register in the translated version of A Man of the People constantly changes. The pidgin register was mostly lost. Apart from gallicizing some Nigerian and English names, Aire finds Diop to have overindulged in elucidation by adding more than was necessary in some passages of the source text thereby imposing interpretations on the source text instead of translating it. Aire attributes the weaknesses of the translations to insufficient familiarity with the cultural backgrounds of the source texts, misreading of the contexts, and literal translations. Further in the same line of study, Dunu (Okonkwo oder das Alte stürzt) examines synchronization in the translation of Chinua Achebe‟s Things Fall Apart into German. He conceives synchronization in translation as a point of view of absolute sovereign position, which “orders and categorizes [in the translated target text] according to the cadre of the well-known, with almost no respect for the individuality of the work of art [i.e. the source text]”. He outlines four factors of a synchronizing point of view in translation to be the narcissistic inclination of too many a translator, the unscrupulous emphasis on the reader, 1 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the questionable understanding of language as a universal unit, and the question of professionalism in translation. His finding is that the translation of Things Fall Apart into German fails to meet the criteria of adequacy because the translation imposes the foreign on the important and cultural features of the novel and misleads the German reader of the translation into believing in the universality of his own world. Using a critical analytic and comparative methodology within an intercultural communication framework, Mayanja (“Pthwoh!Geschichte, Bleibe ein Zwerg ) in his published Ph.D thesis “Untersuchungen zum Problem der Übersetzung Afrikanischer Literatur ins Deutsche”, (i.e. “Examination of the Problem of Translating African Literature into German”) studies the translation into German of selected novels of five anglophone African authors namely Timothy Nwangusa, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Amos Tutuola, Ken Saro-Wiwa and Chinua Achebe. Specifically on Chinua Achebe, he examines the separate German translations of “Things Fall Apart” by the respective former East (German Democratic Republic, DDR) and West (Federal Republic of Germany, FRG) German states. The thesis shows ideologically marked versions of the respective translations that reflected the „cold war‟ conflict between the former East and West Germanys in particular and between the U.S. led Western bloc and Russian led Eastern bloc in general. While the West German translation reflects the liberal individualistic ideology of the West/Western bloc by presenting Okonkwo, the main character of the novel, as “ein starke Individualiste, der seine Individualität im Kampf gegen das Neue nicht aufgeben will”(186-7), i.e. “a strong individualist who will not give up his individuality in the fight against the New”, the East German translation reflects the communist ideology of the East/Eastern bloc by presenting Okonkwo as “[der] Befreier seines Volkes von imperialistischen Ausbeutern”(186), i.e. “the liberator of his people from imperialist exploitation”. Furthermore, whereas the West German version presents the proto Igbo African community of Umuofia as “a relatively pragmatic society that is radically changing”, the East German version presents Umuofia as “einer harmonischen afrikanischen Gesellschaft … deren Werten und Normen durch westlichen Imperialismus nicht gerüttelt werden dürfe” (187), i.e. “a harmonial African society whose values and norms need not have been disrupted by Western imperialism”. 1 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY This ideological bias of the translations, the thesis finds, predisposed or influenced the approaches and strategies or techniques adopted by the translators. The East German version was dominantly translated with the “Wort-für-Wort” (word-for-word [and/or “literalization]) technique particularly in the transfer of proverbs and idioms and culture specific phenomenon. It is a “source language but not necessarily a source text oriented process” that preserves the linguistic properties of the source text but does not necessarily guarantee adequacy of translation (186). The West German version, on the other hand, shows a strong target language and text orientation that responds to the expectation of the target readership and allows for stylistic changes and the replacement of source text idioms with target culture substitutes (186). Common to both versions of the translation, according to the finding of the study, is the emphasis on Okonkwo rather than on the community of umuofia that is the central emphasis of the novel. The study of Mayanja is significant to this present study in strongly demonstrating the influence of ideology on translators in their choice of approaches and techniques and in the representation of the Other. Lindfors (Respect or Ridicule) explores the portrayal of foreign cultural images in the translation of an African novel, “Nervous Conditions” by Tsitsi Dangarembga from Zimbabwe. Specifically he investigates some translation strategies employed in the translation using for his analysis a descriptive target-text oriented translation methodology developed by Gideon Toury which relies on description and explanation of relationships between target and source texts. By this methodology, the analysis begins from the translated target text and proceeds to map the target text onto its source text with the aim of eventually establishing the norm of translation equivalence and the overall concept of translation underlying the text. The study takes into consideration the hybridity of the source text, i.e. an African literature written in a European language, which is a mixture of two cultures: the African thought and the European language that serves as the medium for conveying it. The discoveries of the study, demonstrated with selected illustrations, are that the source text has been translated very literally and that „foreignizing‟ strategies dominate in the translation of culture bound elements. Lindfors concludes from these discoveries that the translator‟s norm of equivalence is based on word-level dictionary equivalents and 2 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY that her concept of translation is maximum fidelity to the source text. The translation thus signals the foreignness of this African text to the Finnish culture. Lindfors believes that the images of an African culture transmitted by this Zimbabwean novel is at best unclear and, therefore, renders debateable the adequacy of the translation to meet the expectation of intercultural relations. However, Lindfors does not state if this lack of clarity comes from the source text or from the translation. In his unpublished Ph.D thesis “Publishing and Translating African Languages and Literatures: With Special Reference to Nigeria, Ghana and Germany, Adeaga examines the connections between translating, publishing and reception of African literatures in Germany. He analysed the translation into German of Amos Tutuola‟s “Palm-Wine Drinkard”, Ken Saro-Wiwa‟s war chronicle “Sozaboy” [Nigerian]; Kojo Laing‟s “Search Sweet Country”, and Ayi Kwei Armah‟s “Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born” [Ghanian]; all four novels being “hybrid multi-layered texts” characterised not only by their literary merit but also by their “deconstruction of the English language”, especially with pidgin English (12, 66). His findings show various cases of misinterpretations that characterise the German versions of these texts and the inability of the German translators to handle not only the complexities of the language of the source texts, especially the pidgin English, but also the indigineous narrative style and plot structure of some of the texts. The thesis blames the limitations in the translations on German translation devices that are often based on “a universalizing and homogenous discourse which hardly applies to most African texts, whose complexities are prominently displayed through their multifaciousness” (66). However, his suggestion that the German translators of African literary texts should contemplate using “Gastarbeiterdeutsch” (see p.365-8 of this thesis) to translate African pidgeon English (54) is in the least curious in the face of his own observation that pidgin English has various culture-bound varieties in Africa (41), and that “Gastarbeiterdeutsch” is foregrounded in minority, non-homogeneous, migrant and non-subsaharan African cultures in Germany. The thesis further found that the reception in Germany of African literary works translated into German are influenced by factors such as the quality of the translation which may attract or repel readership, the reading preferences of the German readership, 21 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY publishers attitude to and preference for texts and authors, opinions of German critics and reviewers of translated African literary texts, media imaging of Africa, and the popularity of the African authors whose works are translated. This study is significant here not only in identifying hegemonic influences in translation from the literary writing tradition of the target culture but also in its precise identification of aspects of the cultural system that bears on the translator; translation also a part of that cultural system In a dominantly linguistic approach, Kolawole (Fidelity in James Kirkup‟s) critically assess the concept and possibility of fidelity in translation in the English versions of Camara Laye‟s Le Enfant noir and Le Regard du roi respectively translated by James Kirkup as The African Child and The Radiance of the King. The thesis views fidelity to comprise in translating not only the sense and intent of the author but also the style of the original and it is measured by the degree of equivalent effect the translation has on its average readers. Sense is equated to meaning in the study and meaning is derived from “the concrete structures of the language, from purely linguistic signs and searched for only in the framework of the code they are part of”. The thesis used the Interpretative, also known as the sense, theory of translation oriented to the target language and culture, and it adopted a comparative and analytical methodology. Kolawale considers the translations of James Kirkup to be both faithful and successful because he could realise situational equivalence, transfer the aesthetic values of the texts, achieve equivalent effect, preserve many elements of the original African culture and more importantly provide a global sense of the selected texts and not the equivalence of details. He explains the mistranslations and omissions observed in the translations to be due to the difficulties of handling culture-specific features of the linguistic systems. He further discovers that James Kirkup used the techniques of transposition, explicitation and modulation among others. The findings of the thesis is important in implying that a global, interpretative approach to translating can omit or mistranslate culture-specific features of source texts that could be critical to cultural identity ascriptions and representations. Aire (464) has already pointed out how in the same translation of Le Regard du roi (The Radiance of the King) Kirkup, in “a key symbolic scene”, mistranslates and misrepresents the old clairvoyant Dioki as having sexual intercourse with her snakes; thus creating “a wrong 22 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY impression in the minds of his Anglophone readers”. Eustace Palmer (in Aire 464) expressed strong critical reservation to this mistranslation by Kirkup. Palmer notes: “many readers are likely to be repelled by the picture of an ageless woman apparently having intercourse with snakes … The loathsome spectacle of the “ignoble fumblings and penetrations, “orgiastic writhing and groaning” of an old woman and her serpents, nauseates Clarance beyond bearing”. Bandia, Doering, Tymoczko, Jacob and Kehinde, concentrate on the initial translation or transliteration of a native African language and culture into a European language and culture by African writers. The writer of African postcolonial literature writes to discredit the Eurocentric view of his culture by bringing his readers face to face with the realities of his own culture. Though these studies employ the descriptive and comparative analytic methods, they do not deal with the translation of postcolonial literatures written in one European language into another European language. D‟Almeida, Aire, Dunu, Mayanja, Lindfors, Adeaga and Kolawole all show the problem of cultural and linguistic difference in translating postcolonial African literatures from one European language and culture into another. Particularly important is their claim, inadvertently implied in Kolawole, that the translator can interfere in translation and that the major problem is that of getting the suitable correlation in cultural and linguistic meanings between two languages and cultures. However, neither of them bases his study on the tripod of theories of intercultural communication, postcolonial relations and translation. 2.2 Culture, Meaning and Language The earliest conception of culture from its Latin root term „colere‟, translatable as „to build on, „to cultivate‟ „to foster‟ was used to contrast nature. Culture was seen to be something constructed willingly by men, while „nature‟ was given. In this conception of culture, culture was seen as a process of cultivation and, thus, improvement associated with a range of practices in the arts “which are assumed to carry a set of ethical values superior to those of everyday experience” (Garnham 413). From the mid-eighteenth centuries, the concept of culture included not only practices but also products that only human intelligence and human societies are capable of, and that are transmitted by non-hereditary means. Culture came to signify: 2 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY A set of attributes and products of human societies, and therewith of mankind, which are extrasomatic and transmissible by mechanisms other than biological hereditary, and are essentially lacking in sub-human species as they are characteristic of the human species as it is aggregated in the societies (Kroeber and Kluckhohn 284 in Payne 1). This early progression in the conception of culture was, however, beset by what Halton called the „ethnocentric universalism‟ of Western enlightenment. That is Western enlightenment‟s conception of the „unity of mankind‟ or „universal reason‟ and its belief in progress. This progress was seen in terms of the subsumation of human histories and diversities to the dominance of European culture (Halton 43). It was as a critique of this universalist tendency of Western enlightenment particularly obvious in the French revolution, i.e. the exporting of the French model of social organization and aspiration and its intellectual forms such as language, philosophy, art by force of arms (Garnham 416), that J.G. Herder came up with a pluralistic notion of culture that point to „equally valid and valuable different ways of life‟. According to Spencer (par. 4): In Herder‟s view it was simply the most ridiculous vanity for Europeans to believe that all people in the world must live like Europeans to achieve happiness. It was also highly insensitive to the material conditions obtaining to different eras. Williams (in Spencer par. 5) observes that by employing the term „culture‟ to refer to all creative enterprises, “Herder used it for the first time in its modern anthropological sense to indicate the particular way of life of a period, people or group”. This modern anthropological sense, which according to Payne (1), brought some stability to the term „culture‟ and clarity to its definition, was provided by E.B Tylor. Tylor conceives of culture to be “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (in Smelser :4). 2 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY O‟Hear (747) includes in this Tylorian list types of economy and technology, art and architecture, modes of entertainment, legal systems, religion, systems of education and upbringing, and much else besides; “everything, in other words, by virtue of which members of a group endow their activities with meaning and significance”. Afigbo (Citation on Ahiajoku Lecture) summarizes and deepened this tylorian conception of culture when he views culture as “those mentifactual, sociofactual and artifactual aggregates which in turn define and constitute the way we are born, live, die and buried – our culture and civilization”. Margolis (par 80), presents a view of culture in cultural studies as not being a thing but a process, “a contested terrain in which a number of different groups struggle to assert meaning”. This view of culture as contested has earlier been set out by Giroux in an idea of culture that equally incorporates its multiple and layered nature. Giroux (171 cited in Levy, Culture, Culture Learning) uses culture to refer to: The representation of lived experiences, material artefacts, and practices forged within the unequal and dialectical relations that different groups establish in a given society at a particular historical point. In this case, culture is closely related to the dynamics of power and produces asymmetries in the ability of individuals and groups to define and achieve goals. Furthermore, culture is also an arena of struggle and contradiction, and there is no one culture in the homogenous sense. On the contrary, there are dominant and subordinate cultures that express different interests and operate from different and unequal terrains of power. Wallerstein (Culture in the World System in Kumar and Welz 221-2) on his part defines culture as a “set of ideas that we utilize to analyze the world-system of knowledge, language, religion, and the arts. All these are models of organizing our collective life, which reflect and are reflected in other arenas.” Still relevant to our understanding and use of “culture” in this study is the definition of culture by Geertz (The Interpretation of Cultures in Kluver par. 25) which sees culture as “a set of symbolic systems that serve not only to define and identify the culture and social structures, but also to articulate the synthesis of two essential parts of human culture, ethos and worldview.” 2 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY So far, important attributes of culture from the above definitions include that it is created only by humans, it is non-natural and genetically non-hereditary, consists of practices, products and ideas, it is learned and shared, organizes social life, pluralistic and diverse, defines a society, changes, contested and synthesizes ethos and worldviews. There is, however, such a proliferation of definitions of culture to meet the need of various disciplines and departments of knowledge for cultural analysis that the term not only lacks a universally accepted definition, but also has, among others, been variously described as amorphous (Kluver par. 24), complicated (Williams 87), elusive (Payne, Versions of cultural and critical theory ) and vague, so vague that Garnham (413, 420) argues that the term „culture‟ has lost much relevance in scholarly enquiry so should be jettisoned. However, he acknowledges the near synonymity of culture to life, suggesting, therefore, that culture so permeates every facet of life and knowledge that at each point, it cannot but be confronted and clarified. This study conceives of culture as the body of organic and shared meanings by which a people or group or society is identified and differentiated and on the basis of which it orders relations within itself and with others outside. This conception of culture accommodates the all-encompassing anthropological list of customs, values, habits, norms, systems and institutions as symbolic manifestations of these shared meanings. Culture as meaning(s) reflects the summation of a people‟s, group‟s or society‟s view of the world including their view of their temporal and spatial location, their view of how and where they fit into that world, and of their responses to themselves within that world and to those outside that world. This world view and the symbolic manifestations that narrow it are the result of suffered or lived experiences, of relationships and the environment, and they are sustained by memory. In other words, this world view dissolves, practically, into the symbolic manifestations, which are the most visible, and which are described as „the (entire) way of life‟. Simply and tacitly put, culture is meaning, the context of meaning. In this conception of culture, intercultural communication within postcolonial relations context will be, firstly, the communication of meaning between or across people, groups or societies through the medium of language. It will also mean the effort to share and influence perceptions, attitude and behaviours between cultures, as well as 2 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the struggle among or between meanings, world views and ways of life for dominance, independence or recognition. The logical situation of culture on experience is affirmed by the observation of Ibang Ikpe (3-4) that “cultures differ one from the other to the extent to which their experiences differ”. He identified experience to mean anything that an individual or a group of individuals have undergone, or lived, or perceived or sensed, while Osundare (345) asserts that “this experience is a product and configuration of several complex inputs, physical, metaphysical, historical, social, ideological, technological, etc., all of which strongly influence, if not wholly dictate, a person‟s cognitive faculty and mental complexion”. Culture conceived as „organic‟ refers first to the fact that it manifests itself through various means, i.e. habits, norms, customs, values, institutions, and so on, which form integral parts of the whole. It also implies that culture is living and dynamic; it changes, grows or progresses, and it has its internal contradictions, strength and weakness. Rodriguez (1) captured this point considerably when he states “cultures are organic systems. As with such systems, all cultures have points of homogeneity and diversity, continuity and discontinuity, stability and instability, meaning [clarity] and ambiguity, order and chaos”. Herder (in Spencer par. 8) earlier acknowledged these opposing dualities that characterize any culture when he observes that “a nation may have the most sublime virtues in some respects and blemishes in others, show irregularities and reveal the most astonishing contradictions and incongruities”. However, the diversities, seemingly chaos and ambiguities inherent in cultures do not necessarily lead to the death or extinction, total collapse or breakdown of such cultures. They constitute the dialectical and cumulative progression, which keeps cultures capable of self-reflection, open and always in the process of becoming. Speaking of ambiguities in cultures in this regard, Rodriguez (par. 5) maintains that: Ambiguity challenges us to look at the world anew. It expands our humanity by forcing us to develop new meanings, new ways of experiencing and being in the world. In this way ambiguity fosters diversity and evolution. It is a life catalyst. Ambiguity, therefore, makes 27 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY for open and vibrant systems – the only systems that evolve and strive. However, the dynamism of cultures and the changes, which occur in them, are not completely detached from the past of these cultures. This means that though changes occur in cultures, though cultures may share and receive from other cultures, these cultures are yet in steady relationship with their traditional past, the present and, even, the future such that there is always a point of stability and unity. This is made possible by the factor of memory. As Halton (60-61) puts it: We are left, it seems to me, with centering our investigation of the roots of culture in the most sophisticated techniques the world has yet known: Those of the human body. Through human memory we have a profound connection to the past; to historical, prehistorical and even transhuman memory as the incorporation of organic experience. Living human memory… makes it possible for collective and personal past experience to infuse its wisdom into the present and so generates new prospects for future conduct. Halton touches on a crucial point that is relevant to this study, that is, that there is possibly a core of culture that overtime becomes embedded in the collective (sub) consciousness of a people or group, what Irele (Introduction:African Philosophy 25) would call “… the accumulated heritage of the past … compacted within the deep places of the individual being”, so that it is possible for a member of that collective to spontaneously, without being aware of it, respond in a manner that reflects the world view and way of life of the collective. Furthermore, he stated that this core of culture runs from the past into the future though a culture has the dynamism to change and to accommodate new and varied perspectives, experiences and meanings. Robinson (Crosscultural Understanding in Lessard-Clouston par. 15) restates this fact in his conception of culture as “a dynamic system of symbols and meanings that involves ongoing dialectical processes where past experience influences meanings, which in turn affect future experience, which in turn affects subsequent meaning, and so on”. This means that a writer or an author, for instance Chinua Achebe in Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, can focus on the culture of a given society or people in a 28 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY historical time that will still be relevant to the understanding of and relations with that society or people in the present so long as that society and culture have not altogether become extinct. The translation of such a text(s) will, therefore, still be relevant in the understanding of and relations with that culture and society. The connection between language, culture and meaning is in the primacy of culture to the expression of both language and meaning. Like culture, there has been a long- standing enquiry into the phenomenon of language and definitions as to what language is abounds. As Finegan (5-6) notes: Like other enquiries central to human experience, questions about language and its functioning were not new to the twentieth century. As old as speculation on any subject, inquiry into the nature of language occupied Plato and Aristotle, as well as Greek and Indian philosophers. Saussure, Sapir, Bloomfield, Catford, Quine, Chomsky, Halliday and a host of others before and after them have all reflected on the meaning and use of language. In this study, we understand language to be a structured system of speech or graphic symbols unique to a human community, which that community uses for meaningful social interaction, and for the expression of thought and feelings. Meaningful social interactions and expressions refer to interactions and expressions that are embedded in the culture of the human society or community; for language does not exist outside culture. Weber (30-31) asserts in this regard that all languages are functional tools that change with cultural and technological demands, and that they cease to be living languages if they cease to adapt to culture and technology. He further maintains that: One‟s language is a model of his or her culture and of that cultures adjustment to the world …. To deny that a people have a language to express its unique perspective of the world is to deny its humanity. Furthermore, the study of language is a study of the people who speak that language and of the way they bring order to the chaos of the world. 2 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY In the same vein, Babajide (172) citing Harrof (1962) also submits that language is the „storehouse of culture‟ and a prerequisite to the development and transmission of culture. This agrees with Gode‟s (23) claim that language and culture are neither „opposable nor juxtaposable‟, for “language as an expressive manifestation of life is a component of culture”. Ngugi wa Thiong‟o (14-15), however, helps us to understand what in culture is language, when he views culture as “… the set of spiritual eyeglasses through which a people view themselves and their place in the universe” and states that “language as culture is the collective memory bank of a people‟s collective experience in history”. This restates the fact that every word is a piece of a people‟s collective memory; memory of their experiences, of their lives and relationships, and a part of their collective outlook and worldview. It is only within this cultural memory that a word, indeed all of language, has meaning, worth and significance. It is within this understanding of culture as the context of meaning and of language as a carrier of culture and meaning that we further view meaning within the context of intercultural postcolonial communication as the understanding that comes from the knowledge or awareness of a message. We point out that this understanding comes from the cultural background of those taking part in the communicative process, and it is negotiated between interlocutors in the communicative process. 2.3 Cultural Identity, Culture- Knowledge and Discursive-Narrative. The conception of identity proliferates across disciplines, in music, computer and information sciences, philosophy, commerce and marketing, in the social sciences, mathematics, and so on. In mathematics, for instance, identity is conceived as “an equality that remains true regardless of any variables that appear within it” (Wordnet, Identity). This and similar views of identity which emphasize absolute sameness, dominance and persistence give insight into the received etymological understanding of the root of the term „identity‟; they, however, did not locate identity within the context relevant to this study. In this study, we view identity as a socio-culturally constructed and contested perception of self. Moya (par. 10) explains identity in this regard to be “who 30 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY we are – that is, who we perceive ourselves to be or are perceived by others to be … Our conceptions of who we are as social beings”. This perception and conception of the „Self‟ or the „Other‟ is „voiced‟ in speech acts whether semiotically embedded or verbally expressed such that “Who we are to each other, then, is accomplished, disputed, ascribed, resisted, managed and negotiated in discourse” (Benwell and Stokoe 4). Who we are will in no doubt be in relation to qualities and features which we appropriate or ascribe to ourselves, or which others ascribe to us. The relevance of this conception to our study is first in the implicit fact that identity is contested. It is about contested perceptions of who we are and who we are not, and to that extent, it further implies an active process of representation either by oneself or by the other(s). Secondly, it acknowledges that identity as Moya further puts it “refers outward, with varying degrees of accuracy, to our shared world”. Our shared world being the socio-cultural context in which an identity defines itself. Thirdly, it points out the fact that identity can be constructed by the “Other” or by others. From the foregoing and considering our conception of culture as the body of organic and shared meanings by which a people or a society is identified and differentiated, we conceive cultural identity as the identity inherited or appropriated by or ascribed to an individual or to a group as a result of his or her or that group‟s belonging to a particular common culture. Cultural identity is thus a reference to the individual or collective self rooted in a common culture from which it derives considerably its meaning and worth. This conception of cultural identity acknowledges that culture can be tradition, that is, can be a body of shared meanings inherited through the process of transmission from past generations to a present generation and preserved for future generations. Holman (445) understands tradition in this cultural and transgenerational sense as “a body of beliefs, customs, sayings and skills handed down from age to age or from generation to generation”. Our conception of cultural identity also implicitly acknowledges certain „accidents of birth‟ and belonging, which though conceptually differentiated from culture, are in the real social world and world of cultural relations and politics linked considerably with culture. As the Humanist of Canada observes: 3 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY It seems to me that race, religion, and nation are used almost interchangeably to define culture: consider „I‟m Black, I‟m Christian, I‟m Chinese-Canadian; I‟m Jewish which is, apparently, a bit of all three …‟. In so far as cultural identity is racial identity, it must depend on accidents of birth, on chance, on something we did not consent to … Accidents of birth create who we are largely because they lead to labels that others use to describe us, labels that accord with physical attributes that have, illogically, a whole bunch of other non-physical attributes. (Rational bases of identity, par. 3, 5) Physical attributes, thus, have reference to cultural attributes. This means that these inherited accidents of birth are used in the cultural interpretation of who one is such that being black, for example, could mean being African and both could mean being primitive, barbaric, backward, irrational, inferior and acultural; while being white could mean being European and both could mean being modern, progressive, rational, superior, refined and cultured. These terms represent descriptive and defining labels which reflect the value judgments, attitude and dispositions of the „Other‟ to either Black-African or White-European as a „racio-cultural‟ identity. Carson points to this pattern of cultural identity ascription when he describes how th the concept of race emerged in the 18 century from its usage by Europeans to understand all of the ostensibly different people that they were encountering throughout the world to its usage to justify domination as exploration became conquest. A hierarchy of race was subsequently drawn whereby “the people called „black‟ were considered to be at the lowest scale of human development”. Carson subsequently notes with particular reference to Blacks or African-Americans that: For people of African heritage in America, race was not only associated with culture, it became culture. Our various social practices have not been taken seriously as expressions of culture, but they are – especially in the conventional literature, though less so now – seen more as pathological adaptations to American slavery and subsequent social inequality. In this way, our social practices are seen as acultural, not really cultural, and expressions of social dysfunction (Carson par.1). 32 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Hall and McGraw (274) are bolder to legitimize race as a category of culture in the formation of cultural identity when they assert that “cultural identities are those aspects of our identities which arise from our belonging to distinctive ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious and, above all, national cultures”. The strategic importance of cultural identity is found in the fact that in the structural inequality that characterizes most societies and the international system, cultural belonging or identity is a most critical criteria in the assignment of worth and significance and in the distribution of national and international economic, political and socio-cultural goods and privileges. As Moya (par. 10) puts it: The significance of identity depends partly on the fact that goods and resources are distributed according to identity categories. Who we are … will significantly affect our life chances: where we can live, whom we will marry (or whether we can marry), and what kinds of educational and employment opportunities will be available to us. Cultural identity has the additional importance of giving a sense of well-being, safety and security to a group or people, and of providing a basis for collective action. The Social Report (par. 1) of New Zealand‟s Ministry of Social Development on Cultural Identity notes, “Cultural identity is important for a people‟s sense of self and how they relate to others. A strong cultural identity can contribute to a people‟s overall well being”. Schoepflin (par. 13) provides further insight to the above observation in stating that: Collective [Cultural] identity provides a sense of security for its members by making the world meaningful, permitting intra- collectivity communication and constructing forms of knowledge that allow the individual to lead a life without having constantly to make (new) sense of whatever phenomenon he/she encounters. The world is made rational by becoming meaningful. The competitive struggle for international socio-cultural, political and economic goods and resources and privileges, the struggle for who gets what, where, when and how much based considerably on collective cultural identities, and also the struggle by some people to assert their human dignity by affirming their cultural identities predicate the 33 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY deliberate efforts by people to construct or deconstruct cultural identities, to sustain or subvert cultural hegemonies and dominations through several means. Carson (par. 1) shows the relation between culture and human dignity. Drawing on the African-American experience, he observes that: Anthropologists say that producing and transmitting culture is what makes us human and distinguishes us from our primate cousins. … People of African descent, particularly in the Americans, are alleged, according to much of the social- scientific literature, to have the distinction of having race, but it is difficult to find a serious analysis of our culture. So, we are denied having a “real culture”. Carson leads to the inference that in ascribing to Africans a „culture‟ that is equivalent to race, they are denied not only the possession of a real culture, but also their humanity and any dignity that goes with being human; and since they are sub-human, the declaration of Human Rights, for instance, does not apply to them. Furthermore, they are regarded to be inconsequential and, therefore, not given priority in the global allocation of goods, resources and privileges. It is this relative weight of cultural identity in the national and, especially, global contexts that makes the channels for the construction, deconstruction, affirmation and disaffirmation of cultural identities like the media, discourse and narratives and their accompanying translation of texts key sites for intercultural communication, intercultural politics and relations, and for the shaping of perceptions and representations. In the process of cultural identity construction, affirmation and disaffirmation, especially in the translation of texts, cultural knowledge and its transfer across texts become very important. Gegen, K.J, Murray, Oha, and Gover have all written on the ability of narrative and discourse to construct identities, while Allen, and Olson, among others, observed the identity creating capabilities of the media and technologies. Drawing from a reading of Nnamdi Azikiwe‟s “My Odyssey”, Oha (par. 3-4) shows how the location of the growing self across cultures and languages is used as part of the „textual construction of the self as an ideal leader‟. He further points out that this strategy of constructing the self in texts through narration agrees with the general „representation‟ 3 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY and celebration of the self in autobiographies as being sufficiently exemplary to deserve recognition, and that Azikiwe finds in his autobiographical historical narratives a great resource for “moulding perspectives and feelings, especially that of patriotism, in Nigerian readers of the book.” This means that Azikiwe uses narration not only to create and represent his perception of his own self but also to achieve a certain kind of effect and change on his readers through this creation of the self. What Oha demonstrates with the autobiographical narrative of Nnamdi Azikiwe, Gover succinctly articulates when he observes that: As we share our personal stories with others, fantasize future scenarios, and identify with or partake in the stories of others, we constitute and reconstitute our identities within their physical, cultural and historic contexts. The roots of narrative and identity thus merge, inextricably embedded and nurtured in the soil of human action (par.1). One notes from both Oha and Gover that narrative in the construction of identity, including cultural identity, is dialogic and discursive in nature affecting or having the potential to affect both the narrator and the reader in various ways and degrees. We understand discourse following Hall (The work of representation) to be a way of talking that represents a type of knowledge in a certain way that excludes other ways by which that type of knowledge could be represented. According to Hall: A discourse is a particular type of representation. A discourse is a group of statements which provide a language for talking about – i.e. a way of representing – a particular kind of knowledge about a topic. When statements about a topic are made within a particular discourse, the discourse makes it possible to construct the topic in a certain way. It also limits the other ways in which the topic can be constructed. (in Jensen par. 15) We, however, adopt the term „discursive-narrative‟ in this study following Gegen (par.2) to signify the mutual role of discourse and narrative in the construction and representation of cultural identity. Narrative is, therefore, understood as a discursive mode of generating intelligibility or knowledge that belongs to a particular culture and society, i.e., cultural knowledge. Gegen notes that narrative located within the domain of 35 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY discourse “gains its character from long-standing traditions of story telling, oral history, accounts of personal memory, and a variety of literary genres (including historical writing, the novel, and scientific accounts of cross-time change)”. Discursive-narrative in relation to the construction or creation, affirmation and representation of cultural identity generates a type of knowledge, i.e. cultural knowledge by a way of talking that is peculiar and possible only with narratives. By telling its story discursively, narrative weaves cultural knowledge into such vivid coherence such that to narrate is to engage in a dialogue to create and to represent. In this study, we conceive of cultural knowledge as the body of knowledge of a people that comes from an awareness of or familiarity with their entire way of life including their values and beliefs, habits, customs and traditions, institutions and environment, their lives in the ordinary process of social living – indeed their mentifactual, sociofactual and artifactual lives – which has the potential of identifying and differentiating them as a distinct cultural group and of shaping or influencing perceptions of, and attitudes and behaviours towards them. This Knowledge, thus, embodies all the cultural elements or features unique to a people and constituting, as it were, their cultural personality or identity. Opie (par. 28) has already used the term „cultural knowledge‟ to refer to a nation‟s whole stock of knowledge (including science and technology) as that knowledge is shaped by values, beliefs and traditions, as well as the knowledge created by artists and by people in the ordinary process of social life. However, the conception of Opie is used in relation to one kind of collectivity – the nation state. Adams (par. 1) had earlier used the term to refer to the familiarization with selected cultural characteristics, history, values, beliefs, systems, and behaviours of the members of another ethnic group. This conception is not sufficiently inclusive for our study. 2.4 Interculture, the ‘Other’, Interculturality and Communication The fundamental premise of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, popularly known as the linguistic relativity hypothesis, is that languages are different because each language is embedded in a different worldview and experiences, which it not only expresses but also 3 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY structures and determines. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis consists of two associated principles: Linguistic Determinism and Linguistic Relativity. By the first principle language determines thought; by the second principle, languages, especially members of quite different language families, differ fundamentally from one another each being rooted in a different way of perceiving the world. In the argument of the hypothesis, each language groups experiences in a finite array of formal categories, both lexically and grammatically. These categories interrelate in a coherent way reinforcing and complementing one another so as to constitute a system of reference for habitual thought and for the overall interpretation, explanation and communication of an infinite array of experiences (Crystal 15). Arising from the foregoing, the hypothesis further posits that languages vary considerably not only in the basic distinction they recognize but also in how they organize these categories into a coherent system of reference. Consequently, the system of categories, which each language provides its speakers, is not a common universal system but one that makes possible a particular fashion of thinking. According to Sapir: Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the „real world‟ is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached … We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation (Sapir 69). And Whorf, his student declares afterwards: We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every 3 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions, which has to be organised by our minds. We cut nature up, organise it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organise it this way – an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language. The agreement is, of course, an implicit and unstated one, but its terms are absolutely obligatory; we cannot talk at all except by subscribing to the organisation and classification of data which the agreement decrees (Whorf 213- 14; his emphasis). Judging from this hypothesis, people with different native languages will not have the same view of the universe due to the structural and compositional differences in their languages, semantically and grammatically. They will, therefore have difficulty communicating, if they communicate at all. The perspective of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is that translation between languages is in the least difficult and mostly impossible. However, not much empirical research has been conducted on the views of the hypothesis (Lucy 471, Swoyer par. 21), and the partisan affirmations and refutations of the hypothesis show that „the linguistic relativity hypothesis‟ “comes in stronger and weaker forms depending on the hypothesized forms and on the hypothesized strength of the hypothesized influence” (Swoyer par.1). The weaker version of the hypothesis modifies the strong, extreme, deterministic version and states, “the ways in which we see the world may be influenced by the kind of language we use” (par. 7; my emphasis). Specific aspects by which the weaker version of the hypothesis differs from the extreme deterministic form include a) the emphasis on the potential for thinking to be „influenced‟ rather than unavoidably „determined‟ by language; b) the emphasis on a two way process such that „the kind of language we use‟ is also influenced by „the way we see the world‟; c) the ascription of influence not to language as such but to the use „within a language‟ of one variety rather than another (typically a sociolect – the language used primarily by members of a particular social group); and d) emphasis on the social context of language use rather than on purely linguistic considerations, such as the social pressure in particular contexts to use language in one way rather than another. 3 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY In its deterministic form, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis strictly binds „content‟ (thought, meaning) to „form‟, i.e. the linguistic structure or text offered by each language. However, approaches to meaning like that of I. A. Richards, locate meaning neither in the words nor strictly in the structure of words, i.e. the text, but in the context of sociocultural experience. The Richardian approach agrees with the “broad consensus” in favour of the moderate version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis by which “any linguistic influence is now generally considered to be related not primarily to the formal linguistic structures of the language (langue, in Saussure‟s term) but to cultural conventions and individual styles of use (parole)” for “ meaning does not reside in a text but arises in its interpretation, and interpretation is shaped by socio-cultural contexts” (Chandler par. 9). The implication of thought and meaning arising from sociocultural contexts is the accommodation of universalists‟ position that translation is possible in and out of any language; for there are far much more of what are said in any language that can be translated into another. Translation is possible not by a narrow focus on linguistic forms and structures but by a closer look at context, which can, in the very least, be approximated through various strategies and recreated in another language in order to say what has been said in a first language. Swoyer observes that though what is easy to say in one language may be harder to say in a second, and this may make it easier or more natural or more common for speakers of the first language to think in a certain way than speakers of the second language, “human languages are”, however, “flexible and extensible, so most things that can be said in one can be approximated in another; if nothing else, words and phrases can be borrowed” (par. 17). Apart from borrowing, these strategies can include, among others, explicitation, description and even circumlocution. Languages like cultures are capable of accommodating and expressing new and varied experiences and perspectives. The second principle of the hypothesis is less controversial than the first for in spite of the underlying abstract linguistic universals which human languages share, there are often considerable differences between languages, for example, in syntactic structures and vocabulary. Considering the relation of culture to worldview and experience in this study and the fact that language by the same relation to worldview and experience is embedded in 3 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY culture going by the linguistic relativity hypothesis, it means that to state the accepted fact that languages are different is equally to admit the obvious fact that cultures are different. Kay and Kempton (65) affirm the mutual self-inclusion of language and culture in the linguistic relativity hypothesis in asserting that “the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity states that the structure of a culture‟s language shapes what people think and do”. Similarly Trivedi (par. 8) elaborates this point in stating that the Sapir- Whorf hypothesis apparently supports the view that “the specificity of a culture was coexistence with the specificity of its language” considering the hypothesis‟s claim that a language defined and delimited the particular world-view of its speakers, “in the sense that what they could not say in their language was what they could not conceive of”. And Ash (par. 9) puts it assertively “Both Sapir and Whorf agreed that it is our culture that determines our language, which in turn determines the way that we categorize our thoughts about the world and our experiences” The idea of interculture implies this difference of cultures and languages evident in the linguistic relativity hypothesis and it correctly assumes the existence of „the Other‟, as well as the possibility of contact and conflict in communication and relations. The „Other‟ in the socio-cultural context of this study stands for the non-belonging, the excluded, the incomprehensible, strange, unfamiliar, foreign and inaccessible opposite by which an identity defines itself and its worth. It refers to that which an (cultural) identity sees to be completely unrelated to its perception of its own self but which it uses to affirm its own worth and, even, superiority. According to Cahoone (11): The apparent identity of what appears to be cultural units – human beings, words, meanings, ideas, philosophical systems, social organizations – are maintained only through constitutive repression, an active process of exclusion, opposition and hierarchization. A phenomenon maintains its identity in semiotic systems only if other units are represented as foreign or „Other‟ through a hierarchical dualism, in which the first is „privileged‟ or favoured, while the other is deprivileged or devalued in some way. Rosen (par. 2) illustrates Cahoone in his observation of the West‟s perception of and relation with the East. According to Rosen: 4 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Orientalism as cultural myth had been articulated through metaphors which characterize the East in ways which emphasize its strangeness and otherness. The orient is seen as separate, passive, eccentric, backwards, with a tendency to despotism. …this kind of orientalism carries with it the implication that Asian people are much more…inferior. In a similar vein, Raji-Oyelade in a critique of English literature on Africa notes what can be seen as Europe‟s depiction of Africa‟s Otherness. According to him “A cursory but critical observation of the thematic import of major English fiction on Africa, extending from the late nineteenth century, has revealed a somewhat monolithic and predictable portrayal of an African milieu caught in the dark beginnings of time” (275). The „dark beginnings of time‟ conjures up the images of a primitive, barbaric, and savage people who, in the words of Frantz Fanon (32), are declared to “represent not only the absence of values, but also the negation of values, the enemy of values and, in this sense, the absolute evil”. Derrida (Positions) pointed out the close-knit tie between culture and the colonialist agenda in observing that the usage of the notion of culture always includes the naïve and misleading binary opposition such as „us‟ and „them‟, „civilised‟ and „primitive‟, „white‟ and „black‟, „men‟ and „women‟, and so on, which always tend to stigmatise, suppress and exclude the Other. Earlier, in his reading of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Achebe affirms the deep desire in Western psychology “to set Africa up as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe‟s own state of spiritual grace will be manifest”. He further elaborates on this Western and European attitude: For reasons which can certainly use close psychological inquiry the West seems to suffer deep anxieties about the precariousness of its civilisation and to have a need for constant reassurance by comparison with Africa. If Europe, advancing in civilization, could cast a backward glance periodically at Africa trapped in primordial barbarity it could say with faith and feeling: There go I but for the grace of God. Africa is to Europe as the picture is to Dorian Gray – a carrier onto whom the master unloads his physical and moral deformities so that he may go forward, erect and immaculate. Consequently, Africa is to be avoided just as the picture has to be hidden away to safeguard the man‟s jeopardous integrity. (An image of Africa). 41 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The self creates a distorted image of the Other to estrange and exclude it and by this exclusion to preserve its own wholeness and worth, and the privileged status, which it assigns itself. In this way, Otherness becomes an instrument for the preservation of the Self. Schoepfling (par. 14) states this in part when he observes that: Collective identities protect their meanings. They do so by establishing boundary mechanisms and boundary filters, which ensure that ideas external to the community are never received in full, for if they were, they could devastate the sense of collective self by introducing a tidal wave of innovation which the receiving community had no cognitive means of ordering. Otherness as strangeness or exclusion or both creates distance between diverse cultures and engenders misunderstanding, prejudice and strife. However, what is critical in this binary relationship between the cultural self and the Other is that the Other as what defines the Self also embodies the Self, such that it is only when there is an „Other‟ that the Self knows itself. Hall states this fact in implying that there is no identity that is without the dialogic relationship to the Other. The Other is not outside but also inside the Self, the identity. Identity is also the relationship of the Other to oneself. According to Hall: … Identities are constructed through not outside difference. This entails the radically disturbing recognition that it is only through the relation to the Other, the relation to what it is not, to precisely what it lacks, to what has been called its constitutive outside that the „positive‟ meaning of any term and thus its „identity‟ can be constructed (Who needs identity? 4) This ironic mutual inclusion of the Other in the Self and the Self in the Other suggest the possibility, or even necessity, of both to engage each other in a dialogue to reach understanding and agreement for peaceful coexistence. Indeed the inclusion of one in the other suggests that each needs the other to exist. Miller (par. 15) observes the same while holding that “if the Other is really another form of the same, much can be said, done and thought. … There is the possibility of understanding and reconciliation. The two sides can talk, perhaps reach a consensus”. 42 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The possibility of dialogue and understanding points further to the possibility of overcoming cultural and linguistic differences not by abolishing the languages and cultures but by having a truthful and honest attitude towards them, by recognizing and respecting their existence and uniqueness, and removing the inhibitions which they may impose to constructive and mutually beneficial relations. This dialogue or communication will necessarily involve the removal of prejudice and distorted images of the Other, the correction of misunderstandings and the creation of a new knowledge base and correct image of the other on which cooperative attitudes and positive behaviours towards each other can be based. The concept of Interculturality arises from this difference and Otherness of cultures and the need for cultures diverse to each other to engage in dialogue. Interculturality, here, refers to the critical and dynamic contacts, interactions and exchanges between cultures that are the consequences of their difference and diversity. Interculturality goes beyond the mere fact of many cultures coexisting in a single geographical space and points especially to contacts, encounters and interactions that equally implicate the complexities and conflicts of power (political, economical, ideological, etc) underlying all intercultural relations within asymmetrical contexts. The nature and process of this interactions would themselves include negotiations and mediations and other direct and intervening measures that can result in “the construction of cultural syntheses in new stages”. (cf: Gumucio 321). Medina-Lopez-Portillo and Sinnigen emphasize the above conceptualization in their clarification of the conceptual difference between interculturality and intercultural competence by showing the unequal emphasis accorded to these concepts in the [EURO-] US and in Latin America based on the peculiar needs of each cultural grouping or system (i.e. EURO-US or Latin America). Visible in their conception is the existence of asymmetry. While the US emphasizes intercultural competence with reference to individual set of skills, attitudes and behaviours needed to successfully and effectively relate with people from different cultures, the emphasis in Latin America is on interculturality which refers to “a historic condition”. According to the duo: Intercultural competence is primarily an academic matter and produces valuable scholarship and training programs 4 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY and methodologies. Interculturality points to the radical restructuring of the historically pronounced uneven relations of wealth and power that have existed between Europeans and their descendants and indigenous and other subordinated groups during the last half millennium. This history has been characterised by an ongoing process of conquest, exploitation, and resistance. In Latin America, interculturality is used to describe the necessary condition for a new social configuration that allows historically marginalised indigenous groups and others, primarily blacks, to pursue cultural, political, and economic equality. (250) The graduated dialectical syntheses that result in intercultural interactions are to lead to the progressive realisation of mutual and equal respect of cultures, cooperative endeavours based on equal participation and representation of all cultures. They progressively abolish the indulgences of hegemonic cultures through political, ideological, economic and military processes to effectively reduce – often to practically zero- the possibilities of other cultures to define their own goals, priorities, destinies, and to realise those; and to make the dominated cultures “subservient to the realisation of the goals, priorities, destinies, of the dominant group[s]”. (cf: Binsbergen 17) Communication features in interculturality as a mediatory or intervening factor in the difference of cultures. Unarguably the healthy knowledge and understanding of the Other mediated through communication can help erase the prejudicial binary oppositions and categorisations, and reduce conflicts. As Samovar and Porter observe: The ability through increased awareness and understanding to coexist peacefully with people who do not necessarily share our background, views, beliefs, customs, habits or lifestyles can benefit us in our own neighbourhoods and also can be a decisive factor in forestalling international conflicts (2). This brings us to a closer consideration of human communication. The extension of the field of communication “to both scientific and humanistic views” (Griffin 1997) make possible the existence of widely divergent views by scholars as to what communication is. Consequently, it is hard to come to a universally accepted definition. 44 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY However, Schramm (18) conceives of communication from its Latin root word “communis”, which means „common‟. According to him, when we communicate, we are trying to share information, an idea or an attitude. He further points out that communication always require at least three elements – the source (initiator), the message, and the destination (recipient). Schramm‟s conception suggests that to communicate is to invite to participate in the knowledge of an information or idea, and to participate in an attitude or disposition. This means that communication elicits both a cognitive and affective response from the invitee. Kiernan, Reid and Goldbart (9-10) not only captured but also improved on the observations implied in Schramm above when they define communication as: Responses, which a person makes intentionally or unintentionally, in order to affect the behaviour of another person and with the expectation that the other person will receive and act on the message. The above definition points out that communication can be a deliberate means of controlling, affecting and influencing a person‟s attitude and behaviour. Significant also is that communication involves unintentional and unconscious responses or behaviours, as well as it includes verbal and non-verbal symbolic aspects. Aherne, Thornber, et al (9- 10) elaborated on Kiernan, Reid and Goldbart by clarifying that these responses basically involve speaking, listening and the use of language as a system of words and rules but that they also include non-verbal elements of communication such as gesture, and body language to reflect the act which the speaker intends to carry out. In the case of non- verbal communicative responses, the speaker presupposes that the listener “shares the understanding between what is communicated and the situation”. Porter and Samovar (10) conceive communication as “a transactional behaviour-affecting process in which people behave intentionally to include or elicit a particular response from another person” while Frey, Botan, Friedman and Kreps (Investigating Communication) define it as “the management of messages for the purpose of creating meaning”. We acknowledge that while the clarification of Aherne, et al emphasise the oral mode of communication, communication accommodates the written mode where language is used as a structured system of graphic symbols. In this usage, the non-verbal 4 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY and unintentional elements in communication will be found in the affective or emotive responses, and the subtle connotations embedded in words, structures and contexts. The mode of expression will not just be restricted to speaking and listening but also to writing and reading. All the definitions or conceptions of communication cited above not only assume the three basic elements required in communication, i.e. initiator, message and recipient, as Schramm (18) outlines, but they also implicate a fourth – motive or purpose in communication. In this study, and taking the idea of interculture in communication, we understand communication to be the transmission or interchange of messages through a process by which knowledge, meaning and identities are negotiated and created in order to possibly achieve and maintain the understanding needed for mutually just and beneficial attitudes and behaviours. This process is explicitly or implicitly dialogic and argumentative. Communication in the context of this definition is not a passive transmission or exchange of information. It is a serious transactional engagement of cultures with each other. It is about exerting influence; not just about telling, but acting, changing another person‟s and another culture‟s perception, attitude and behaviour through the things that were said to them. This change and influence become successful if understanding is attained in communication, and understanding is possible when agreement in perception is successfully achieved. 2.5 Translation as Intercultural Communication This subchapter surveys a few of the many definitions or conceptions of translation, which have arisen out of the shifting perspectives that try to make meaning of the entity across disciplines and various translation traditions. The aim is to arrive at a view of translation suited to this study. Eugene Nida (19) defines translation to consist in “producing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalence to the message of the source language, first in meaning and secondly in style”. Nida emphasises equivalence in the meaning of the message and in the style of its presentation. From a pragmatic point of view, equivalence can be understood in the above definition to refer to words, word sets 46 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY and expressions which appropriately recover the meaning and style of those items from the source language. Nida, however points out in this definition that the recovery of meaning and style from the source language can only be by approximation – the „closest‟ natural equivalence to the source text message. Nida says that „natural‟ means, “as used by the natives” (19). This means, by this definition, that the message (factual informative content) of the source language text has to be rendered in a meaning (a way of understanding) shared by the native speakers of the target language and by a way of using words and patterning expressions, i.e. style, which are familiar, common and accessible to them in their culture. The definition of Nida acknowledges that translation is an all-involving activity, which demands knowledge not only of the languages involved but also of the people who use those languages. In Nida‟s conception, the „meaning‟ shared by the native speakers of the target language, i.e. the cultural underpinnings of their language would have to carry the message of the source text. This means that the target language „meaning‟ of the source text message replaces the „meaning‟ shared by the native speakers of the source language in their reading of the message of the source language text. Furthermore, approximated equivalence in Nida‟s conception suggests that there are differences in languages and cultures that cannot be overcome in translation and the solution implicit in his definition is a kind of „replacement‟ - approximation. This means that what is to be preserved in translation is the „message‟ – the factual, informative content of the text, while the language, pattern of expression and culture of the source text are to be replaced with those of the target text. Problems arise with Nida‟s definition where the culture of the source language is the message. J.C Catford (20) agrees most strongly with Nida on replacement or substitution as a most valid strategy in translating when he defines translation as “the replacement of textual material in one language by equivalent textual material in another language”. Unlike Nida who, at least, acknowledges the relevance of people of the source and target languages, but disallows them from meeting at any point in translation, Catford focuses solely or narrowly on the formal syntactic, lexical and phonic, i.e. linguistic, features of the textual material. Catford, thus, excludes any context outside the text. 47 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Finlay would not belabour himself with issues or arguments of context raised in Nida and Catford in defining translation as “the presentation of a text in a language other than that in which it was written” (1). Translation is simply to make a text from a source language available and accessible in the target language. Werner Koeller (13) defines translation as “Die schriftliche Vermittlung eines Textes in einer anderen Sprache“ (The conveyance of a text into another language by writing). Koeller, the same as Finlay above, introduces the element of agency, i.e. the translator, in translation with the word „convey‟. He also points out the known fact that translation is written and that is regardless of whether the source text is written or unwritten. In an apparent rephrasing of Eugene Nida, Ajunwa (13) sees translation as “the rendering in writing of source language text into the target language with a view to preserving as much as possible the source language message and style”. „As much as possible‟ in Ajunwa‟s definition is the same thing as the approximated equivalence of Nida both of which refer to the fact that some things must be lost in translation that cannot be recovered and which have to be replaced by other things that are different. Silvia Albertazzi (18) conceives translation to be synonymous with „transculturation‟ by which he means the act of “bearing not only words, but also concepts, ideas, habits, religions, images and symbols across the borders – either material or metaphorical ones”. Albertazzi‟s conception is very broad by including symbolic and non-symbolic, material and metaphorical forms of communication and features of culture. The conception is, however, outstanding in preferring culture as the object and purpose of translation. It is within this overarching cultural aim of translation that Bhat (Translating the translated), reviewing translation in the colonial era, points to a postcolonialist definition of translation that sees translation as consisting in and transcending an activity performed on texts to portray the asymmetry in cultural relations between Euro-Western cultures and third world and marginalized cultures, and also to assert that translation has never been an ideologically neutral activity. According to Bhat: Translation referred not only to the transfer of specific texts into European languages, but to all the practices whose aim was to 4 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY compact and reduce an alien reality to the terms imposed by a triumphant western culture (par.1) Newmark (5) sees translation as “often, though not by any means always, the rendering of the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text”. Newmark emphasizes the intention of the author to be of major importance in translation. In other words, the message and meaning of a text have to be translated to realize the function and purpose of the author of the text. Newmark, however, points out that this authorial intention may not always be realized. These definitions show that translation takes place between two languages one a source language (SL) and the other a target language (TL). This means that translation is obviously interlingual; it is a written activity between texts, one a source text (ST) and the other a target text (TT); it focuses on the management of messages, meanings and styles from the source language text (SLT) to the target language text (TLT); it also involves the management of the author‟s goal and intention from the SLT to the TLT; and it is an activity that implicates transcending perspectives and motives where cultures contend for influence, dominance or recognition. From the point of view of interculture, translation takes place between two languages which are steeped in two different cultures – worldviews, beliefs, values, norms, customs, habits, and so on, and, therefore, between two different meanings that need to know and understand themselves without any imposing itself on the other or trying to obliterate the difference between it and the other. From the point of view of communication, translation seeks to make knowledge available in the target language and culture in order to establish the commonality necessary to create understanding. Translation, therefore, seeks to break the barrier and strife imposed by the diversity of languages and cultures to the mutual exchange of knowledge; and from the point of view of intercultural communication, translation involves the processing of knowledge and meaning between two cultures. As Samovar and Porter (8) observes “Intercultural communication occurs whenever a message produced in one culture must be processed into another culture”, a message being any behaviour (verbal, non verbal, symbolic, non-symbolic, conscious, unconscious, 4 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY intentional, and unintentional), which provides knowledge and elicits a response (cf: Porter and Samovar 9). From the foregoing, we conceive translation in this study to be the art and craft of interlingual and intercultural communication by which the message contained in a source text (ST) from one language and culture is processed into a target text (TL) in a different language and culture in a context, language and style suitable to an invariant understanding of the message and the realization of the communicative purpose of the source text, the translators or the commissioners of the translation. As we have already defined above, we use context to refer to the socio-cultural milieu from which a text with its micro and macro units and relationships derives its meaning and significance; and we use style to refer to the use of language including diction, patterning of expression and any way of presenting himself or his subject in writing that is peculiar to an author (or that is peculiar to a text category or cultural community), which aim is to shape how the reader experiences his work. Malmkjaer affirms in this regard, “writers select [and create] terms and expressions which they believe most likely to elicit the desired response on the part of the reader”. This naturally results in a text that is shaped in a particular way to make it mean in the way that it does (Translational Stylistics 14). Translation is both an art and craft in intercultural communication. As a craft, it involves skill in the „accurate‟ and controlled manipulation of language. This means a good and adequate bilingual and bicultural knowledge of the languages and cultures involved, and, with literary texts, a good and an adequate ability in literary stylistics. As an art, translation involves and allows for a proportionate degree of freedom, imagination and creativeness. Our definition of translation acknowledges that the linguistic features of a text, e.g. lexis, grammar, and so on, need not be accultural since, going by the linguistic relativity hypothesis; they are to be subunits of experiences that express culture. However, a purely linguistic conception and process of translation which isolates the wider context of culture is, to say the least, narrow in an intercultural and postcolonial theory context. Schulte (11) aptly affirms that: 5 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY … a translation theory combating the very idea of culture will not succeed in motivating the hard work of linguistic transfer. Lively intellectual exchange activities between nations are based on one fundamental expectation, i.e. the mutual gift and reception of culture. Our view of translation in this study locates the role of the translator within the responsibility to produce in the target language and culture an invariant understanding of the source text message that aligns with the author‟s communicative purpose. This is because within the context of intercultural postcolonial communication, the entire literary source text is one narrative and one statement in the overall and continuing dialogue of cultural representation and identity creation to achieve mutual, or at least balanced, understanding. An invariant message of the source text tied to its purpose is required to achieve the necessary communicative clarity and impact and to elicit the appropriate response. Malmkjaer observes accordingly that a translator‟s linguistic choices are to be strictly guided by the source text and its message in claiming that unlike in creative writing where, aside from genre convention (What happened to God 39) and the inevitable intertextuality of texts and text processing, the creative writer is “a free agent writing from the depth of their heart, mind or imagination about whatever phenomenon they consider appropriate to the general or personal mood and time”, “a translator, however creative, commits to a willing suspension of freedom to invent, or so to speak, and to creating a text that stands to its source text in a relationship of direct mediation as opposed to being subject to more general intertextual influence.”(Translational Stylistics 15). Translation represents a site, a third space, different from the space of the source and target languages and cultures where the two cultures can meet and talk, where they can confront their differences, subvert or overcome their prejudices, and if they can not, at least recognize that each of them is different, affirm their separate identities, and where they may seek to treat each other with mutual understanding and respect. 51 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 2.6 The Literary Translator as an Intercultural Communicator. The literary translator, in particular, occupies a very strategic position in the communicative space of interculturality being the intervening agent by whom cultural knowledge is textually transferred or exchanged between different cultures and languages in interaction. This is considering, on one hand, the immense significance of cultural knowledge to the formation of impressions of identity and to the shaping of attitudes, behaviours and responses in intercultural relations, and, on the other hand, the culture diffuseness of the literary text. Asobele points to this critical position of the literary translator to intercultural dialogue and interactions when he takes a strong exception to a presumptuous attitude by the translator in his/her choice of equivalencies: The danger in literary translation is that the translator can easily slip into a hack attitude, a situation that can degenerate into the use of clichés or resorting to the nearest expressions he can find. Such expressions may sound impressive but may not be necessarily appropriate. This is a dangerous situation for the dialogue of culture[s] that literary translation promotes. The translator must remember that he is transmitting the thoughts of great minds and the world view of the people whose literary partrimony he sets out to translate. He is the link between two languages. His job is, therefore, to aid others to participate in the life of others. He must preserve in the translation the culture of the people whom he is the interpreter. It is important for him to realise that each line or stanza is an expression of the social life of the people (Asobele 690). Six primary abilities and qualities define a good communicator and each of them applies equally to the literary translator. They are creativity and skill, truth-credibility, audience-knowledge, source-knowledge, knowledge of the message, and, especially with regard to the translator of literature, literary competence. Morris (32) defines the communicator as an “organism, which produces a sign that is a stimulus in social behaviour”, while Maletzke (43) from the view of mass communication, says the communicator is concerned with “the production of public 52 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY statements or information through a normative usage of conventional medium with either creative, selective or controlling nature”. We infer that the communicator is a producer of some form of message, which aims to stimulate social behaviour, and that the communicator has to give his message in accordance with an accepted medium and norm. Taking the message to be a knowledge providing and response eliciting behaviour, as both Morris and Maletzke implied in their definitions, the communicator can be simply conceived as the agent who produces a message or who produces a knowledge providing and response eliciting behaviour. This behaviour can be verbal or non-verbal, symbolic or non-symbolic, conscious or non- conscious, and intentional or unintentional. The word „produce‟ in both definitions above meaning to “give being, form or shape to (something)” shows that to really communicate requires, at least, some minimal degree of creativity and skill. The communicator is thus both an artist and a craftsman, for example in the use of language and in the correct judgment of the communicative situation and context. The communicator has to give his message within accepted medium and norms for it to be credible. This is supported by the definition of Maletzke above and this fact raise the issue of the credibility of the communicator and his message. Okonkwo (26) points to the central importance of credibility to communication in noting that credibility defines the relationship between the communicator and the recipient of his message. The communicator is not only highly regarded and judged competent by the recipient, but he also has the greater possibility of influencing the recipient towards the objective of his message if he is credible and hardly can influence the recipient if he is not. Medium refers to a means of sending information [that is proper to the reception of the message] (Baran 6). The most important here are, however, norms; this can incorporate what would be an accepted or proper medium. Norms, according to Toury (Nature and Role of Norms, 199), are “the general values or ideas shared by a community as to what is right or wrong, adequate and inadequate in particular situations”. In communication, they include those patterns and means of communication that are considered proper and respectful in given communicative contexts. Thus, communicative 5 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY norms regulate the choice and phrasing of language and the behaviour of communicators in any given communicative situation. However, in intercultural and postcolonial communication contexts, which involve the communication of difference and issues of identity and inequality, the norms of both the source and receiving cultures negotiate a balance, and the communicator, in this instance the literary translator, who occupies an in-between position, is in an unusually sensitive and responsible position not to impose one culture on the other. Xu Li-Sheng (par. 13-14) observes that: Since sociolinguistic norms are, by their very nature, reflective of the cultural values of the speech community, insisting on taking the norms of one culture… as the norms for intercultural communication is sometimes found to be quite threatening to the cultural identity of participants from other cultures.… It is more likely that norms for intercultural communication are not based exclusively on one or the other cultural group norms, but rather are negotiated and constructed out of both. It means that the credibility of the communicator in intercultural and postcolonial communication and translation lies in part in his ability to successfully engage the cultures and mediate between them without imposing one on the other. The other part of his credibility and that of his message is in the truthfulness of the message. Okonkwo defines the credibility of the communicator solely with truthfulness. The truth credibility factor is particularly applicable to the literary translator in view of the possibilities of ethnocentrism in culture translation and of the fact that the target readership, presumably, does not have knowledge of the source language and culture and, therefore, is highly gullible. Polay (par. 3) refers to this naivety and gullibility of the target readership of translations when he notes that generation of readers of a translation can continue to hold wrong notions about an author or his work due to faulty translations because they were not in the position to judge how close or not to the original the translation was. According to him: Wenn man ein literarisches Werk liest, macht sich im Allgemeinen keine Gedanke darueber, wie weit die Uebersetzung dem Original nahekommt. Man liest es einfach, 54 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY und hat einen Eindruck. So kann auch vorkommen, dass Generationen etwas ueber einen Schriftsteller oder Dichter glauben, was er in der Wirklichkeit nicht war, oder nicht getan oder geschrieben hat. Das war naemlich der Uebersetzer. This same point on the naivety and gullibility of the target readership was earlier pointed out by Dunu (492) who in noting that literary texts give access into different cultures, however, states that the translated text could as well be misleading. According to him: But relaxed in a language familiar to us, hardly can we imagine that the translated text we are nibbling at could be a falsification of its original. Every reading is an interpretation and every interpretation a transcription of an interpretation. No translated text is thus safe from adulteration and this is often due to cultural and linguistic peculiarities. Newmark (40) emphasizes this truth-credibility factor more elaborately and clearly. He says: More important are their [translators] responsibilities: They have a responsibility not only to their employer and the client, but to the truth. They not only have, sometimes to make their own independent checks of the facts of an SL text, they also have to form a separate opinion of the intentions of the texts they have translated, particularly, if they are wrapped up in a degree of overstatements, irony, understatement, hyperbole, bombast, may not be apparent to the readership. Above all, translators are obliged to indicate any instance of prejudice in the text: sexism, racialism, chauvinism, ageism, prejudice based on class, mental and physical health, colour or religion. It follows, therefore, that the imperative for truthfulness requires that the translator of the literary text be also competent in the highly subjective, connotative and figurative language of literature. Andre Lefevere (78) gives force to this inference in stating “the textual element of a literary translation should possess a literary value equivalent to that of the original. Hence it seems perfectly natural that the literary translator should be – first and foremost – a man of letters”. Bang (199) has earlier emphasised this point strongly when he points out: 55 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY A [creative] writer creates a world which is only possible due to his fertile imaginative capability. Consequently, it is not sufficient for a translator of a literary work to be a simple reader or critic, as he must also be at the center of the writer‟s intention and his imagination. He must comprehend his words exactly and completely understand his intention, attempting to reach the level of imagination which the writer enjoyed when he created his work. It is not enough to simply follow the path of his imagination. The translator requires an imagination which surpasses that of the writer. Indeed, the best translator must be a genius knowing both languages to the point of recreating not only words and phrases but also the spirit of the work. Since translators are not all geniuses, they must, at least, be at the level of education and imagination of the writer (199). Furthermore, audience-knowledge is a quality of a good communicator. Schramm (18) affirms, “Knowing your audience is the first rule of practical communication”. To the literary translator, audience-knowledge will mean knowledge of the target community at whom the translation is aimed. This will directly imply knowledge and competence in the target community‟s language and culture. Knowledge of the source refers not only to knowledge of and competence in the source language and culture but also knowledge of the author; for a filtering process precedes the actual selection of words and continues in the entire process of moving not only ideas but also images from one language and culture into another as Leila Vennewitz (87) also observes that we first “filter what the author is saying through what we know of his preference, his conditioning, even his received ideas and possibly, prejudices”. The dual requirement of source and audience knowledge on the literary translator exemplifies his in-between position, which places him in an intermediary and mediatory role between two worlds. Lefevere (79) puts it effectively thus that the literary translator “has to be a citizen of two worlds, a member of two civilizations so that he is able to translate the sociocultural framework of one world into another”. However, this in-between position seems to raise the question of the translator as a communicator if he has no message of his own. It would appear that he is subservient to the author. Lefevere (77) says that the job of the translator is to be the mouthpiece of the 5 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY author “never to distort the author‟s voice”. This does not, however, make the translator inferior. Indeed, the creative ability of the literary translator to successfully bring the message of a source text into the target text, in a different language and culture, thereby creating a different readership for the same message makes him a co-author. Schulte (11) acknowledges that the conscientious literary translator is involved in a creative experience in which he discovers the message originating from a cultural-linguistic community, he interprets this message, frees it from the confinements of the author‟s own cultural prejudices and language-linguistic problems, and brings the message into the vision and consciousness of another cultural linguistic community “by reweaving the message with the cultural-linguistic yarns of the target community”. Lefevere (77) agrees with Schulte in stating “to translate is to liberate substance, to divest it of its socio- culturally modified obsolete disguise and to articulate it in terms of a new, different socio-cultural background”. In doing all these, the literary translator creates his own readership to the original message and becomes a co-author. According to Schulte (7): Translation … is focused and fixed, a literary creation itself, i.e. a fundamental text that generates its own tradition of readers and critics. The translator is at first his author‟s interpreter, but in the course of the social production process, he virtually becomes his co-author. In intercultural and postcolonial communication, this creativity of the translator and his co-authorship are even more taxed; for the transfer process of the message from the text of the source language and culture to the text of the target language and culture excludes the subjugation of any of the cultures to the other. This is more so in situations where the culture is the message. Han-Jurgen Heringer (30-31) helps us to better infer what the role of the literary translator is as a communicator of culture in intercultural and postcolonial contexts. Understanding, according to Heringer, is what happens when relevant knowledge specific to a particular case is highlighted in a person. This means that knowledge is an asset to understanding and to understand, much more knowledge that is also diverse is needed. Heringer groups the diverse and versatile knowledge required for understanding into three: 5 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY a) Standing knowledge, as lexical as encyclopedic knowledge about situations, persons and culture. b) Running knowledge which is permanently updated in communication, and c) Episodic knowledge about your partner and you. Since understanding comes by highlighting a region of knowledge relevant to a specific case in a given communicative context, the literary translator provides a body of knowledge of the source culture to the target readership, which will be relevant to intercultural understanding and relations. The literary translator as a cultural communicator requires the competence, abilities and creativity appropriate to a communicator. To the list of abilities already enumerated, Newmark (About Translation, 40) adds uncommon ability to write his own language, shrewdness, perceptiveness and exceptional common sense. Though he has no voice of his own, he, however, is a co-author with the author by creating for his readership the source text message. His message is the cultural product from the source text and the knowledge of the source culture, which he brings to the target readership with an unbiased attitude towards the cultures, can promote intercultural understanding. Interculturality will require of the translator, in his delicate intervening role, to create no hierarchy of cultures and to consider no culture to be better or worse than the other; all cultures deserve the respect of others on the same level. That means, therefore, that the only manner to correctly understand and include another culture is to interprete its demonstrations in agreement with its own cultural criteria. While this is not a caveat on the translator‟s freedom to hold a separate opinion or view of the culture or text he translates, it does emphasize the necessity for the translator to moderate the inevitable ethnocentrism that could engender the interpretation and translation of cultural practices strange to his own from the criteria only of his own culture. 5 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 2.7 Text-Types, the Literary Text and the Translation of culture. Various definitions of „text‟ exist across disciplines and usages. In this study, a text is viewed as a unit of translation made up of structured sequence of verbal graphic symbols, i.e. words and word-groups, which derives its meaning and significance from context and serves as a single component in a communication process. Context is here defined as the socio-cultural milieu in which a text with its micro and macro units and relationships derives its meaning and significance. Thus, the meaning of the text is found beyound itself. This is because the building blocks of the text, i.e. words, have meanings beyond the linguistic structures of the text. “Words”, says Guan (par. 4), “can express meaning beyond verbal context. The exact meaning exists in its context” and this context is the culture of the participants in communicative interactions or behaviours. The inseparable link between text and its socio-cultural context in relation to the meaning and significance of the text enables the possibility of talking about the degree of meaningfulness of a text based on the extent of its location within the context, i.e. the socio-culture. Sonesson (par. 19) in his analysis of Roland Posner‟s three phase generalisation of the process from text in ordinary language sense to the sense found in cultural semiotics points out this possibility arising from Posner‟s work that “If something becomes more semiotic by entering culture, and by going from its margin to its core, then it seems that some texts are more texts than others – more meaningful”. Similarly, Schilly (par. 9) observes that texts are not equally immersed in cultural contexts; while some texts refer more to themselves, others need to be deeply located within cultural contexts to be meaningful in specific ways. According to her: … die Kulturelle Aufgeladenheit von Texten ist nicht immer gleich stark. So gibt es Texte, die sich eher auf sich selbst beziehen, und es gibt texte, die starker eines kulturellen Kontextes beduerfen, um auf spezifische Weise wirken zu koennen. Text types refer to the identifiable categories into which texts for translation are grouped. They are to guide the translators‟ treatment of a text. Each text-type fulfils a certain function(s) or serves a certain purpose(s) in a communicative interaction. 5 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Texts for translation are traditionally grouped into three generic categories, i.e. the literary, the technical/scientific and the general/pragmatic texts (Finlay 57, Citroen 181, Ajunwa (23). This grouping is based on the predominant mode of expression, language and style. The traditional reference of the scientific and technical texts is to texts, which relate to the natural sciences and their application in industry, engineering, medicine, and agriculture (Jumpelt in Citroen 182). Relying, however, on Huxley‟s definition of science as “nothing but organised common sense” (in Finlay 58), Finlay argues logically that technical language or writing is by no means restricted to what is popularly regarded as science. He rightly sees technical and scientific texts as “materials relating to specialised matter in almost every field of learning” (Finlay 29). The subject matter, lexis and vocabulary of scientific and technical texts are specialised. The language is denotative and can be so specialised that only experts or professionals in the field would be able to understand the text. This group of texts inform their readers. The general and pragmatic texts are the “not too literary and not too technical” (Ajunwa 23) texts, which can be read and understood by the averagely educated person or Finlay‟s „intelligent layman‟ (57). Two groups of texts can be differentiated from the general and pragmatic texts. To the first subgroup belongs the many literary works in which law, sport, warfare, biology, medicine and such other subjects of a scientific nature play an important part (Citroen 184). These will include the „science fiction texts‟. The second subgroup includes the vast majority of texts, which “though non-literary, cannot be classified as technical or scientific” (Citroen 186). These texts include administrative texts e.g. business correspondence, minutes of meetings, and so on. Others are texts on religion, government, education, history, newspaper articles, informal letters, finance and the economy, and so on. The language and vocabulary of texts in the second subgroup are more general and accessible compared to those in the first subgroup. General and pragmatic texts aim dominantly to inform. Literary texts are characterised by their connotative and rhapsodic, polysemous and aesthetic or artistic use of language and by their deeper location in the cultural context. The language of literary texts can manipulate the natural word order required by the grammar of a language and as Finlay (59) observes, “simple words when used literarily 6 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY are surrounded by emotional overtones and „subjective auras‟ ”. Adebayo elaborates on this: ... While there is only one meaning to a scientific statement, there can be multiplicity of meanings to a word, term, phrase or sentence in literature. Literature tolerates ambiguity, thereby allowing multiple interpretations ... literary language, apart from giving information, also contains additional elements which convey the tone, attitudes and mood of the writer and of the writing ... literary language is usually more economical, more tightened and more aesthetic,... [And] literature yields insight into the social and cultural lives of a society at the given period portrayed in the work (Adebayo, 4-5, 8). The subjective nature of literature makes the individual to be most visible in a literary text through his style. Ketkar (Literary translation:) refers to some of these characteristics and complexity of the literary text when he discusses the traditional problem of literary translation to consist in finding equivalents not only for lexis, syntax or concepts but also for features like style, genre, figurative language, historical stylistic dimensions, polyvalence, connotations as well as denotations, cultural items and cultural specific items and values. He further relied on Kristeva‟s (59-60) notion of intertextuality by which any signifying system or practice already consists of other modes of cultural significations to point out this complexity of the literary text but much more to point out the location of the literary text deep within the cultural context: A literary text would implicate not only other verbal texts but also other [cultural] modes of signification like food, fashion, local medicinal systems, metaphysical systems, traditional conventional narratives like myths, literary texts, legends as well as literary conventions like genres, literary devices, and other symbolic structures (Ketkar par. 7). Bredella (205) earlier stated that literary texts reveal “the dominant worldviews within a culture” and thus “gives us an insight into the dynamics of culture” such that the literary text is, according to Riffaterre (205), “a cultural artefact”. 6 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Indeed, the cultural turn in translation studies was borne out of the awareness that literary texts are constituted “not primarily of language but in fact of culture, language being a vehicle of culture” (Trivedi par. 8-9), such that the translation of a literary text becomes “a more complex negotiation between two cultures (Trivedi par. 9) and “the whole enterprise of finding equivalents raises the awareness of the differences and similarities between cultures and also brings into focus the question of cultural identity” (Ketkar par. 7). Polay (par. 2, 4) further points out that while literature is accepted to always be part of culture, those works of literature that are „bound to the real world and culture‟ of a language community and which together with similar works of non-literary nature affirm the culture of that community are more deeply located within culture. Such literary works include „classical‟ literatures, which have cultural values to a language community „and are indeed part of the cultural possessions of that community‟. Citroen (181) differentiates three subgroups of literary texts. The first subgroup is the „belle-lettres‟. This comprises of the master works of literature, which require a high degree of artistry and talent to translate them into another language and culture. The subjects are fiction, poetry and drama. The second subgroup of literary texts includes novels of all classes of merit or demerit, thrillers, books on travel, history, adventure, and so on. The last subgroup is the wide and ever expanding field of science fiction and popular science books. Literary texts dominantly aim to affect. Newmark (Approach to Translation, 3) uses the criteria of source language-target language orientation, Reader-Author orientation, and the degree of language resource use of texts to classify translation texts into three types: The Symbol-Representational texts (SRT), the Symptom-Expressive texts (SET) and the Signal-Persuasive texts (SPT). The Symbol-Representational texts also referred to by Newmark as object-centred or referential texts, provide factual information as neatly and directly as they will allow, comprising the message supplied by words individually and structurally. Minimal affective elements may occur in the form of the author‟s value judgements, priorities, stresses, and so on. In these texts, the cognitive meaning in the narrow sense of the word, is most important and the translator has no particular loyalty to the conventions of the source or target languages. What is important is “correct reference rather than sense” 6 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY (Newmark, Approach to Translation 3). The Symptom-Expressive texts are dominated by the writer and the source language words. They make use of all the resources of language including sound effects. According to Newmark (Comm. and Semantic Translation 169), these texts preserve the original expression of the speaker or author; the specific language of the author or writer is as important as the content, be it literary text e.g. autobiography, or a scientific/technical text e.g. personal statements. These types of texts may inform, convince, or affect. Included in the examples of these texts are creative literatures. The Signal-Persuasive texts are texts, which are oriented towards the addressee and the target language style. To these texts belong basically rhetoric essays in persuasion notably propaganda, advertisement, mass media products. The consequent behaviour or response of the addressee is more important than any information that is conveyed. Newmark, nevertheless, points out that none of the three groups can be sharply divided from the others. Katharina Reiss (Type, kind and individuality of Texts :) narrows the criteria for determining text types in translation to the function of the text within basic communicative situations. Reiss identified three essential forms or functions of written interlingual/intercultural communication that result into three basic text types. These are the communication of content that result to the informative text, the communication of artistically organised content resulting to the expressive text, and the communication of content with persuasive character resulting to the operative text. Reiss, however, notes that each of the three text types is not always realised in its pure form. It is possible to have plural communicative intentions such that a text type implicates other text types within itself in its fulfilment of plural communicative functions. Consequently, Reiss created a fourth category – a mixed form or compound text, which she called the multi- media text type – a type of hyper-text, which supplement the functions of the other written categories and incudes texts which though written are to be presented orally as well as additional information from extra-linguistic sign systems e.g. picture text, music and text, gestures, facial expressions, built up scenery on the stages, slides, and so on. She, however, holds that though other categories can be suggested for different purposes, they do not alter the role of the informative, expressive and operative functions as the basic categories. 6 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The informative texts simply distribute information or communicate facts (news, knowledge, information, arguments, feelings, judgements, intentions, etc) where the topic is in the foreground of the communicative intention. This includes phatic communication in which the actual information is zero, and the message is the communication process itself. The text is structured primarily on the semantic-syntactic level. Expressive texts are creative compositions that artistically shape their contexts. The sender is in the foreground. The author creates his topics himself and consciously exploits the expressive and associative possibilities of the language in order to communicate his thoughts in an artistic, creative way. These texts affectively inform, their aesthetic effects distinguish them. The expressive text is doubly structured; first at the syntactic-semantic level, and on the level of artistic organisation. Operative texts aim to influence the beliefs of their readers and to induce or stimulate them to act or react. According to Niska (Text Linguistics Models), the operative text is structured at two or three levels; on the semantic, persuasive, and sometimes but not necessarily, at the level of artistic organisation. An operative text must fulfil both a linguistic and a psychological function. The translation text typologies by Newmakk, i.e. The Symbol-Representational, the Symptom-Expressive, and the Signal-Persuasive texts, compares fairly well with Katharina‟s informative, expressive, and operative texts. Both recognise the overlap of text types such that each text type can implicate the others within itself and any of the text genres, i.e. the literary, scientific/technical and general/pragmatic, may be expressed in varying degrees in any of the text types; with the literary texts expressing themselves dominantly in the expressive/symptom-expressive texts, while the scientific/technical texts express themselves dominantly in the symbol-representational/Informative texts. Text types are to guide the translators‟ treatment of a text. Each text-type fulfils a certain function(s) or serves a certain purpose(s) in a communicative interaction: the informative texts make facts available to their readers without directly attempting to affect their readers mood or influence their behaviour in any particular direction, expressive texts inform but also seek to affect the mood of their readers in a definite way, while operative or persuasive texts less informs, fairly affects mood but dominantly seek 6 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY to influence behaviour towards a definite direction or to elicit a definite response or reaction. Both Newmark and Reiss acknowledge that the sender is at the foreground in expressive texts. His message as well as the words of his message is equally important. His words express his uniqueness and individuality – they are means of identifying him. In all the text types, both Newmark and Reiss appear to keep the socio-cultural context at the background as a constant in intercultural and interlingual communication. We infer from the above review of text types „the literary-cultural hypertext‟, which combines all of the informative, aesthetic and persuasive functions, as a representative of the achebian texts under consideration in this study. The literary-cultural hypertext, as we conceive it in this study, is an artefact of the culture of a real language and cultural community; it implicates other verbal texts and other cultural modes of signification of the community and bears, reveals and represents the uniqueness and identity of that culture. In it, the author keeps himself as far as possible in the background by transcribing or transliterating the oral structure of the culture‟s language and pattern of expressions into a written speech such that the structure of language of the text and the pattern of expressions it contains are themselves revealers of the individuality of the culture. It provides a detailed anthropological narration of the culture without comment of affirmation or condemnation as a counter narrative and a counter discourse in an intercultural communicative interaction. The text fully exploits the resources of language to narrate, describe and to argue; it informs, expresses and seeks to influence attitude and behaviour in a definite way all at the same time. This text bears the authority, self- expressiveness and individuality of the culture not just that of the author. The culture is as much in the foreground of the text as the author. The literary-cultural hypertext illustrates the two texts of Chinua Achebe in this study: Thing Fall Apart and Arrow of God. They belong to the first subgroup of literary texts described by Citroen as the „belle-lettres‟, i.e the master works of literature. They are located within the centre of culture of the Igbo African as a language community; they implicate other verbal texts and cultural modes of signification of the Igbo African culture; and they serve the multiple functions to inform, affect and influence within a wider dialogic communicative interaction or process. 6 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY In intercultural and postcolonial communication through translation, they demand high ethical responsibility on the translator to meet the criteria of adequacy to the functions and purposes intended with the original texts and to preserve the individuality and identity of the culture presentin the original texts. 2.8 Equivalence, Adequacy and Translation Equivalence is a central concept in translation, which generates continuing debate in the progressive development of translation studies. Its definition is various and its relevance remains the subject of argument. In the words of Wilss (134): The concept of TE (Translation Equivalence) has been an essential issue not only in translation theory over the last 200 years, but also in modern translation studies. … there is hardly any other concept in translation theory which has produced as many contradictory statements and has set off as many attempts at an adequate, comprehensive definition as the concept of TE between SLT (source language text) and TLT( target language text). Leonardi (Equivalence in Translation) concurs with Wilss in observing that though a central issue in translation, the definition, relevance and applicability of equivalence has caused heated controversy within the field of translation theory. This subchapter aims to overview this debate in order to set forth the conception or definition and the application of equivalence in this study. The equivalence controversy is between the prescriptive linguistic and the descriptive-functional approaches. By the prescriptive linguistic approaches the source text and its linguistic and textual structure in a systemic framework is considered original and sacred and, therefore, the determinant of the target text. Equivalence in these approaches is seen as establishing substitutability and sameness between linguistic or language pairs of the source and target texts. Catford (20, 27) captures these approaches most vividly in his definition of translation as the “replacement of textual material in one (source) language by equivalent textual material in another (target) language” and in his notions of „formal 6 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY correspondence‟ and „textual equivalence‟ all of which emphasize the linguistic features and structures of the languages. Formal correspondence, in his conception, is “any TL (target language) category (unit, class, structure, element of structure, etc) which can be said to occupy, as nearly as possible, the same place in the economy of the TL as the given SL (source language) category occupies in the SL”, while textual equivalence is “any TL text or portion of text which is observed on a particular occasion to be the equivalent of a given SL text or portion of text” The descriptive-functional approaches to translation constitute the other side of the equivalence debate. This side favours a target-text oriented and empirical direction to translation studies, especially with literary texts and it is strongly represented by Itamar Even-zohar‟s Polysystem theory, „historico-descriptivism‟ of Toury and the „target-side functionalism‟ of Vermeer. According to Theo Hermans, the descriptive approaches represented: a view of literature as a complex and dynamic system: a conviction that there should be a continual interplay between theoritical models and practical case studies; an approach to literary translation which is descriptive, target-oriented, functional and systemic; and an interest in the norms and constraints that govern the production and reception of translations, in the relation between translation and other types of text processing, and the place of and role of translation both within a given literature and in the interaction between literatures (Hermans 10). Further to his view on equivalence, Toury (Translation, Literary Translation and pseudotrans, 1984, in Ketkar par. 11) sees translation as “any target-language utterance, which is presented or regarded as such within the target culture on whatever grounds”. This means that for Toury, every so-called translation automatically produces equivalence no matter what its linguistic or aesthetic quality is, while for Vermeer, equivalence is but one out of the many goals which a translation could set out to achieve since translations could serve several purposes in translation (Reiss and Vermeer, Grundlegung in Schäffner). In the functionalist approach of Vermeer, the source text plays less a central role in translation as Pym (160) rightly observes that “the determinant in translation was not the source text as had been assumed by the linguistic approaches to 6 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY equivalence, but the intended skopos of the translation as a text in its own right and in its own situation”. The aim of Vermeer is similar to that of Toury, for in establishing the possibility of purposes and functions for translated texts different from those for which their source texts were written, she opens up a descriptive study of translation and of translations at other interfaces such as culture, outside the confines of linguistics. To the descriptive- functionalists, the emphases are on „context‟ and the target text. Snell-Hornby (Translation studies in Pym 163) represents by far the most bold and radical in the equivalence debate when she dismisses equivalence as “unsuitable as a basic concept in translation theory” because “the term equivalence, apart from being imprecise and ill-defined presents an illusion of symmetry between languages which hardly exist beyond the level of vague approximations and which distorts the basic problems of translation”. Snell-Hornby has been sternly criticized in Pym (EuropeanTranslation Studies), Bolanos (Equivalence Revisited), and others. However, without accepting her position, Neubert (44) more or less sympathizes with her view in pointing out that a dominantly linguistic pursuit of equivalence created a credibility problem for the concept in translation. Neubert states: The narrow and hence mistaken interpretation of translational equivalence in terms of linguistic correspondence is in our opinion one of the main reasons that the very concept of equivalence has fallen into disrepute among many translation scholars. Beyond this disrepute created by a narrow linguistic interpretation and application of equivalence, the relevance and applicability of equivalence to translations remain. The propositions of the descriptive-functionalists, as sketched above, only weakened the strength of a solely or dominantly linguistic interpretation and application of equivalence. However, all of them still accommodate relative relevance for equivalence in translation. As Pym (160) observes concerning Toury‟s historico-descriptivism‟ and Vermeer‟s functionalism “As revolutionary as these two approaches could have been, neither of them denied that a translator could set out to produce one kind of equivalence or 68 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY another”. The reason for this is that equivalence is what legitimizes translation and demarcates it from other communicative practices. Pym (Translation and Text Transfer in Pym EuropeanTranslation Studies, 166) supports this assertion in arguing that “equivalence defines translation” as well as Koller (Der Begriff Der Equivalenz in Bolanos par. 35) who insists that “equivalence is the disciplinary constitutive concept for the science of translation” Notwithstanding this continued relevance of equivalence in translation, the emergence of the descriptive-functionalist approaches in translation eroded the status of equivalence as a scientific concept and created the need to recuperate the notion of equivalence „in order to affirm the social existence of translation” (Pym, EuropeanTranslation Studies). Pym proffered an integrated solution to the equivalence debate, which he culled from the equivalence conceptions of Ernst-August Gutt(1991), Anthony Pym(Translation and Text Transfer) Albrecht Neubert(1994), and Ubaldo Stecconi(Semiotics in Translation) in which the indispensable equivalent relations that has to exist between texts in translation is to be created by the translator at whatever level. According to him: Rather than force any translator to become an „equivalence- seeker‟, rather than assume any rational recovery of original meaning… the translator is an equivalence producer, a professional communicator working for people who pay to believe that, on whatever level is pertinent, B is equivalent to A. (EuropeanTranslation Studies 167). This is, on the whole, a functional approach to equivalence rooted on social expectation that is mediated by the translator. This integrated solution seeks to reaffirm the central relevance of equivalence to translation. It frees the translator from the restraint of linguistic prescriptivism, i.e. from the restraint of searching for equivalence on the basis only of language pairs or linguistic units and original „meaning‟ of the source text. This means that the sphere of linguistics is only one area in which the translator may establish equivalence between a source text and a target text. Relations between the source and target text may be established at other spheres that are considered pertinent such as culture, purpose, and so on, without sacrificing the notion of equivalence. 69 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY However, any translated text that does not bear relations to its source or primary text does not qualify to be called a translation. This integrated solution further would enable the translator to meet the expectation of either his/her employer, client or target readership, if he chooses; for he/she can establish, produce or create equivalence at „whatever level that is pertinent‟. This implies also the possibility that equivalence can be deployed to manipulate a source or primary text for purposes and functions other than that for which it was intended. The translator is not totally bound to the source text nor really completely bound to the target readership, who are not in any informed position to determine equivalence; they pay „to believe‟ that the translator has translated equivalently at „the pertinent level‟. This solution of Pym is useful in freeing equivalence from the apron strings of linguistics and allowing it to be viewed from other areas and levels. On the whole, the solution remains self contradictory in a certain respect: on the one hand, a translation must bear relations to its source text to be a translation; on the other hand, the translator is not really bound to the source or primary text. In granting almost absolute freedom to the translator, the solution places him/her in the limelight and raises the question of ethical responsibility on him/her. In this regard, Akakuru (par. 33) points to the ethical inpropriety of compromising the message of the source text, and insists on preserving the intergrity of the source text: But what should a professional translator do if s/he is paid to transgress the original text, i.e. if the translation Commissioner insists that the translator s/he pays must distort/vitiate the integrity of the source text through translation and consequently undermine the original ideological project of the ST author? In such extreme cases, s/he may have no other viable option but to withdraw his/her services, unless the lure of the money involved and his low ethical standards encourage him/her to betray the original text and sacrifice the translator's professional deontology. The solution of Pym, nevertheless, succeeded in establishing a major fact: Equivalence is context bound. 70 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Robinson (22 Theses on Translation) agrees with this inference that what is equivalence in translation depends on which spheres or aspects of the texts in translation and to what degree in those aspect or spheres equivalence is to be sought. Relying on Pym‟s work “Translation and Text Transfer” (43ff cited in Robinson) which views equivalence as an economic concept with shifting values determined by the market, Robinson reproduces Pym‟s illustration: The equivalent of a gallon of milk may be a specific amount of money ($1.87), which will change from day to day; a dozen of eggs, or a hand-carved spoon. The marketplace collectively controls the values on each side of the equation and thus the specific quality and quantity of equivalence required in any given transaction. [And Robinson states]This scenario‟s analogue in translation practice and theory obviously makes it clear that there can never be a single correct or generally acceptable form of equivalence between two texts – which in turn obviates any normative discussion of sense-for-sense and word-for-word translations, foreignizing and domesticating, etc. Equivalence can never be defined or legislated in the abstract. Following the overview of the equivalence debate, we conceive equivalence in this study to be the meaning relations that holds between (the source and target text) messages in translation that is adequate to the communicative purpose for which the translation is undertaken. In the context of this thesis, this purpose is the communicative purpose of the author tied to the function of his text in the asymmetrical relationship of (the source and target) cultures. Adequacy, here, means „appropriateness‟ of translation decisions to the purpose of translation, following Reiß (Adequacy and Equivalence 301). Adequacy, continues Reiß, does not communicatively consist merely in making the right choice of words, grammatical structures and style in isolation from one another; “the adequate choice is always related to the linguistic macrocontext, the inner and outer situational context, and the sociocultural context of any particulal text” (Adequacy and Equivalence, 302). 7 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 2.9 Ethnocentrism and Translation The wide and increasing interest in intercultural communication comes from the awareness that the knowledge of cultural differences can bring about mutual understanding and respect between peoples, which will be invaluable to peaceful relations among them. This is because meaning as well as understanding, the paramount aim of communication, takes place within the background of the cultures of interlocutors in communication. This also implies that each person is prone to interpret Otherness or what is strange from the standpoint of his/her own culture. The point has already been made that literary texts are rich with this cultural knowledge in their messages, and that translation is the practice by which these cultural messages or knowledge are processed from one literary text in a cultural system and reassembled into another literary text in another cultural system. The processing of these messages refers to the recovery of the knowledge, meaning and images that have to be made available to the readership in the target language and culture, and which are necessary for understanding. However, one of the characteristics of culture, as that which belongs to, identifies and differentiates a particular people, is that it is ethnocentric, though the degree of ethnocentrism may vary among cultures (cf: Preiswerk and Perrot xi). Keesing (46) notes that ethnocentrism is a “universal tendency for any people to put its own culture and society in a central position of priority and worth”. Richards j. Gelles and Ann Levine (37) explain ethnocentrism as the feelings of cultural superiority and the high opinion of their own design of living, which people have compared with those of others: “Our own culture becomes so much a part of us that we think our own way of doing things is the only way”. Ethnocentrism, thus, becomes the framework within which a culture perceives, interprets and judges other cultures. Porter and Samovar (15) further point out that ethnocentrism makes possible a subjective evaluation of how another culture conducts its daily business. This evaluation, however, cannot but be negative since the logic of ethnocentrism is that “our way is the only right way”. Translation is a process that can be used to manipulate or influence the perception of cultures and to privilege or disadvantage a culture in its status towards the other. This 7 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY manipulation will be particularly significant with literary texts, which are cultural texts. Strumper-Krobb (212) notes that translations are often carried out in a way that will meet the expectation of “those who have promoted a particular text or the expectation of the target readers”. Bassnet and Lefevere (8) vindicate the observation of Strumper-Krobb when they point out that translations are made to respond “to the demands of a particular culture, and various groups within that culture” so much that the traditional concept of „faithfulness‟ to the original, if ever sought, is not sought in the guise of equivalence between words and texts, but in the guise of “attempt to make the target text „function‟ in the target culture in the same way the source text functions in the source culture”. This aim to achieve equivalent „function‟ of the translation in the target culture often results to the suppression of cultural differences between source and target cultures. Strumper- Krobb (215) notes further in this regard “Frequently the translation creates an image of the original, which imposes the norms or views of the receiving culture on the source text in order to satisfy readers‟ expectations”. The norms or views influencing the translation may also come from the source culture. Lambert (166) illustrates this fact with the translation policy of former East Communist states by which translators transfer texts from their own mother tongue and their own cultural and literary context into foreign languages in order to transport communist culture and views abroad. The implication of the foregoing is that the the logic of ethnocentrism can determine how a piece of cultural reality of a culture in one literary text is processed and reassembled into another text for the readership in another culture, if the translator is unobservant. The other implication is that the manipulation of culture through literary translation to the detriment of any of the interrelating cultures can as well be a deliberate ethnocentric political programme. In each of these three cases, i.e. where the translator was not conscious or aware of his/her own ethnocentrism in or during his/her work, where he/she was compelled by the expectation of the promoters of his/her translation or the expectation of the target readership, or where the translator deliberately pursues or promotes ethnocentric views and values in his/her translation, the end result will be the silencing of one of the cultures 73 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY – either the source or the target culture. This means the blurring or suppression of the differences in cultures, and, consequently, distorting or denying a culture its identity as well as the failure to provide appropriate knowledge of cultural differences that will be helpful to bring about understanding in intercultural postcolonial communication situations. The possibility of ethnocentrism in translation justifies the position that translation decisions be made consciously, cautiously and with a high sense of ethical and intercultural responsibility. 2.10 Postcolonialism, Literature and Translation Postcolonialism as a term does not yet have a precise and an all-acceptable definition. This imprecision in its definition arises partly from the debate over the exact parameters of its subject, i.e. the postcolonial, and partly from the applicability of the term to a wide range of disciplines. Wolf believes that the ambiquity in the reference of the term is traceable to the historical circumstance from which the term arose: Zum einen bezieht er sich auf den Diskurs der Opposition, wie sie von Anfang an der Kolonisierung entgegengebracht wurde, und ist demnach ebenso alt wie diese selbst; zum anderen bezeichnet er sowohl die Zeit nach der Unabhängigkeit der Kolonien insgesamt als auch die – zum Teil daraus resultierenden – Verhaltens- und Denkweisen in den neu entstandenen Staaten (102). On the one hand, the term refers to the discourse of opposition to colonialism and, therefore, is limited to the historical time of colonialism. On the other hand, it applies to the period after the independence of the colonies and to all the bahaviours and patterns of thought in the newly independent states that resulted in part from this period (Our translation). Although the morpheme „post‟ prefixed to „colonialism‟ means after and literally refers to that which followed colonialism, postcolonialism neither signals a break with that which it contains, i.e. colonialism nor a rejection of it. Rather it opens a field of inquiry and understanding after a period of relative closure, i.e. the (political) departure 7 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY of imperial coloniser powers from the territories of the colonised. This means that the morpheme „post‟ not only indicates temporal succession but also transcending perspectives that involves inquiry not only into the period before independence but also before colonisation. As Bahri (par. 3) observes: The formation of the colony through various mechanisms of control and the various stages in the development of anti-colonial nationalism interests many scholars in the field [of postcolonial studies]. By extension, sometimes temporal considerations give way to spatial ones (i.e. in an interest in the postcolony as a geographical space with a history prior or even external to the experience of colonization rather than the postcolonial as a particular period) in that the cultural productions and social formations of the colony long before colonization are used to better understand the experience of colonization. And the engagements of scholars to re-examine within this „post‟ the history and legacy of colonization, their relation to cultural representation and institutionalization of knowledge maps out the period covered by the morpheme „post‟ in postcolonialism to cover from precolonisation and preindependence to the present such that the term „postcolonialism‟ lacks historical particularity. This absence of historical particularity forms the argument of those critics who deplore the term „postcolonialism‟ (Osundare, How Postcolonial; Bahri) while others criticise the term‟s implicit presumption of the end of colonialism and of historical continuity. McClintock (Pitfalls...) identifies this main flaw in the term „postcolonialism‟ to be in its implicit links with enlightenement notions of progress, since the „post‟ marks nothing but the march of history “without really attending to the difficulty involved in such notions of progress”, whereas “most former colonies are still far from being free from colonial influence and domination, and therefore cannot be regarded to be genuinely „post‟colonial, while there are colonised countries that are still under foreign control”(Bahri par. 4). These critics believe that such other term as „neocolonialism‟ should be preferred to capture the sense of the continuing but disguised power and influence of the imperial metropolis, “especially as the latter [the imperial metropolis] is refracted through 75 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY different forms of control of global produce markets and in the dominant modes of gathering and disseminating information more generally”(Quayson 579). However, postcolonialism or the postcolonial incorporates the neocolonial. Gurukkal distinguishes two references of the term postcolonialism. The first refers to the status and condition of a once colonized land that has regained political independence, e.g. postcolonial Nigeria. In this sense, postcolonialism will be dealing with the set of economic, political, social, cultural and other features, which characterize these countries and the ways in which they negotiate their colonial heritage “given that the long periods of forced dependency deeply affected the social and cultural fabric of these societies” (par. 5). This sense could equally apply to former colonizers considering that the extended contacts they had with the societies they conquered and their eventual loss of these valuable or profitable possessions also deeply affected the course of their economic and cultural development. The second reference is to the new forms of economic and cultural oppression, which succeeded modern colonialism, sometimes called neo- colonialism. Neo-colonialism shows that: Cooperation, assistance, modernization and the like are in fact new forms of cultural domination as pernicious as the former imperial colonisation were: the devaluation of autochthonous ways of life, their displacement by the ethos of dominant nations which are technologically more advanced (Gurrukal par. 6). These two references or subjects of postcolonialism are linked by having their source from colonialism and they, according to Gurukkal (par. 6),”foreground different aspects of a single process: the cultural homogenization of ever larger areas of the globe”. Obviously, postcolonialism generally deals with the various forms of the asymmetrical relations between former imperial colonisers and the former colonised peoples; more closely between European nations and the societies they colonized in modern times. According to Quayson (578): Postcolonialism is seen to pertain as much to conditions of existence in former colonies as to conditions in diaspora. Both are frequently linked to the continuing power and authority of the West in the global political, economic and symbolic spheres and 76 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the ways in which resistance to, appropriation of and negotiation with the West‟s order are prosecuted. It means that postcolonial enquiry allows for a wide-ranging investigation into asymmetrical power relations in various contexts and domains and disciplines. Among these disciplines are (international) politics or Relations, economics, philosophy, History, sciences, medicine; multicultural, feminist, and, importantly, literary and translation studies, and others. Given the problem of setting the exact parameter of postcolonialism and the wide- ranging applicability of postcolonialism across disciplinary, national and global discourses, we follow Gurukkal in part to conceive of postcolonialism or postcolonial theory as a set of theoretical approaches that inquires into the direct, after and continuing effects of colonialism and that seeks to transcend the historical and political notion of „colonizing‟ by extending it to other forms of human exploitation, exclusion, suppression, repression and domination and to questions of identity and representation. Postcolonial theory became a key part of literary theory through the work of Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, who in their seminal work “The Empire Writes Back…” set forth the dual theses that literatures from former colonised cultures have the dual and explicit aims to set aside the dominant and distorted representations of their cultural identities being circulated from the imperial centers and to challenge the dominance of the English language (i.e the colonisers‟ languages) through various textual strategies such as creolisation and hybridity. Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin (The postcolonial Studies reader, 2) further conceive postcolonial literary theory as discussions of: Migration, slavery, suppression, resistance, representation, difference, race, gender, place, and responses to the master discourses of imperial Europe… and the fundamental experiences of speaking and writing by which all these come into being. The above conception shows the wide-ranging nature and applicability of the term „postcolonialism‟ even in literature. It also points out some of the specific issues that characterise postcolonial literary discourse. Obvious is the fact that this discourse deals 77 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY essentially with asymmetry in the various relationships that continue to exist between „empire‟ and „colony‟ or between „empire‟ and the „postcolony‟. These relationships exist within the cultural sphere, within the experiences of diverse cultures with imperial culture. The inclusion of gender, for example, as an item of discourse in postcolonial literary theory points to transcending perspectives that suggest that „imperial Europe‟ stands not only for the geographical Europe but also to a comparable culture, like that of imperial Europe, which has appropriated to itself unequal positions of power and influence over another and which stands in conflict with that other culture. These transcending perspectives do further mean that postcolonial literatures do not simply consist of writings that chronologically come after [political] independence rather they result from the interaction between imperial culture and the complex of indigenous cultural practices. Lye (par. 1) provides an elaborate conception that sees postcolonial literary theory as dealing with: Reading and writing of literature written in previously or currently colonised countries or literature written in colonizing countries, which deals with colonization or colonised peoples and which focuses particularly on the way in which literature by the colonising culture distorts the experience and realities, and inscribes the inferiority of the colonised people and on literature by colonised peoples which attempts to articulate their identity and reclaim their past in the face of the inevitable otherness of that past. And further that these literatures can also deal with the way in which literature in coloniser countries appropriates the language, images, scenes, traditions and so forth of colonised countries. The initial theorizing of postcolonialism associated with Sartre, Fanon or Memmi that was founded on the bipolar divisions of Self/Other, Coloniser/Colonised, Occident/Orient created by the western world to establish its authority against and over others has to be superceded or rather stretched by the postcolonial theorizing of Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, and Gayatri Spivak, and others because this initial theorizing is fraught with the risk of reproducing or sustaining the same static bipolarities of the West. Said, Bhabha, Spivak in their respective works “Orientalism”, “The location of Culture”, 7 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY and “Can the Subaltern Speak?” sought “to examine the mechanism of the complex processes of cultural contacts with all its effects or consequences; and to point out subversion strategies” (Wolf 102). Said demonstrated his thesis (that the Western academic discipline of Oriental studies was set up for the sole aim of producing a distorted and false image of the orient that will justify and support the Western project of imperialism) with evidence from th literary, scientific and journalistic texts as well as translation anthologies from the 19 century (Quayson, W. Kelly, Wolf). Bhabha introduced the notions of “hybridity” and “third space” in postcolonial theorizing in the interrogation of the cultural ascendancy claims and hegemonic practices of the West. By these notions, he asserts that the process of decolonisation, in part violent, produced cultural mixed forms and make possible a “third space” of cultural identity reference that is neither homogeneous nor closed and by which no “cultural system” or “place” can be said to be exclusive of others, and therefore, cannot be said to be “a first” or “a third” world; and hybridity generates various form of syncretism, Acculturation and creolisation. Spivak‟s „intervention‟ in postcolonial theorizing is in problematizating the representation of the Subaltern – the oppressed and marginalised colonial Other, with limited or no access to cultural imperialism, defined by difference, whose presence was crucial to the self-definition of the majority group; and who was also in a position to subvert the authority of those who had hegemonic power. Spivak states that the imperial or colonial project from its very origin created hidden transcripts and modes of knowing that asymmetrically erased the knowledge or trace of the colonial subject (“epistemic violence/catachresis” 280-1,289; 297) and reconstituted the colonial subject in the social text as „Other‟ – “a construction of Europe as Self”. By this mode of „creation‟, the voice of the subaltern is completely muted, it is neither privileged within the dominant discourse nor can it speak in a vocabulary that will get a hearing in institutional locations of power. It rarely enters the official and intellectual discourse except as represented (276-278, 287,). However, the constitution of the subaltern‟s alterity as „Other‟ ensures that to represent the subaltern is to rely on a hegemonic, specific conception of reality that may not contain the voice of the subaltern at all, and that rather makes the representative complicit in the “persistent constitution of 7 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the Other as the Self‟s shadow”(280) and in continuing the task of imperialism – by rehearsing neo-colonial imperatives of political domination, economic exploitation and cultural erasure (280-2). The futility of representing the subaltern subjects is further outlined by the fact that they are “irretrievably heterogeneous” (284, 288) in character without a feeling of community and do not posses an identity of interests that they aligned behind a programme of political representation – implicitly, the subaltern subject does not recognise any need to be represented. Thus the subaltern, in the context of colonial production (287), cannot speak, cannot be spoken for, and cannot be represented, not in the least, through the „nostalgic‟ and „essentialist search for or recovery of lost origins and authentic identity(291, 307). Spivak did not, however, foreclose the necessity of representing the subaltern, as she puts it: For the „true‟ subaltern group, whose identity is its difference, there is no unrepresentable subaltern subject that can know and speak itself; the intellectual‟s solution is not to abstain from representation. The problem is that the subject‟s itinerary has not been traced so as to offer an object of seduction to the representing intellectual (285). Spivak argues for scrupulousness in representation, especially, in view of unequal power relationships underlining any representation of the West‟s Other (the developing world) and the developing world‟s Other (the subaltern) and in further view of the heterogeneity of the subaltern groups. She proposed two possible strategies for the highly circumscribed role of representation. The first is through the analytic deconstruction of “the mechanics of the constitution of the Other”(294) seeing that “in the constitution of the Other of [by] Europe, great care was taken to obliterate the textual ingredients with which such a subject could cathect, could occupy(invest?) its itinerary – not only by ideological and scientific production, but also by the institution of the law” (280). The second proposal, contained in the[Spivak‟s] illustration with “the sixteen or seventeen” years Indian girl that committed suicide during her menstrual flow, is a possible, though “haphazard”, way of recovering the speech of the (sexed)subaltern through the semiotic elaboration of his/her body and action as a social text ( 307-8). 8 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The intervention of Spivak puts to suspect the notion, allegedly implicit in the categorization of Ashcroft, et al, of postcolonial literatures (Osundare, How Postcolonial 207), that there can exist some kind of cultural solidarity among incredibly diverse peoples based simply on the sad and shared historical fact of Western domination; for such idea threatens to silence unique individual histories and put back historiographic agency in the hands of Western intellectuals and institutions. Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin (The Empire Writes Back) categorised postcolonial literatures in postcolonial literary theory as literatures of African countries, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Carribean countries, India, Malaysia, Malta, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Pacific Island countries, Sri Lanka and the USA(2). This categorization precipitates further critique and resonates some of the profound reservations to the term „postcolonial‟(theory) and to such a definition of the literature of entire cultures and civilisations by one historical experience of colonialism. The Indian novelist, Nayantara Sahgal, remarked to the silver jubilee of the Asociation for commonwealth literature and language studies at the University of Kent, Canterbury, in August 1989: First we were colonials, and now we seem to be postcolonials, so is „post-colonial‟ the new Anno Domini from which events are to be everlastingly measured? My own awareness as a writer reaches back to x-thousand BC, at the very end of which measureless timeless time the British came, and stayed and left. And now they are gone, and their residue is simply one more layer added to the layer upon layer of Indian consciousness, just one more (Sahgal 30). And Niyi Osundare, in what may pass for a deep African objection, remarks: The term “post-colonial” is not just another literary-critical construct to be used with the same terminological certitude and blissful complacency with which we employ its counterparts such as “poststructural” and “postmodernist.” More than other terminologies of the “post-” variety, “post-colonial” is a highly sensitive historical and geographical trope which calls to significant attention a whole epoch in the relationship between the West and the developing world, an epoch which played a 81 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY vital role in the institutionalization and strengthening of the metropole-periphery, centre-margin dichotomy. … a trope which brings memories of gunboats and morters, conquests and dominations, a trope whose accent is bloodstained … a terminology whose “name” and meaning are fraught with the burdens of history and the anxieties of contemporary reality. … it is yet another instance of a “name” invented for the African experience from outside… (Osundare, How Postcolonial 205). He further sees the term, from its Western theoretical origin, to illustrate that objectionable „ethnocentric universalism‟ with which the West invents theories to hijack the arena of global literary and intellectual discourse inscribing itself as though other parts of the world were a tabula rasa, and “constitut[ing] the world‟s literary discourse into a monumental Western monologue” (206). To him “the tag „postcolonial‟ is more useful for those who invented it than it is for those who are supposed to wear it. […] A project which sounds „post-colonialist‟ in intent may turn out to be „neo-colonialist‟, even, „re-colonialist‟ in practice” (208, 215) Aijaz Ahmad identifies(in his „rage‟) the inventors of this tag [in the paraphrase of Walder] (4, 5) to be “a class fraction of guilt-ridden Western intellectuals and their „Third World‟ incorporated colleagues, who recycle „primary‟ cultural products from abroad for their own consumption, while neglecting more „independent local literatures in Urdu or Zulu” Walder, on the other hand, provides a seemingly placatory account to the western origin of postcolonial theory. According to him, postcolonial theory came into being as part of the „decentring tendency‟ of post-1960‟s thought in the West and as “part of a metropolitan left-wing response to the increasingly visible and successful struggles for independence of colonized peoples worldwide from the 1950‟s onwards”. In other words, though the term „post-colonial‟ may seem ambiguous and questionable, its theory is, considerably, supportive of the struggles for independence, identity and voice of those whose literatures are categorized in the term. He goes on to make what apparently is an apology for post-colonial theory and an attempt at a resolution of the ambiguity of its term, „post-colonial‟: 82 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Postcolonial theory is needed because it has a subversive posture towards the canon, in celebrating the neglected or marginalized, bringing with it a particular politics, history and geography. It is anti-colonial; so it may look back as far as the first moment of colonization by the West, and cover all parts of the world touched by empire, which means it may well also take the classics of the literary canon from Shakespaere onwards as grists to its mill. But to keep within the limits of our times, that is, the times of twentieth-century decolonizing process – primarily post- war period, is to keep within manageable and coherent period, even if it is absurd to pretend that this is hermetically sealed off from earlier histories and their writings. Post-colonial theory does not confine itself to written materials: oral and performance media, art and film, are also fit areas for study (59). This section has so far sought to review the conception, origin, and critiques of postcolonialism and postcolonial (literary) theory and to conceive or contextualise the theory within the present study. From the foregoings, postcolonial literature can be seen, in this study, to represent the nativist longing of former „and currently‟ colonised peoples and cultural groupings through the use of language and literature to achieve and project an identity and representation of themselves that are not distorted by universalistic and Eurocentric concepts, values and traditions and images. This longing arose in response and resistance to colonialism and imperialism; while literature provides the platform on which to engage Europe, in particular, and the West, in general, in a continuing negotiation of identity and difference, and a continuing discourse towards total decolonisation and „deimperialization‟. Within this engagement of literature, the categorization of Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin of African literature, in this instance, may have to be viewed within the relative reference to those „African literatures‟ that consciously set for themselves the goal of interrogating and subverting the European ethnocentric narration of Africa and its (Europe‟s) claim of a definitive culture and practice cultural hegemony. This engagement of literature with questions of culture, identity and representation makes it a crucial factor in translation, which itself is a proven form of communication. The implication of Homi Bhabha‟s location of culture to translation is that the constitution of meaning in intercultural texts transcends the borders of any one 8 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY culture. Meaning is located in an in-between space of asymmetry (context), between an existing system of reference and its opposition and it is recoverable by discourse (communication). Furthermore, postcolonial literary theory in translation points to an implicit but crucial fact: that translations and translators of postcolonial literatures, knowingly or unknowingly and willingly or unwillingly, become involved in the foray of discourse and dialogue, in the negotiation of meaning and in the asymmetry in relations between the imperial metropole and their (ex) colonies. Translation, in this instance, is no more merely a syntactic and semantic, i.e. linguistic, transposition from one language to the other but a cultural encounter and an intercultural relations. The translator takes centre stage in his handling of questions of identity, representation, ethnocentrism (or eurocentrism) and the subtle ideologies and presuppositions that underpin texts. It is in this involvement of translation in the communication and relations between „former‟ colonised Africa and their excolonists that we locate the translation of the Achebean works into German. 2.11 Translating Approaches, Strategies and Techniques. Translating approach and strategy are here used in the same meaning to refer to a translator‟s global plan on a given text or his potentially conscious procedure for solving the problem of transferring messages and meanings from a source text to a target text according to his (their) intention. An approach will have effect on the nature and form of the target text. Translating techniques are specific problem solving tools or methods used to formulate equivalence or to decide the nature of meaning relations that should hold between text units of the respective source and target texts. Translation techniques are used to realise a target text envisaged by a translating approach (es). Two major approaches, following Newmark (Approaches to Translation, A Textbook of Translation) can be distinguished in translating. These are the Semantic and the communicative approaches. The Semantic approach yields itself to translating techniques, which renders the source text into a target text that is strictly as close as possible to the semantic and syntactic features and structures of the target language with 84 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY minimal consideration given to the interpretation of contexts. In other words the semantic techniques produces a translation that is as close to the source text lexical and grammatical structures as is possible but mostly within the farthest degree permitted by the semantic and syntactic features and structures of the target language. In the semantic techniques and procedures, the thought process of the author is pursued rather than his intention and the emphasis is on the form and the content of the message rather than its force and effect on the reader. Among the techniques and procedures to which the semantic approach yields itself are the word-for-word, the literal or literalization, transliteration, calque, and cultural borrowing techniques. In the word-for-word technique, the word order of the source language text is preserved and the words are translated singly with alternative words (chosen from a bi-lingual dictionary), which directly and commonly correspond to their meanings. Cultural words are translated literarily by this procedure (Newmark, A Textbook of Translation 45). In the literal or literalization technique, the grammatical constructions of the SL are converted to their closest target language equivalents; the lexical units are, however, translated singly as in the word-for-word technique (Newmark, A Textbook of Translation 46). Calque is a form of literal translation in which names and expressions translated into the target language consist of target language words and respect target language syntax, but the expressions are unidiomatic in the target language, though not necessarily incomprehensible, because they are modelled on the structures of their source language expressions. For example, „Black Forest‟ is a standard calque translation of German „Schwarzwald‟, the same also are German „Vier-Sterne-General‟ calqued on American English „four star general‟ and „worldview‟ calqued on German „Weltanschauung‟. A bad calque imitates source text structure to the point of being ungrammatical in the target language. The same can be said of the word-for-word and the literal techniques; and a good calque could realise “a compromise between imitating a source text structure and not offending against the grammar of the TL” (Hervey, Higgins and Loughridge 21, 25). In the absence of a standard calqued expression, the translator may need to create one. 8 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY In transliteration the phonic and graphic characters of source text names and terms are altered to bring them more in line with target language patterns of pronunciation and spelling. Usually the source text origin of the name or term remains discernable. Cultural borrowing consists in the verbatim transfer of a source text expression into the target text, particularly, in cases where there does not exist a suitable expression in the indigenous language for translating the source text expression and previous translation practice has not already set up a precedent for the verbatim borrowing of the source text expression. For example where source language terms have already passed into common usage in the target language without significant change of meaning and so becoming standard equivalents of their source language terms, the translator may not have the choice to calque or translate literally “unless special considerations of style can be invoked” (Hervey, Higgins and Loughridge 23-24). A successful cultural borrowing technique will necessarily provide for a textual context in the target text that makes the meaning of the borrowed expression clear. The semantic techniques and procedures do not usually accept to correct, clarify or improve on the message of the original but present the facts or the message of the source text without comment but with concision to enhance pragmatic impact. The words of the original or source text are considered as important as the form and structures. Obviously the linguistic translating techniques and procedures leave the translation in the source culture and, to that extent, attempts to be faithful to the original. This attempt to be faithfull to the original is further differentiated in the semantic approach by the fact that it takes more account of the aesthetic and expressive values of the original text; to recreate its tone, flavour, and elegance: “words are „sacred‟ not because they are more important than content, but because form and content are one” (Newmark, Approaches to Translation 47). Furthermore, although the semantic approach is mostly equated with „literalization‟, i.e. the application of the literal technique, the semantic approach does not totally correspond with literal translating. This is because it is not only the literal technique that ensures the realization of the semantic approach to translation. The conceptual and practical relevance of the semantic approach is that it ensures that the source culture is accessible to the target reader. As Bandia (Translation as Culture Transfer 58) puts it: 8 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY It [semantic translation] is a translation process … [that] is not literal translation per se, but translation written at the level of the source culture. Hence, it is not a free translation, and consequently, hardly any effort is made to “filter” or adapt the source text to the readers‟ culture and knowledge. In short it is a source-text oriented translation and not an ethnocentric translation. On the other hand, the communicative approach to translating makes available translating techniques and procedures that emphasize the contextual meaning of texts and authorial intentions of expressions and texts so that the translation will as well have such force or effect on the readers that is as close as possible to that which the original has on its readers (Newmark, Comm. and Semantic Translation 164; A Textbook of Translation 47, Salama-Carr 113-4). The communicative techniques and procedures usually permit the translator to correct or improve on the message of the original: replace clumsy with elegant or at least functional syntactic structures, modify jargon, normalize bizarreness of idiolect, i.e wayward uses of language, correct mistakes of facts and slips, normally stating what has been done in a footnote, and replace whole clauses or phrases with their target language equivalence (Newmark, Comm. and Semantic Translation 167). The preceding actions are possible through the techniques of explicitation, i.e. making explicit in the target text information that is only implied in the context of the source text language or situation (Vinay and Darbelnet 8); implicitation, i.e. allowing the target language context or situation to define or provide certain details that were explicit in the source language; amplification, i.e. a type of explicitation whereby important semantic elements carried implicitly in the source language may have to be clearly identified and elaborated upon; omission, i.e. where a word or expression of the source text is omitted from the translation because the meaning it conveys is not considered vital enough to the development of the text and therefore does not justify distracting the reader with lengthy explanations (Baker, In Other Words 40); Substitution/Replacement, i.e. where fixed expressions and phrases like proverbs, idioms and clichés and, sometimes, even names are replaced wholly or partly with their identifiable target language equivalents on the basis of similar connotations and functions in the target culture rather than their 8 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY referential equivalents; Simplification(cf. Laviosa-Braithwaite 288) is performed at the lexical, syntactic and stylistic levels of language in translating and it involves some of the other techniques already mentioned. Lexical simplification refers to making do with less words through the use of superordinate terms when no equivalent hyponyms exist in the target language, approximation of the concepts expressed in the source language text, use of common- level or familiar synonyms, transfer of all the functions of a source language word to its target language equivalent, use of circumlocution instead of conceptually matching high- level words or expressions, and use of paraphrase where cultural gaps exist between the source and the target languages. Syntactic simplification consists in reducing the complexity of syntax by replacing non-finite clauses with finite ones and by suppressing suspended periods, while stylistic simplification consists in the tendency to break up long sequences and sentences, replacing elaborate phraseology with shorter collocations, reducing or omitting repetitions or redundant information, shortening overlong circumlocutions and leaving out modifying phrases. Other techniques of moderation or alteration, like Normalization (Laviosa- Braithwaite 289), also fall within the communicative/interpretative techniques and procedures. Normalization is the general tendency towards textual conventions approved by the target audience through shifts in punctuation, lexical choices, style, sentence structure and textual organization. Thus, while the semantic techniques stop at securing the referential or „precise‟ contextual basis of the original text, i.e. the truth of the information, the communicative techniques and procedures can restructure or rearrange clauses and reinforce emphasis. They will, nevertheless, account for each lexical and grammatical unit because these units link the target text with the source or original text. Obviously, the communicative/interpretative techniques and procedures appear to take the reader into consideration and tend to leave the translation mostly in the target culture. The communicative approach, therefore, attempts to render the contextual meaning of the original in such a way that both content and language are readily „acceptable‟ and comprehensible to the target readership; the translator can generously or „freely‟ replace 8 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the foreign elements in the source language with those of the target language so that the readers may not find difficulties in understanding the message of the translated text. In the application of these techniques to text, Newmark (A Textbook of Translation 47-8) identifies two broad text divisions based on the status of the author. The first are the texts in which the authors are important. These texts Newmark calls the “Expressive” or “Sacred” texts. The translation of these texts follows a single well-defined authority, the author of the source text. The translation is, therefore, close to the original. The second are the texts in which the status of the author is not important. Newmark calls these texts “Anonymous texts”. They include, according to him, informative and vocative texts. The translator will have more freedom with these texts being not tied, as it were, to following the original too closely. The significance of these text classifications to translating techniques is that the expressive or sacred text will tend more toward the semantic translating techniques and procedures while the anonymous text will tend more toward the communicative/interpretative techniques and procedures. However, Newmark also acknowledges that texts do overlap (A Textbook of Translation 47-8). This means that a text or text unit could be more or less translated by either the semantic or the communicative approach and both approaches, where necessary, could complement each other to arrive at an adequate rendition of a text unit. The semantic and the communicative represent the two major approaches from which particular translation cases can be viewed. With regard to the translation of the cultural component of texts, Newmark (A Textbook of Translation 94) points out the obvious fact that translation problems arise where there is no culture overlap between source and target languages; and with particular regard to the translation of culture-bound text components like puns, idioms and fixed phrases of a culture, Bassnett (Translation Studies 23-24) supports the adoption of the functional approach. By this approach, the idea of the idiom or expression is found and, then, the source language idiom is substituted for another idiom or fixed expression in the target language culture, which carries the same idea in the target language culture. As Bassnet (Translation Studies 24) puts it “[The] substitution is made neither on the basis of the linguistic elements in the 8 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY phrase nor on the basis of a corresponding or similar image contained in the phrase, but on the function of the idiom”. Simply put, a source language phrase or expression is replaced by a target language phrase or expression that serves the same purpose and function in the target language culture. In the view of Bassnett, this approach or technique will solve the problem of equivalence both in meaning and style, and more so prevent the danger of imposing the value system of the source language culture on the target language culture – as Bassnett illustrates from Nida that the concept of God the father cannot be translated into a language and culture in which the deity is female. The functional-substitution approach clearly falls within the communicative/interpretative techniques and procedures. However, the functional-substitution procedure can become problematic in cases where such cultural text components such as proverbs and idioms also preserve and give insight into the non-philosophical aspect of a people‟s culture like their habits, social relations, responses and reactions, and other such aspect of their lives as well as reflect their experiences and environments. In other words, the ideas and worldviews or the philosophical elements together with the picture and concrete images or the non- philosophical elements, which foreground the ideas in the proverbs and idioms become equally significant. This means that in such cases, tampering with the images or picture could modify the perspectives of the proverb or cultural idiom, and will certainly hinder the presentation of the total cultural knowledge about a people contained in that proverb or idiom. In his article, “Appraisal of Igbo Proverbs”, Nwoga notes that the keen observation of human and natural phenomena out of which proverbs are framed occurs at the literal level of the proverb and that it is at this level that proverbs constitute the reservoir of the religious, historical, social and scientific knowledge of the people (190-191). Nwoga as well affirms the relevance of the content of the Igbo proverb to the understanding of Igbo culture when he claims that “content as point of concentration might be legitimate for foreigners to Igbo culture who look at these bits of literature for what insight they give to Igbo life and ideas”(188) (emphasis mine). Life here means habits, customs, relations, and other non-philosophical aspects of culture. Nwoga further notes that the beliefs of any people are expressed in a variety of cultural forms – in their ordinary discourse and 9 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY fictional narration, in their patterns of social organisation, in their religious beliefs and rituals. Proverbs occur in the ordinary discourse and fictional narratives of a people. It is pertinent here to refer to the obvious fact that the images which form the background to a people‟s proverbs and idioms and which give insight into their culture will usually be different from those of other cultures. This is because, as has been noted earlier in this work, culture arises from the experiences and perceptions of a people within „their own environment – physical, social, spiritual or religious‟. The implication of this fact is that the substitution of the images of a proverb or idiom with images different from those of the culture from which the proverb or idiom originates will most likely result in a cultural knowledge loss. For example the idea of equity between a person‟s action and the response which that action elicits contained in the transliterated Igbo proverb “As a man danced so the drums were beaten for him” (TFA) is carried by the German proverb “Wie man in den Wald hineinruft, so schallt es wieder heraus” (As one calls into the woods, so it echoes back). However the images in both cultures are different. To Newmark, in so far as what really should matter in translation is accuracy and objectivity, the semantic translating approach is more reliable than the communicative. Pursuantly, Newmark asserts: If the SL text is entirely bound up with the culture of the SL community – a novel or a historical piece or a description attempting to characterize a place or custom of local character – the translator has to decide whether or not the reader requires, or is entitled to, supplementary information and explanation. (Approaches to Translation 21). Newmark illustrates this point. He refers to the translation of Shakespeare‟s sonnet No. XVIII and strongly disagrees with the view that “Shall I compare thee to a summer‟s day?” cannot be translated semantically in the language of a country where summer is unpleasant (or even lacking altogether). In his view, the reader of a semantically translated version of the poem should be struck by the beauty of the English summer and become somewhat sensitized to the English culture. 91 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Instructively, Newmark‟s semantic approach considerably reflects Goethe‟s preference for the ideal translation type. Goethe conceives of translation in three epochal typologies that repeat and reverse themselves as well as coexist simultaneously in every literature. The first is the „plain prose‟ translation that “neutralizes the formal characteristics of any sort of poetic art” and “acquaints us with the foreign country on our own terms” (60). “our own terms” allegedly referring to the cultural milieu of the target readers or culture; “in the midst of our national domestic sensibility, in our everyday lives”. This type may be seen to be a target culture/reader and communicative approach translation. The second is the “parodistic” (or Adaptation) by which the translator “appropriates the foreign idea and represents it as his own”. Goethe exemplified this type with French translators (of Goethe‟s time perhaps) who “adapt foreign word to their pronunciation, they adapt feelings, thoughts, even objects; for every foreign fruit there must be a substitute grown in their own soil” (61). The third type Goethe presents as the „ideal‟, “the final and highest of the three” by which the translation(or translator) aims to achieve “perfect identity with the original, so that the one does not exist instead of the other but in the other‟s place”(61) “approximating as closely as possible the external form of the original work”(62) and the foreign author may be brought to us as ”Germanised foreigners”(p. 61) affording us the versatility of rhythm and metre(and of language). Goethe explains the highest value placed on the third epochal typology thus: The reason we also call the third epoch the final one can be explained in few words. A translation that attempts to identify itself with the original ultimately comes close to an interlinear version and greatly facilitates our understanding of the original. We are led yes, compelled as it were, back to the source text: the circle, within which the approximation of the foreign and the familiar, the known and the unknown constantly move, is finall complete. (63) Translating techniques and procedures can be strategically and creatively deployed to realise different target text outcomes such as the “foreignised” or “exoticised”, the domesticated or assimilated, and the adapted target texts (we may compare again with Goethe above). The foreignized or exoticised target text is the product of a carefully 9 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY selected foreign source text that has been „ethnodeviantly‟ translated to evoke the sense of the foreign, put pressure on the target language cultural values and challenge domestic literary canons, professional standards and ethical norms in the target language and culture. However, “it necessarily answers to a domestic situation, where it may be designed to serve a cultural and political agenda” (Venuti 242), for example, to enrich the domestic language or to point out the existence of alternative cultural values and mode of existence, and so on. It is an ideologically underpinned text that sends the reader abroad. “From its origin in the German tradition”, says Venuti “foreignizing translation has meant a close adherence to the foreign text, a literalism that resulted in the importation of foreign cultural forms and the development of heterogenous dialects and discussions” (242). Such an exotic translation will hardly achieve equivalent effect on the target readers for whom the odd features of the alien cultures of the text may be more irritating than charming. The strangeness of the cultural text may be tempered with explanations though “the constant intrusion of glosses, footnotes and academic explanations of exotic features may likely reduce its attractiveness” (Hervey, Higgins and Loughridge 1995:22). However, the exoticism may also be its chief attraction, its explanation and justification; for the foreignised target text is “a site where the cultural Other is not erased but manifested” though this manifestation is never on its own terms but “only on those of the target language” (Berman 87-91). The domesticated or assimilated target text is as well produced from a well-chosen source text that is so translated to adhere to domestic literary canons and standards, cultural values and ethical norms. Enough caution is taken in the translating of the source text not to offend the „delicacy‟ and correctness of reason of the target language and culture shielding it, therefore, from the intrusion of the foreign. Venuti (241) notes that domesticating translation” has frequently been enlisted in the service of specific domestic agendas, imperialist, evangelical, professional” citing the example provided by Niranjana (1992) of Sir William Jones, president of the Asiatic society and an administrator of East Indian Company, who translated the institutes of Hindu Law in 1799 into English “to increase the effectiveness of British colonialism, constructing a racist image of the Hindus as unreliable interpreters of their native culture”. The domesticated target text can 9 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY thus be a form of conquest of the source culture into the language and cultural present of the target language and culture. Venuti further notes that economic considerations can as well underlie the domestication of the source text into the target language and culture. However, those considerations “are always qualified by current cultural and political development”. Adaptation or cultural transplantation resembles domestication. It involves the wholesale transplanting of the entire setting of the source text, resulting in the source text “being completely reinvented in an indigenous target culture setting” (Hervey, Higgins and Loughridge 23). Hervey et al believe that wholesale cultural transplantation or adaptation does not really belong to normal translation practice. The texts of Achebe in this study, Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, clearly fall within Newmark‟s “Expressive” or “Sacred” texts, which bear not only the authority of the author but also, in the case of the achebean texts, the authority and identity of the Igbo culture. The foreignization of these source texts may be cautiously advised but their domestication will be totally objectionable in view of the communicative purpose intended with the texts. A pragmatic deployment of translation techniques that would reconcile accessibility of the target readership to the target text with adequacy of the target text to the authorial communicative purpose of the texts would be most suitable for translating Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God into German. 2.12 Conclusion to Literature Review The review of literature shows that the central relevance of culture in the assignment of worth and in the allocation of international goods comes from its existence as meaning and as the basic constituent of identity. This existence explains why it is the basis for the ascription of Otherness as well as why it is contested in postcolonial relations of asymmetry. Furthermore, it explains why culture-permeated texts, among other text- types, are potentially prone to manipulation in communicative textual practices such as translation, especially in contexts where there are differences and conflicts in cultural interactions. Translation approaches, techniques and strategies and the relations between 94 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY translated texts and their source texts assume unusual significance consequently, as well as the position and role of the translator as an intercultural postcolonial communicator. The studies reviewed are equally relevant to the present research in demonstrating that the infusion of African culture and African oral mode of linguistic expression can deceive the inattentive and inexperienced translator and, therefore, make difficult the process of communication through literary translation between people of two different cultures. Previous studies carried out on the translation of Chinua Achebe‟s novels into European languages and into German, in particular, show that the inadequacies in the translations were regarded as errors that arose mostly from the disparities between the languages and cultures of the respective source and target texts; from stylistic difference and translator‟s interference in the translation process, and also from the attempt of the German translators to make the German target reader believe in the universality of his own world as well as from the cold-war ideological difference between the former East and West German states. While these errors were seen by these studies to obstruct the understanding of the authentic message of the source text and as not promoting intercultural communication, they do not foreground the asymmetry and conflict in textual cultural relations between imperial Europe/West and Africa that could account for the treatment of African postcolonial texts in the translating process. The reviewed studies further show that representation, identity and meaning are not given but contested through postcolonial writing and the translation of cultures; and that studies on textual cultural communicative/relations between Europe and Africa through African postcolonial English texts translated into German have not been carried out on the tripod theories of intercultural communication, postcolonial relations and translation. 9 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Chapter Three Theoretical Framework and Methodology 3.1 Theoretical Framework A major premise established by the literature review to this study is that meaning, identity and representation are not given but contested through postcolonial writing and the translation of cultures. It also established that cultural transfers from African into German literary texts through translation have not been problematized or viewed within the difference and asymmetry of postcolonial and imperial relations. Three inter-related theories will, therefore, form the major framework for this study. The first is the “Context Theory of Meaning” (cf. Bannfield 102, Reißinger 54) of I.A. Richards adapted by Griffin to intercultural communication theory (Griffin, A First Look 3ed 57-68), and augmented by the Cultural and Critical Mass Media Theory of Stuart Hall. The second is Postcolonial theory applied to literature and translation, and cultural relations; and the third is the Skopos theory in translation studies. The Context Theory of Meaning otherwise known as the Meaning of Meaning theory by Ivor Armstrong Richards (1893-1979) is based on the concept of language as an extension of the human mind and sense organs, and as embodying experience and perception (Griffin, A First Look 3ed 1; A First Look 5 ed 27-28). Thus the main claim of the theory that meaning does not reside in words; they reside in people as a result of their past experiences. Differentiated from traditional rhetoric by its focus on interpretation and understanding rather than on persuasion, Richards‟ theory examined misunderstanding and its remedies based on the conviction that understanding is the main goal of communication for communication problems result from misunderstanding. Misunderstanding itself results chiefly from what he calls the “proper meaning superstition”. This superstition is the false but widely held belief that each word has a precise, correct, proper use and meaning of its own and that when people use these words they were effectively communicating (cf. Richards 11). Richards argues that words are arbitrary symbols with no inherent connection to the things they describe and so they lack inherent meanings. He explains this claim by 96 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY categorizing meaning in terms of “signs” and “symbols” and by the “semantic triangle”, which he created with Ogden (Ogden and Richards 10-11). Signs are natural representations of something beyond themselves, such as sound, while symbols are specialised, limited and conventional types of signs with no natural connection with the things they describe. Words are symbols. There is nothing special about the word dog, for example, which says it must be connected with the animal it stands for. That animal could as well go by any other name or word. The only reason that words are symbols of something is because they have been assigned meaning. Figure 1. The Semantic Triangle (Adapted from Ogden and Richards, The Meaning of Meaning) 97 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The semantic triangle demonstrates that there is a causal relationship between a thought (Reference) and a symbol (word; for instance, dog) and a thought referent (the picture of the thing or actual object/animal). However, the path or connection between symbol and referent at the base of the triangle is tenuous or ambiguous. The relation is indirect or imputed because it consists of someone using the symbol to stand for a referent. Richards represented this path with a dotted line. Reference is the thought(s) that the sight or perception of the actual object or thing would evoke in the mind. Two people could use that identical word to stand for completely different objects or animals based on different thoughts that have arisen from different experiences of the object or animal. Further on the proper meaning superstition Richards writes: This superstition is a recognition of a certain kind of stability in the meanings of certain words. It is only superstition when it forgets (as it commonly does) that the stability of the meaning of a word comes from the constancy of the contexts that give it its meaning. Stability in a word‟s meaning is not something to be assumed but always something to be explained (11) “Words mean nothing in themselves” (Ogden and Richards 9), says Richards. Context is therefore the key to meaning and meaning changes because context changes. Context is however not just a sentence or even the situation in which the word is spoken, “it is the entire field or cluster of experiences that can be connected with an event and which can recur together including thoughts of similar events” (Richards 34, Griffin, A First Look 3ed. 1). In other words context is not just the current situation, but a speaker‟s, alternatively a listener‟s, lifetime of experiences: a cluster of relationships or experiences that function as (a sign of) that which is remembered making the meaning of a word to be that which is missing from the immediate context of word use since words function as symbolic substitutions. Stuart Hall provides a connecting insight to the context theory of Richards. Though writing from the perspective of a critical and cultural theorist, revealing the obscured prop of ideology to media influence in power relations and social structures in favour of the status quo, the wealthy and the powerful, Hall pushed further the claim of I. A. Richards that “words don‟t mean; people mean” beyound signs and symbols by 9 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY demanding a deeper enquiry as to the source from which and by what means people get their meanings. Hall‟s answer that people learn the meaning of signs through discourse – communication and culture (Griffin, A First Look 5th ed. 370) is to lead to his view that those who dominate discourse – “the frameworks of interpretation” (in Griffin A First Look 5th ed. 369) or “the way of talking about…” frame or determine meaning. Hall focuses dominantly on mass communication rather than interpersonal/intercultural communication. He extends Richards meaning theory by outlining that the powerful in society, who have “more voice” than the ordinary people, make their arbitrary meanings to dominate all other arbitrary meanings. However, what is important to Richards‟ theory for our study is the „explicitation‟ of the implied reference to culture in Richards‟ theory. Hall explains that the context of common experiences and perceptions in the lives of people, which is also the context of meaning, is the cultural context. According to him, culture is the primary source for the production and exchange of meaning - “the giving and taking” - of meaning (Representations 6). Therefore two people from the same culture will interpret the world roughly the same ways and they can express themselves, their thoughts and feelings about the world in ways that each will understand the other. (Hall, Representations 6, Lane 1). Taking Richards and Hall together, the context theory of meaning of Richards clearly points out that the context-driven nature of words poorly serves the cause of intercultural communication because of the lack of shared experiences between communicators; for the greater the discrepancy in the life experiences of two people the greater the probability that words used in conversation would create misunderstandings, especially words meant to describe feelings and attitudes (cf. Griffin, A First Look 5th ed 27). However, since either a lifetime of identical experiences or long-term interconnectedness is hardly possible [implicitly, since not everyone comes from the same culture and language group], the partial remedy to misunderstanding is to create an exceptional fund or region of shared experiences through the use of definition, metaphor, feedforeward and simple words, called Basic English by Richards (cf. Griffin, A First Look 3ed.). 99 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Feedforward is the anticipatory process through which the speaker (or writer) acts as his/her own first receiver. He/She pretests the impact of his/her words on an audience in order to enable him/her chooses the best way and language to communicate in a given situation to a given audience (cf. Griffin, A First Look 3ed.). Basic English was a collection of 850 English words put together by Richards and Ogden that covered the needs of everyday life. It was based on the claim of Richards and Ogden that „everything‟, i.e. experiences and ideas – whether simple or complex, could be effectively communicated with less than one thousand words “by substituting descriptive phrases for specific words”(Fordham 1). The criterion of Basic English included by Richards is understood in this framework within a wider reference to the „basic language‟ of any culture. A major criticism to Richards‟ context theory of meaning is in its seeming narrow focus on the meaning of words in exclusion of the meaning which nonverbal aspects of conversation (Erickstad 1) and syntax (Griffin, A First Look 3ed. 46) bring to communication. A similar criticism is that the theory does not account for the meaning brought into conversation or communication by the reason(s) behind the use of a word or behind a message (Craig 1). In other words the theory ignores ideologies and motives in the use of words and in messages. Apparently Richards subsumed the significance to meaning of the surrounding words to a word (syntax) to the memory of the total „recurrable‟ interconnected experiences, relationships and perceptions in which that word has been used. Notwithstanding these criticisms to Richards‟ Context Theory of Meaning, the theory is of practical application and relevance in analysing and understanding meaning in everyday verbal interpersonal and intercultural communication. Moreso as cultures in this study assume personal identities with characteristic differences. Beyond the above- mentioned relevance, the theory shows that culture creates or is the sphere or context of shared or collective experiences, of perception and concepts, and of memory historically preserved and activated in communicative situations and relations. It is from this culture context that meaning in communication is obtained. Thus, words become cultural codes just as cultures become meaning codes (Griffin, A First Look 3ed. 404). 10 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The practical implication of the theory in intercultural communication contexts is that an interlocutor has to avoid the „proper meaning superstition‟, the hasty conclusion on what words mean outside the separate sociocultural experiences that interlocutors bring to the communicative context. An interlocutor has to first ensure adequate understanding of the meaning(s) which words bring to the communicative context by providing or seeking clarification to this meanig(s). This theory is significant to understanding the material of the translator, the text; and it will be important in analysing the translator‟s role in intercultural and interlingual communication. The translator translates at two major levels: at the level of the text in which he has to account for the intratextual interlacing of words in structures and syntax and at the level of context, the sociocultural milieu outside the text to which the text refers and from which the text derives its meaning. The text is completely meaningless without its context because words do not mean, people do. By this theory, this role will consist in creating, on one hand, harmony between text and context, and on the other hand, in creating an “exceptional” fund or region of common experiences and/or perceptions through which “meaningful understanding” of the source culture can be gained by the readership of the target text. Specifically, the theory will be applied to analyse the translation of, especially, the allusive and symbolic cultural meanings in the CTUs that connects the CTUs to the expression and representation of source cultural identity and to the authorial communicative purpose. This theory will equally be useful in this study to analyse the meaning-value of words and expressions chosen by the translators. Intercultural communication, i.e. the management of messages for the purpose of creating meaning across cultures has been at the fore of postcolonial theory and (literary) translation in a postcolonial context. Postcolonial theory provides the broad framework for inquiry into and contention with those forms of knowledge and cultural representations that legitimise colonialism, as well as neo-colonial forms of subjugation, domination and inequality by imperial powers, which are being realised through expanding capitalism and globalisation. According to Edward Said (Orientalism), the Western academic discipline of Orientalism existed for the sole reason of creating an imaginary Orient that is opposite and inferior to the West. 10 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY This imaginary identity of the Orient was strictly to serve the Western project of imperial domination (in Quayson 578; Kelly par. 15). While Said‟s thesis has been adapted to various disciplines, Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin popularised the theory in literary studies. Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin (The empire Writes Back), maintain that the literatures from former colonies have the explicit aim of using a variety of textual strategies to counter or subvert the dominant categories of representation and identity circulated from the imperial centre and that postcolonial writing seriously contests the dominance of the English language by creating a variety of creolised and hybridised versions of the language. Postcolonial literatures: Emerged in their present form out of the experience of colonization and asserted themselves by foregrounding the tension with the imperial power and by emphasizing their differences from the assumptions of the imperial centre (Ashcroft, et al., The empire Writes Back 2) The key aspect to this assertion of a different and authentic selfhood is the exploitation, by postcolonial literatures, of the gap between the experience of cultural identity dislocation or alienation and the seeming inadequacy of the native language to describe it by replacing or appropriating the colonizing language, English, as „english‟ “in order to interrogate and subvert the imperial cultural formations” (9). Cultural identity dislocation or alienation refers to the temporal or spatial relocation into a place of culture where one‟s “valid and active sense of self have been eroded” (9). This relocation and erosion may result from migration, the experience of enslavement, transportation, „voluntary‟ removal for indentured labour; or through „cultural denigration‟ – the conscious and unconscious oppression of the indigenous personality and culture by a supposedly superior racial or cultural model (9). A most significant and continuing feature of this imperial oppression is the control over language. The imperial educational system installs a “standard” version of the metropolitan language as the norm and marginalises all “variants” as impurities (7). 10 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Griffiths, et al, hold that the Englsh language and its institutionalisation as an academic discipline were used as deliberate cultural enterprise to privilege the British culture as an occupying force and to complement political colonial hegemony: It can be argued that the study of Englsh and the growth of empire proceeded from a single ideological climate and that the development of the one is intrinsically bound up with the development of the other, both at the level of simple utility (as propaganda for instance) and at the unconscious level, where it leads to the the naturalizing of constructed values(e.g. civilization, humanity, etc) which, conversely, established „savagery‟, „native‟, „primitive‟, as their antithesis and as the object of a reforming zeal. A „privileging norm‟ was entroned at the heart of the formation of English studies as a template for the denial of the value of the „peripheral‟, the „marginal‟, the „uncanonized‟ (3). The theses of Said and Ashcroft, et al., clearly show that asymmetrical and conflicting relations exist between the imperial centres and former colonised “Third World” countries at the levels of knowledge and ideology, culture and representation. There are basically two ways by which the literatures of former colonised societies and cultures contend with this asymmetrical power and cultural relations between them and the imperial metropolis‟. The first is to provide a portrayal of their societies and cultures that subverts the views held by the imperial centres. According to Lye (1), these literatures attempt to reclaim their past in the face of that past‟s inevitable otherness due to colonialism and its distortion by the colonizing cultures. Achebe (The Novelist as a Teacher, 44-45) puts this even more succinctly in the two-prong aims he hopes to realise with his twin histrio-anthropological novels. The first of these aims is with regard to his fellow Africans. He hopes to restore and instil pride and self-respect among his fellow Africans. It is according to Achebe: …an adequate revolution for me… to help my society regain belief in itself and put away the complexes of the years of denigration and abasement. … I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past …with all its imperfections…was not one long night of savagery from 10 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY which the Europeans acting on God‟s behalf delivered them. And further in the second aim, which is to repair the African image, damaged by misrepresentation and to demonstrate to the West that: African People did not hear of culture for the first time from Europeans, that their societies were not mindless but frequently had a philosophy of great depth and value and beauty, that they had poetry, and above all, they had dignity. It is this dignity that many African people all but lost during the colonial period and it is that they must now regain (8). The second way is the unique use of the language of the colonisers to challenge those assumptions which the imperial centres hold about former colonised cultures to the detriment of these former colonised cultures. According to Döring, postcolonial writing is characterised by the ironic use of the rhetoric of empire as “hidden transcripts” or “subtexts” to subvert this same rhetoric, which privilege and sustain the position of the dominant powers (Translating Cultures par. 13). This feature in postcolonial writing has been widely acknowledged and commented upon. The list of commentators includes Achebe, Tymoczko (In Bassnett and Trivedi, Asante-Darko, Kehinde, Mule, Stoll) among others. According to Achebe the English language has to be appropriated “to carry the weight of [the] African experience” (The Novelist as a Teacher 62). There are equall two basic ways by which the challenges of postcolonial literatures can be possibly countered by imperial centres. The first is in the selection of postcolonial literature that has to be translated into the language and cultureof the imperial powers. Bassnett and Trivedi aptly note that European norms, which dominate literary production, ensure that only certain kinds of texts, “those texts that will not prove alien to the receiving culture”, are to be translated (5). In a study of the translion of African literary works into German, Adeaga (15) observes in this regard: Over 1500 books by Sub-Saharan African authors have been made available to German readers till date. Of the books presented to German readers until 1980, the 10 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY overwhelming majority of the titles were restrained to selections from genres like anthologies, poetry, tales and legends. These genres sold (and still sell) more than highbrow Europhone African expressions because they correspond to German notions and perceptions of Africa, most especially sub-saharan Africa, as inhabited by primitive peoples. The second way is through the management or manipulation of meanings in the translation of postcolonial literatures into European languages. This manipulation is realised through the use of translation Approaches and strategies and techniques. Niranjana succinctly states in this regard that translation produces strategies of containment. According to him “By employing certain modes of representing the Other - which it thereby brings into being - translation reinforces hegemonic versions of the colonised” (in Baker, Routledge Encycl. 106). He further asserts that translation functions by creating coherent texts through the repression of difference (in Baker, Routledge Encycl. 43). Postcolonial theory, thus, clarifies that translation in a postcolonial context takes place within the unequal power relations between the imperial culture and the excolonised cultures. Bassnett and Trivedi maintain that translation is neither an innocent nor transparent activity, for it rarely, if ever, involves a relationship of equality between texts, authors and systems (2), while Niranjana again affirms that translation both shapes and takes shape “within the asymmetrical relations of power that operate under colonialism” (in Bassnet and Trivedi, Postcolonial Translation: 3). Postcolonial theory also shows that translation in an intercultural communication and postcolonial context is first an attempt at bridging the misunderstanding between imperial and former colonised cultures as well as it is a subversion of the identities and images of the excolonised created by the imperial societies and cultures in order to support their domination of the excolonised. Thus translation in an intercultural postcolonial communication context challenges the biases and ethnocentrism of the target culture towards the source culture and is a site for the politics of representation and self- representation. This leads to the third theory underpinning this study - The Skopos Theory in Translation studies. 10 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The Skopos theory, developed by Vermeer and Reiss, is a functional, sociocultural and intercultural framework or approach to translation/translating, which states that the Skopos, i.e. the purpose or aim for which a source text (ST) is translated, i.e. the purpose of the target text (TT), determines the translation methods and strategies to be used by the translator; it also determines his/her selection, distribution and arrangement of content. Therefore the Skopos determines the Translatum/Translat, i.e. the particular variety of text that has to be produced as the TT. (Reiss and Vermeer, Grundlegung 95-6, 100, 134; Honig 9; Schäffner in Baker, Routledge Encycl. 235-236). According to this framework, translation is a purposeful action that leads to a new result, i.e. the Translatum. In its widest sense, this action can be a reaction to a given situation (Reiß and Vermeer, Grundlegung, 97,103; Stolze 176). The aim of the translational action and the way in which it is realised are constrained by the need and expectation of the TT readership or the client who commissions the translation, and is basically decided by the translator (Schäffner in Baker, Routledge Encycl. 236, Aveling par. 25). The commission of the translation is critical to skopos theory. The commission (Der Auftrag), according to Vermeer, is “the instruction, given by oneself or by someone else, to carry out a given action – here: to translate (235). In so far as this instruction varies, the Skopos of the TT varies, therefore, with receivers and clients. Thus the Skopos of the ST and the TT may not necessarily be the same. Functional constancy (Funktionskonstanz) is, however, achieved where the Skopos of both texts are the same; while change of function (Funktionsänderung) is realised where the Skopos of both texts differ (Reiss and Vermeer, Grundlegung 45 cited by Schäffner in Baker, Routledge Encycl. 236). According to Schäffner (in Baker, Routledge Encycl. 236; cf. Stolz 176), where the Skopos of both texts differ, “the standard of the translation will not be intertextual coherence with the source text, but adequacy or appropriateness to the Skopos, which also determines the selection and arrangement of content.” The Skopos must guide the action of the translator, and the Skopos of the TT has to be decided separately in each specific case. This may be adaptation to the target culture, but it may also be to acquaint the reader with the source culture (Schäffner in Baker, Routledge Encycl. 236). 10 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The Skopos theory is well known in functionalist theories of translation because it is the first to focus specifically on extra-linguistic and textual factors like the „client‟, the „recipient‟s culture‟ and particularly on „the purpose and function‟ of the target text. (Sunwoo par. 5). This emphasis on the target text and its purpose apparently relativises the importance of the source text, challenging its traditional supremacy as the sole basis on which translations must be assessed and treating it as a mere “offer of information” (Informationsangebot), which, depending on the skopos, can be partly or wholly simulated in a target language and culture (Reiß and Vermeer 76). Although Skopos theory has been criticised for placing greater emphasis on the (purpose of the) target text, giving greater freedom to the translator over the source text, and relativising the authority and the sacredness of the source language text (Newmark , The Curse of Dogma 106 in Baker, Routledge Encycl. 237), it acknowledges that there has to be fidelity between the source text and target text, fidelity meaning a measure of connection between both texts. The target text cannot totally be independent of the source text and the purpose of a text may not always be changed in translation. (Hönig 10; Schäffner, From „Good‟ to „Functionally Appropriate‟ 1; Schäffner in Baker, Routledge Encycl. 236). Vermeer (229) does state “it goes without saying that a translatum [the target text] may also have the same function (Skopos) as its source text” corroborating Schäffner that the fidelity to the ST is one possible or legitimate Skopos. “Fidelity” or the measure of connection between the ST and the „Translatum‟, i.e TT, is understood in the Skopos theory as “Coherence”, which itself is to be found on three levels: between the ST information received by the translator; between the interpretation the translator makes of this information; and between the information that is encoded for the TT receivers (Munday 79-80). A major weakness of the skopos theory in terms of translation quality assessement is that it lacks a clear step-by-step instructions on how to creat a text that will serve or realize its(the text‟s) purpose in a given translation situation. The creation of a target text to serve a specific purpose is thus left to the intuition and creativity of the translator. In the end what becomes visible are only a source text and a target text, but how the act of translating was exactly carried out and how the skopos influenced the translating process are not known (cf. Sunwoo par. 13). Furthermore, not all translated texts contain clues as 10 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY to the skopos or aim for which the translations were embarked upon. The example of such translated texts without clues as to the purpose of their translation is the two texts of Chinua Achebe under study. The Skopos theory shows a more culturally based approach to translation that places central emphasis on the target text and its purpose but without disowning the source text. It also reveals the manipulative power of translators, clients/receivers/readership, and patrons. (Chesterman, What constitutes Progress in Translation 1). The Skopos framework will enable us to relate meaning to purpose within intercultural communication and postcolonial contexts. Together with the context theory of meaning and postcolonial theory, it will also enable us to give equal attention to both the skopos of the source and target texts. Such attention is necessary for a balanced examination of the relationship between the ST and TT with regard to their skopos. These three theories will be jointly used in the study to analyse and examine the meaning value of the choices and decisions made by the translators in the transfers of cultural knowledge from the source text and culture to the target text and culture and how these transfers connect to questions of asymmetry, motives and power, and of cultural identity ascription and representation in the textual relations between “excolonised” African cultures and the “excoloniser” imperial Western cultures. Thus the range of linguistic and stylistic possibilities, the translation approaches, strategies and techniques available to the translators and the choices they made will be examined as well as the cultural and communicative implications of the actual decisions made. In the interrelatedness of the theories; the context theory of meaning in intercultural communication will account for cultural knowledge and meaning value in the translations, i.e. between the ST and TT; the skopos theory in translation studies will account for purpose, motive and ideology in the translations; while postcolonial (literary) theory will account for asymmetry in textual cultural relations in the translations with regard to cultural knowledge transfer and identity representation. The interrelatedness and the use of these theories to account for three aspects (textual ascription of meaning and cultural identity; purpose, motive and ideology; asymmetry and power) in the textual and translational communicative relations between excolonial/imperial cultures and excolonised/marginalised cultures prompt us to view 10 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY their synthesis in the concept of intercultural postcolonial communication and translation. This conception views communicatiom between excolonial/imperial cultures and excolonised/marginalized cultures to subsist within the context of difference and asymmetry that is marked by the contestations of meaning and cultural identity, and by ideology and power. This context of difference and asymmetry puts interverners and mediators, like translators, in the communicative process in an unusually sensitive and precarious position in which, consciously or unconsciously, they may have to choose between being neutral or to compromise to either of the two interlocutors. A more ideal role of the translator, in this context, will be to facilitate understanding and mutually respectful regard between interlocutors mainly through a non-prejudicial, non- ethnocentric, unambiguous and impartial representation of the communicative facts and purposes of interlocutors. To what extent this role has been achieved in the translation of TFA and AOG into German is a central enquiry of this study. 3.2 Methodology: 3.2.1. Study Design This study used a text-based qualitative and comparative content analytical pattern of investigation supported by the analysis of simple percentage values within cross- disciplinary approaches of Intercultural Communication, Postcolonial relations and Translation studies. The analyses examined the relationship between the source text (ST) and target text (TT) in the German translations of the selected novels. It further examined closely the management of messages to create meaning and generate cultural knowledge in the transfer of cultural contents and stylistic features from the ST to the TT, how this management possibly redefines the TT Skopos (or purpose) from the ST Skopos, and the potential effect of this redefinition or non-redefinition on intercultural understanding and to cultural identity ascription. Style was analysed relative to its role in the transfer of cultural knowledge and the ascription of identity. The context of intercultural postcolonial communication analysis of the translations is the Igbo African culture from 10 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY which the literary source texts proceeded and the German European culture into which the translations or target texts are received. 3.2.2 Population The novels of Chinua Achebe from which the primary data for this study are generated are Things Fall Apart (TFA) published 1958 and Arrow of God (AOG) published 1964 and their German versions respectively translated as “Okonkwo oder Das Alte Stürzt” by Dagmar Heusler and Evelin Petzold and “Der Pfeil Gottes” by M. Von Schweinitz. Secondary literatures have come from library, archival and credible internet sources. Both novels were set in the Igbo African traditional past and in the prototype Igbo traditional village society. They successfully recovered the coherence of culture and cultural identity of the Igbo African and both have the 'postcolonial‟ goal of contesting the degrading and dehumanizing narratives of the African by the European and the West as accultural, primitive, barbaric and even subhuman. Both have also gained worldwide recognition in successfully establishing that Africans have a well integrated culture, an organised society and dignity before the coming of European colonizers into Africa. Furthermore, the English of these novels is translated and transliterated from the Igbo language and culture. Thus, the correlate of language i.e. Igbo-English-German is capable of presenting a unique translation situation. 3.2.3 Instrumentation and method of data collection The data examined were the cultural translation text units (or Cultural Text Units, CTU, in short) in eight cultural categories. In all a total of 287 (TFA: 132 and AOG: 155) CTU‟s have been isolated from TFA and AOG and their German versions covering the 8 cultural categories in the following distribution: proverbs (98: TFA 33 and AOG 65), Cultural Idioms and Figurative Expressions (92: TFA 45 and AOG 47), Personal and Place Names (4: TFA 2 and AOG 2), Kinship Names/Terms and Honorifics (16: TFA 9 and AOG 7), Medical Terms, Rituals and Cults, Event and Ceremonies (20: TFA 10 and AOG 10), Material Culture and Artifacts (29: TFA 15 and AOG 14), 11 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Organizations, Customs, Activities, Procedures and Concepts (7: TFA 6 and AOG 1), Body-Text Cultural Signifiers (21: TFA 12 and AOG 9). The data were generated through the identification of the cultural text units and their isolation into the relevant cultural categories. Except for the 65 proverbs and 47 cultural idioms and figurative expressions isolated from AOG through the Systematic Random Sampling (SRC) of 130 proverbs and 94 idioms at a ratio of 1:2, all the cultural text units identified for each of the other six cultural categories, including all the proverbs and culture specific idioms identified in TFA, were used in the analysis. The sample of proverbs and cultural idioms from AOG was selected from a chronological list of each of the two categories as it occurs on the pages of AOG. The use of sampling is justified by the need to keep the overall number of CTU‟s to be analysed within practical limits so that the interpretation of results will not become complicated due to too large a number of samples. The distribution to cultural categories is based on the number of CTU‟s analysed in each category. However, the many personal and place names have been numbered based on the techniques used for their translation. These techniques are borrowing/transference and modulation (as misspelling). Furthermore, where a CTU in a cultural category reoccurs in the same or in the other source text with invariable meaning value, cultural context use and translation approach and technique, it is not repeated again in the analysis. In addition, some specific source cultural items, terms, concepts, and so on, that belonged to cultural categories other than proverbs and idioms but which occurred in any of the proverbs and idioms and have been explained and analysed alongside the proverbs and idioms, were ignored for a repeat and/or separate individual analysis except if the cultural context of their use and the techniques for their translation justifies a separate analysis. The avoidance of repetition is to represent a broad spectrum of various cultural contexts and situations and of cultural units across both novels while maintaining the separateness and uniqueness of each of the two novels and its translation for cross- comparative purposes. 11 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 3.2.4 Method of Data Analysis The descriptive/qualitative and comparative content analysis method supported by percentage value analysis enabled the translations to be aligned with the source texts. It also enabled the identification and the isolation of language units and stylistic features, which carry aspects of cultural knowledge or representation of culture. These units were then analysed qualitatively or described in details by the approaches (Communicative and Semantic) and techniques of their translation and in relation to meaning, which carries cultural knowledge and impressions of identity. In other words, we examined the relationship of the ST and the TT in cultural content, purpose and stylistic features using the criteria of equivalence and adequacy in the cultural signification and meaning of the micro and macro contents of the texts i.e. words, phrases and expressions, structures, contexts, images, etc. The essential results yielded by the qualitative analysis and the translation strategies were then further analysed comparatively using simple frequencies and percentages. Simple frequencies and percentages are used to calculate the recurrence of the communicative and semantic approaches in the translation of the cultural text units in order to determine which of the two approaches is dominant. The dominance of either of the two approaches leads to discovering the Skopos or communicative purpose for which the translation of the source texts is embarked upon and this can then be compared with the authorial communicative purpose. Simple frequency and totals are further used to determine the dominance of adequate or inadequate meaning and cultural knowledge outcomes in the deployment of translation techniques to the translation of the cultural text units. The dominance and percentage of adequate or inadequate outcomes altogether reveal the appropriateness or not of the translation decisions made to enhance intercultural understanding and postcolonial communication through the target texts, how successful or not the translators have managed the challenges posed by the African postcolonial texts, and the comparable adequacy or inadequacy of the TFA and AOG target texts. Given the weakness of the skopos theory in not operationalizing the realization of the skopos in the translating process and the absence of clues as to the skopos for which the two Achebean texts under study were translated, we assume in the analysis that the 11 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY translators pursued the same purpose in the TT as the author did in the ST or that the translations serve the purpose of the ST. Thus the purpose and cultural content of the ST are the points of departure for the analysis. We reason that since the purpose of the TT determines translation techniques/strategies and choices of the translator, according to the Skopos theory, it follows implicitly that the purpose of the TT in relation to that of the ST can be fairly explained by examining the translation approaches or methods as well as the techniques or strategies adopted by the translators. It is, therefore, possible to start with a source text, a skopos, and a translator and examine the translating strategies, choices and decisions (cf. Chesterman, What constitutes Progress in Translation par. 43) adopted for each CTU. The meaning value to cultural knowledge communication or transfer and identity ascription of the 287 (i.e. TFA 132 + AOG 155) CTU‟s have been analysed based on the translating techniques used and choices made by the translators. Translating techniques used have been classified according to which supports the semantic or communicative approach. Techniques classified to the semantic approach include: Word-for-Word, „literalization‟, elaboration, borrowing/loaning/transference, „glossification‟, internal notes, paraphrase, transliteration and semantic cushioning. Techniques classified to the communicative approach include: modulation, substitution, omission, implicitation, explicitation, amplification, simplification, and transposition. In the classification of techniques to either the semantic or communicative approach, techniques used in combination are classified based on the technique that dominates meaning in the combination. The communicative approach techniques involve moderations and alterations in the attempt of the translators to improve on the meaning and message of the source text (unit) to the expectation and acceptance of the target culture and the target readership; while the semantic approach techniques mostly attempts to secure the referential basis or truth of the information of the source text. However, the likelihood of some techniques, either used alone or in combination with other techniques, to achieve a more or less semantic or communicative approach result is duly acknowledged in the analysis. The emphasis, however, is on the extent each technique or group of techniques used secured adequacy 11 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY and authenticity of cultural knowledge communication and correct cultural identity ascription. Adequacy and inadequacy are judged by the occurrence or non-occurence of error in the translation of a cultural text unit. Where there is an error in the translation of a cultural text unit, the translation is classified to be inadequate and vice versa. Translation error here refers to the difference between what the cultural source text unit says of or about the source culture and what the translator(s) has translated it to be saying that misrepresents the source culture‟s cultural identity and deviates from the overall communicative purpose of the author. This difference may occur as mistranslation, undertranslation, overtranslation, etc. However, “mistranslation” has also been used in this study to stand for “translation error” generally. 11 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Chapter Four Background to the Novels and their Translations 4.1 Cultural Background to the Novels Things Fall Apart (TFA, 1958) and Arrow of God (AOG, 1964) are two of Chinua Achebe‟s political and cultural novels that are set in an African traditional past. Both reflect the disruptive and tragic consequences which imperial culture brought by colonialism has not only on the communal culture of an African tribe but also on the individual lives of its members. Both novels, set in similar traditional cultural environments, are tragedies, which tragic characters fell not just because of the flaws in their characters and their refusal to take advice from friends and family but because they have to face challenges outside their cultural experiences, and so deserve sympathy. TFA is set in Umuofia, a traditional African community of the Igbo people in southeastern Nigeria. Killam (14) dates the historic time of the setting to be between 1850 and 1900 just before the arrival of the first European administrative officials and missionaries to their arrival and early attempts to penetrate inland. TFA follows the story of Okonkwo, the son of an improvident and a never-do-well, who is determined not to end up a failure like his father, but wants to follow tradition and rise in rank within the tribe. He achieves much: He becomes a champion wrestler, a wealthy farmer and husband of three wives and father of eleven children, a title holder among his people, a reputable warrior, and a member of the select „Egwugwu‟ whose members impersonate ancestral spirits at tribal rituals and constitute the highest judicial body of the clan. He is exiled from the clan for accidentally killing a sixteen-year-old clansman thereby committing an abomination against the earth goddess. He returns after seven years in exile to find that the traditional order of his clan has been disrupted with the arrival of the Whiteman and his religion. Frustrated in his efforts to mobilize his clan against the Whiteman and unable to adapt to the more „powerful‟ alien culture, he kills an African employee of the Whiteman and, thereafter, commits suicide. In AOG, set in Umuaro in the 1920‟s when British colonial administration, well underway, was making the transition from direct to indirect rule, the main character, Ezeulu, is the chief priest of Ulu. Ulu is the leading deity of a group of Igbo villages 11 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY created by the people almost a century earlier when the six villages of Umuaro united to withstand and safeguard themselves from the Abam slave raiders. As chief priest, Ezeulu is responsible for safeguarding the traditional rituals of the people – a position of immense power, which he is determined to assert and maintain. He seems secure in this position until contact with the British colonial administration becomes the catalyst for a power struggle within the community that will unseat both him and his god. Nwoga (The Igbo World of Achebe‟s “Arrow of God”, 16) points out concerning „Arrow of God‟ that it is not only Achebe‟s most intensive novel because Achebe had acquired “greater width and depth of knowledge of Igbo traditions and history” after writing „Things Fall Apart‟ such that AOG is the more “mature” novel of the two, but also that it” is written specifically as a gift of ancestral worship”. Both TFA and AOG foreground Igbo rural society prior to and immediately preceding the advent of colonialism recreating its cultural richness and providing considerable details about different facets of its traditional African life such as marriage and family life and relationships, and the role of „Umunna‟ and „Umuada‟; the material life of the people – how they dress, prepare food, construct dwellings, reckon time, among others; ceremonies and rituals and how these regulate the lives of the people; the role of nature in their world – planting and harvest cycle; social structure and gender relations; the dispensation of justice and conflict resolution; religious and political practices; inter and intra clan relations including warfare; and others. Awoonor (253) affirms the cultural realism of the novels in stating that Achebe recreates a society which is “governed by its well-tried mores, laws, sanctions, taboos; which is well-integrated, a living structure, an organism animated with the life of its members and gods”. The Igbo society depicted in both TFA and AOG is open, pluralistic and communal. The people are ruled not by a king or chief (TFA 105) but by a kind of simple democracy in which all adult males gather at the market-place and take decisions by consensus (TFA 8, 42; AOG 15,26, 140). It is a rank society in which the differences among adults are differences in influence and prestige rather than the absolute distinctions between the powerful and the powerless typical of state societies (Hunter and Phillip 174). It also operates a clan system in which village elders give order and guidance to groups. Separate age groups are permitted to meet to the exclusion of others to discuss matters 11 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY affecting them; however, their plans had to be submitted to the elders for a decision (AOG 83-84). The society is highly open and mobile such that individual enterprise can contribute to communal development and each individual can achieve recognition on the basis of personal merit for “among these people, a man was judged according to his worth not according to the worth of his father” (TFA 6). Consequently, the society admires energetic, aggressive and ambitious members (Ojinmah 13). However, these male qualities are balanced by the female protective, supportive, patient and forbearing, and tolerant qualities such that the society is not only flexible when necessary but the dignity of each member of the community is respected, the weak is protected and the strong is also disallowed from being authoritarian. When Okonkwo in a kindred meeting despised an old man by calling him „a woman‟ because the man was less successful in life and had no title, the meeting sternly rebuked him (TFA 19). Obierika‟s counsel and Uchendu‟s explanation of the philosophy embodied in such a name as „Nneka‟, „Mother is supreme‟ (TFA 93-94) were all efforts to remind Okonkwo that the feminine principle, which he rarely expresses or fears to express, is as valid as that of the male in the organization of the collective life and consciousness of the community. Irele (The crisis of Cultural Memory, par. 47) rightly observed the interrelationship and balance between the male- female principles in this culture when he states: Although the society upholds the notion of manliness as a fundamental social norm, it is also compelled to recognize the controlling effect of biology upon its life process and the obvious bearing of this factor upon group survival. If the social dominance of the men is unequivocally asserted, the parallel valorization of women in the symbolic sphere, demonstrated by the cult of Ala, emerges as a presiding tropos of “the social imaginary”, one that sets up a countervailing cultural and moral force to the massive investment of the social sphere by the men. The male- female dialectic thus serves to maintain an effective and ideological balance of the group; in this, it corresponds to a certain primary perception of a felt duality of the cosmic order as a principle of the universal imaginary. 11 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The tolerance characteristic of this culture is not only demonstrated within itself but even to outsiders and covers every aspect of life to which the culture shows tolerance within itself including religion because the culture believes that “the world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others”, and that “it is good that a man should worship the gods and spirits of his fathers” (TFA 99, 134). The Igbo community does not fight over religion because “it is not our custom to fight for our gods” (TFA 113). However, it is mindful that the land, the earth, is not defiled, because its survival depends on the purity of the land and peace with its gods and the ancestors. The culture therefore shows itself as one that can accommodate difference. All the masked egwugwu of umuofia, which had rushed to the church to destroy it because one member of the church stripped an ancestral spirit – an egwugwu, told the missionary, Mr. Smith, through their speaker, Ajofia, that he, Mr. Smith, could stay among them and worship his own god, if he liked their ways. However “this shrine [the church house], which he built must be destroyed. We shall no longer allow it in our midst. It has bred untold abominations and we have come to put an end to it” (TFA 134). Familial and kinship relations particularly that between the child and its parents are sacred and illustrate one form of flexibility of this society. A parent is not to have a hand in the death of his/her child even when a deity decrees that the child must die. Ezeudu, the oldest man in Okonkwo‟s quarter of Umuofia, had warned Okonkwo concerning Ikemefuna, the child who was to die to avenge the killing of an Umuofia daughter by Mbaino and who had been kept in Okonkwo‟s custody: That boy calls you father [says Ezeudu to Okonkwo], do not have a hand in his death … Yes Umuofia has decided to kill him, the oracle of the hills and caves has pronounced it. They will take him outside Umuofia as is the custom, and kill him there, but I want to have nothing to do with it. He calls you his father. (TFA 40) Obierika, Okonkwo‟s best friend, clarified this point when Okonkwo insisted to know why his friend would not be part of the execution party that killed Ikemefuna, and also tried to excuse his own participation: 11 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY … let me tell you one thing my friend, if I were you, I would have stayed home. What you have done will not please the earth, It is the kind of action for which the goddess wipes out whole families. … If the oracle said that my son should be killed, I would neither dispute it nor be the one to do it. (TFA 46-7) According to Ojinmah (17), Okonkwo‟s neglect of Ezeudu‟s advice shows that he does not appreciate the cyclical and interwoven nature of the deity‟s relationship with its worshippers. In rejecting Ezeudu‟s advice and directly participating in the killing of Ikemefuna, Okonkwo offended Ani “and the ancestral tradition on which was based that reverence of children towards elders and elders towards the ancestors who are closer to Chukwu (God)” (Austin 36-7), “…for an old man was very close to the ancestors” (TFA 85). Okonkwo‟s inflexibility is, thus, against community of which the deity is part of, and shows that he is not wise. His action now goes even against the deity whose decree he executed, and also against the ancestors. This sacred familial relationship is but an aspect of the complex, deep and intense communality characteristic of this culture. This communality is rooted in a spiritual continuum or sense of kinship with all that is dead, alive and unborn, and with nature and applies to habits, morals and manners. In this communality, the ancestors, the gods and the spirits, and nature live and endlessly interact with the living and the yet unborn: spirits can possess men (TFA 70); the ancestors not only watch from Ani-mmo (AOG 14) but their spirits can emerge from the earth to administer justice (TFA 62-4), thereby imbuing the society‟s laws, mores, and values with sacred sanction, and also intervening and participating in the ordinary lives of the people, for “the land of the living was not far removed from the domain of the ancestors. There was coming and going between them...” (TFA 85); the spirit of good children waiting to be born live “in the big, ancient and sacred silk-cotton tree” and young women who desired children would sit under its shade (TFA 33); and the vibrant silence of night and the universal trill of a million, million forest insects as well as the moonlit night form part of the circular motion of the life of the community (TFA 7); and deities live in the hills and caves, waters and forests of the people; gods join the people in some of their festivals and ceremonies and in such ceremonies “a man might look to his right and find his neighbour and look to his left and 11 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY see a god standing – perhaps Agwu whose mother also gave birth to madness or Ngene, owner of a stream”(AOG 202). The nature of this communal interaction is also seen in the religion of the Igbo communities. Achebe has built in the religious life of the people in TFA but with unusual detail in AOG. The life of the people is influenced by the supernatural at every level. There are domestic forces with the descriptions of their nature, effect and manners: the Ikenga – the strength of a man‟s right arm (AOG 6, 24; TFA 127); the Ofo – the personal staff of justice with which a man prays; the Okposi – carved for a living individual and the Okposi of the ancestors (AOG 6). In TFA these are collectively referred with regard to Okonkwo as “wooden symbols of his personal god and of his ancestral spirits or departed fathers (10, 91). The Igbo pantheon is shown to consist not only of nature deities like Ota, whose stream had to be abandoned on the warning of an oracle because it needed to be placated with sacrifice else it would take human life (AOG 7), Amadioha, the god of thunder (TFA 24), and Agwu, the god of medicine (AOG 202, Iroegbu 82), but also of protective deities of villages like Idemili, Ogwugwu, Udo, and other gods of Umuaro and Ogba of Aninta in AOG. In TFA there are found Agbala – the god of divination known as „the oracle of the hills and the caves (12, 75), Ifejioku – the god of yam (13), Ani – the earth goddess responsible for all fertility and the guardian and ultimate judge of morality (13, 21, 26, 87), and chi – „personal god‟ (TFA 13, 19, 92, 121); Idemili, the god of water of Mbanta, whose eminence is the sacred or royal python (TFA 103, 112), and Ogwugwu; then comes Chukwu – the supreme God, creator of all the world and of the other gods (TFA 126-7). Evil is spiritually identified in Ekwensu whose destructive hand enters into situations to show that they are reprehensible (AOG 24, 28), and evil spirits are identified in the angry spirits of unburied men thrown in the evil forest, from really evil sicknesses like leprosy and small pox, and from the potent fetishes of great medicine men thrown in the evil forest when they die (TFA 105). Taboos operate in religious practices like the prohibition of killing the royal python (AOG 43, TFA 112), observing the week of peace in which a man neither says a harsh word nor does violence to his neighbour in honour of the earth goddess (TFA 21-2), and in communal activities, even in the most intense wars, 12 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY no fighting takes place on the Nkwo market day (AOG 28). Even art, the carving of „alusi‟ and masks, is governed by ritual and taboo (AOG 51). Facets of individual life are controlled by spiritual forces. Apart from the Ikenga already mentioned, there is also Eru, “the magnificent, the one that gives wealth to those who find favour with him” (AOG 9). In TFA (19) the oldest man in a kindred meeting talked of „benevolent spirits helping a man to crack his palm-kernels‟ while rebuking Okonkwo for being insolent to Osugo, thus showing the involvement of spirits in individual lives. The domestic scene is as well controlled by rituals so that sacrifice is performed for a newly married girl to cleanse her from any evil that might have come from her earlier life and parentage (AOG 117-121), ritual ceremony of confession of virginity and purity is held for a bride-to-be to avoid complications or even death during child birth (TFA 93), the iyi-uwa – the ogbanje child‟s stone-bond with the ogbanje world is dug up in order to break its cyclical death and return and to make her stay (TFA 56- 60). Some beliefs that might be superstitious are also part of the religious and cultural background: the fear of medicine men like Otakekpeli (AOG 196-8), the belief embedded in the respective legend of Nwanyieke (AOG 19) and the old woman with a fan (TFA 79) that strong medicine could improve trade in a market, and make a clan more powerful in war (TFA 8-9), the driving of evil spirits from a sick man through the booming of gunshots as a healing process (AOG 112-3), the tying of blood knots (AOG 168-9), the belief that twin and the swelling sickness were abominations to the earth(TFA 13, 87) and the one who dies by this sickness must not be buried in the earth but has to rot above the earth, the belief that a woman who consistently gives birth to twins is evil(TFA 107). At a higher level, the Igbo‟s turn to the supreme God in moments of crises when the matter approaches cosmic dimensions, when the other gods have failed and there is no one to turn to (TFA 126-7, AOG 44-5, 120), the relationship between a man and his chi (TFA13, 19, 106, 121. AOG 26-8), and the use of masquerades to generate communion between the ancestors and the living community (AOG 39, 194-201; TFA 64-6). Apart from these diverse relationships with these gods and spirits, the unity of the community is further ritualized through sacred festivals. There are minor and major annual festivals. Minor festivals include “Mgba Agbogho” or the wrestling of maidens by 12 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Umuagu village; the annual feast in honour of Idemili by Umunneora village; the quiet retreat called „Oso Nwanadi‟ to placate the resentful spirits of kinsmen killed in war or in other ways made to suffer death in the cause of Umuaro held by the six villages; Akwu- Nro by Umuachala, in which memorial offerings were made by widows to their departed husbands (AOG 193-4). Major festivals include the festival of the „pumpkin leaves‟ (AOG 68-73), the new yam feast (AOG 201-2; TFA 26-8), the wrestling match (TFA 3, 28, 33-6). The major festivals celebrated with vigor and drama reveal much of the dignity and intense poetic and religious attitudes of the Igbo. The festival of the pumpkin leaves is an occasion for a dramatic renewal of the myth of the founding of Ulu, the communal god of Umuaro. Adults and children, friends and relations gather in festive and sacred mood of oneness and the sins of groups, families and individuals are communally cleansed by the chief priest acting as scapegoat. It is the women who perform the ritual act of throwing the leaves at the chief priest and praying as the supplication of Ugoye illustrates: Great Ulu who kills and saves, I implore you to cleanse my household of all defilement. If I have spoken it with my mouth or seen it with my eyes or if I have heard it with my ears or stepped on it with my foot or if it has come through my children or my friends or kinsfolk, let it follow these leaves (AOG 72). At the end of this ritual, the chief priest runs into the sanctuary of the shrine “triumphant over the sins of Umuaro”, which he buries “deep into the earth with six bunches of leaves, representing the six villages of Umuaro (AOG 73). The village women would then take turns, according to the seniority of the villages, to stamp the rest of the leaves into the dust. In both TFA and AOG, the new yam feast is presented as the most important festivity of the Igbo tribal community in its social and religious dimensions. It marked the end of the old year and the beginning of the new and it removes the restraint from the general harvesting of the king of crops, yam; for “no one would begin the harvesting of the big farms” and “no man of title would taste new yam from whatever source before the festival” (AOG 201), in which the god of yam, Ifejioku, was venerated. This veneration 12 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY goes also to Ani, the goddess of all fertility and to the ancestral spirits of the clan with whom Ani is in close communion (TFA 26). It is a feast celebrated with great pomp and with sumptuous and plenty meals, and an occasion for joy throughout the clan. It brings not just relations, friends and guests from far and wide but gods as well join humans in a celebration of communal oneness; “for all the minor deities in the six villages who do not have their own special feasts” are brought out and celebrated so that it was the only assembly in Umuaro in which god and man can stand side by side (AOG 202). The feast has further spiritual significance in Umuaro, for it “reminded the six villages of their coming together in ancient times and of their continuing debt to Ulu who saved them from the ravages of the Abams”(AOG 201-2). In gratitude, every man in Umuaro offered a good-sized yam to the shrine of Ulu and “placed it in the heap from his village after circling it around his head”. From the size of these heaps each village knew whether its numbers were increasing or decreasing and then either make sacrifices of gratitude or of appeasement. The wrestling match is a village round event, each village taking its turn on its own day. It is an event, which brings together not just members of a village and of neighbouring villages but attracts the participation of neighbouring clans. The communal and spiritual nature of this event is again marked not only by the presence of the elders and grandees, “who are close to the ancestors” (TFA 86), with their sons and slaves, and the participation of women and children as spectators, but also by the fact that the event takes place in the village ilo by the “ancient silk-cotton tree which was sacred, where the spirits of good children live waiting to be born” (TFA 33). The elders and grandees sit by this tree to watch the wrestling match. The wrestling match is again an occasion for the assemblage of elders, ancestors, spirits and men in communal oneness. Beyond that, it also provides an occasion for the periodic remembrance or reenactment of the myth of origin and, therefore, of the unity and oneness of the clan. This is evident in the first paragraph of TFA, which significantly begins the novel with the memory of the wrestling match between Okonkwo and Amalinze, the cat, which not only celebrates the rising profile of Okonkwo within the clan but, more importantly, linked the wrestling event to the clan‟s myth of origin and association with the ancestors: 12 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY It was this man that Okonkwo threw in a fight which the old man agreed was one of the fiercest since the founder of their town engaged a spirit of the wild for seven days and seven nights (TFA 3). These festivals as Nwoga (cf. The Igbo World of Achebe‟s “Arrow of God ) also pointed out give sacred dimensions and ritual reinforcement to human activities and revalidate the unity within the community and between human beings, spirits, the gods and nature. They also serve as ritual and periodic reminders of myths of origin that ensures in the collective imagination and memory of the people a consciousness of being that is timeless through the immanence of and oneness with the ancestors, spirits and gods. Irele, (The crisis of Cultural Memory par. 18) states the same within this observation that: The tribe‟s myth of origin sets the keynote of its entire mode of self-apprehension and structure of knowledge …. The prominence assumed by rituals of life in the culture, the tribe‟s periodic enactment of the various facets of its collective imagination, its constant recall of foundations – all this ensures that time is experienced not as a static category but lived continuously and intensely in the mode of duration. This consciousness of time permeates the collective life, so that the worldview involves a ceaseless procession of a principle of life in an interpenetration of time and space that is ensured by the eternal presence of the ancestors. This intense communal spirituality restrains the excess of the individual. Thus the individual, though encouraged and permitted to realize his individuality to the highest limit possible, must, however, always act within the collective interest and will of the clan, its values and beliefs, norms and customs, and even taboos and give due consideration to the weak and less advantaged and to both the male and female principles of social organization and collective consciousness. This strong communal ethos vis-à-vis the individual is, for example, demonsrated towards Okonkwo during the sacred week. Okonkwo, the protagonist of the story, had by sheer hardwork become a famous warrior, wealthy and prosperous and one of the lords of 12 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the clan. He breached the sacred week. Ezeani, the priest of the earth goddess, confronted him reminding him that the forefathers of the clan had ordained that for the good and benefit of the community, no matter the degree of provocation, no member of the clan should during this week express any anger: You are not a stranger in Umuofia. You know as well as I do that our forefathers ordained that before we plant any crops in the earth, we should observe a week of peace in which a man does not say a harsh word to his neighbour. We live in peace with our fellows to honour our great goddess of the earth without whose blessing our crop will not grow. … Your wife was at fault, but even if you came into your Obi and found her lover on top of her, you would still have committed a great evil to beat her….the evil you have done can ruin the whole clan. The earth goddess whom you have insulted may refuse to give us her increase and we shall all perish. (TFA 22). It is in his violation of this communal spirituality through his killing of his foster- son, Ikemefuna, the boy who calls him father, to sustain and build on his fame as fearless and brave, that Okonkwo‟s tragic fortunes begin to irreversibly build up. It is also in the misjudged exploitation of his priestly position and functions to avenge himself and his god against his clan and to affirm and uphold his priestly pride, thereby breaching this communal spirituality, that Ezeulu was abandoned by his god; for the god to which he is priest belongs to the community he avenges himself against in his creative forgetfulness of the wisdom of the ancestors “that no man however great was greater than his people, that no one ever won judgment against his clan” (AOG 131, 230). Achebe, himself, points out in his observation below that the stability of Igbo tribal culture and community is made possible by the balance of its materialism with its communal spirituality. According to him: Anyone who has given thought to our society must be concerned by the brazen materialism one sees around. I have heard people blame it on Europe. That is utter rubbish. In fact the Nigerian society I know – the Igbo society - has always been materialistic. This may sound strange because Igbo life had at the same time a strange spiritual dimension – controlled by the gods, ancestors, personal spirits or chi, 12 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY and magic. The success of the culture was the balance between the two, the material and the spiritual (The Role of the Writer in a New Nation 11). Implicitly, the anomalies or aberrations observable in the „new‟ Igbo society created more or less by contact with colonialism and its new religion and Western culture are brought about by the erosion and eventual neglect of this balance. Achebe makes this point in TFA. Okonkwo has entertained his maternal kindred to a sumptuous and lavish feast to thank them for being kind to him during his seven years in exile with them. One of the oldest members of the Umunna, who thanked Okonkwo for the feast notes, in a saddened voice, the new situation brought about by the colonialist‟s culture and religion that is tearing communal kinship apart: … It is good in these days when the younger generation consider themselves wiser than their sires to see a man doing things in the grand old way. A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They have food in their homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so. You may ask why I am saying all this. I say it because I fear for the younger generation … for you young people because you do not understand how strong is the bond of kinship. You do not know what it is to speak with one voice. And what is the result? An abominable religion has settled among you. A man can now leave his father and his brothers. He can curse the gods of his fathers and his ancestors, like a hunter‟s dog that suddenly goes mad and turns on his master. I fear for you: I fear for the clan. … It is from within this rich and deep experience of communality with the gods and spirits, with the ancestors, with the living and the dead and the unborn, and with nature that the values, beliefs, norms, customs and habits, wisdom and philosophy, cosmology, taboos and superstitions of the Igbo‟s arose. These elements of culture have been so remarkably integrated into coherence in both TFA and AOG to present the Igbo African cultural personality, as it were. And Achebe has presented this culture, in agreement with his purpose for writing these two novels, without praising, idealizing nor condemning it 12 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY but revealing both its virtues and weaknesses with the same forthrightness such that we can as well be shocked, looking at that culture from the vantage ground of today, at such practices like throwing twins into the evil forest to die because they were seen to bring evil, the practice of human sacrifices, such excessive show of manliness as when warriors had to drink from the human skulls of their first victims during certain ceremonies, such laws that require the young innocent boy, Ikemefuna in TFA, to die for the sins of his clan, the practice of the osu caste system, and so on. These elements of culture, which form the basis of the actions, responses or reactions of the people, are integrated into their oral tradition. They are transmitted to younger generations not only through involvement in daily communal life but consciously and deliberately through stories – folktales, anecdotes, and so on, and they are recalled and consolidated in the consciousness of adults through such oral traditional forms as proverbs, idioms and pithy sayings during discourse and through the rituals and ceremonies of the tribe. These elements of culture integrated in a unique harmony assert the identity and individuality of the source culture; they are what the translators are to transfer while maintaining the intergrity of the source culture. 4.2 The Language and Style of the Author What is, perhaps, most obvious concerning Achebe‟s language in both TFA and AOG is that it is English, though he informs about the culture and experiences of the Igbo‟s of Africa. The correctness or not of using English by African writers is enmeshed in an unended debate. Obi Wali (1963) Ngugi wa Thiong‟o (1986), Soyinka (In Kamlongera 1989), Osundare (1995), and others oppose the writing of African literature in a non-African language. Obi Wali asserts that “the whole uncritical acceptance of English and French as the inevitable medium for educated African writing is misdirected, and has no chance of advancing African literature and culture” and that until African writers accepted that any true African literature must be written in African languages, they would merely be pursuing a dead end, which can only lead to sterility, uncreativity, and frustration. (14). And Ngugi wa Thiong‟o sees the use of European languages in 12 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY writing African literature as continued self-subsumation of Africa to Western cultural imperialism: The question is this: we as African writers have always complained about the neo-colonial economic and political relationship to Euro-America. Right. But by our continuing to write in foreign languages, paying homages to them, are we not on the cultural level continuing the neo-colonial slavish and cringing spirit? What is the difference between a politician who says Africa cannot do without imperialism and the writer who says Africa cannot do without European languages (Wa Thiong‟o 26) Osundare, on his part, sees African writing in European languages as creating a hiatus between African experience and artistic conception and the medium for their expression; for, according to him: No matter the extent of the African writer‟s proverbialization of the European language, no matter how much stylistic acrobatics he employs in an attempt to bend the borrowed language, there are innumerable aspects of African experience that defy rendering in a foreign medium. To make matters worse, African writers are hardly ever thoroughly proficient in them, and the result is often a work marred by linguistic and stylistic infelicities, a generally paper weight and diffident art, and a frustrating situation in which “what oft was thought” is “ne‟er so well express‟d” (Caliban‟s Gamble 341). Osundare‟s proffered solution to the hiatus is not in a further “desperate, but all-too-often thwarted striving for mastery of the white man‟s language” but rather in an “honest and single-minded cultivation of the indigenous languages by plumbing their artistic depths and discovering their expressive possibilities” (Caliban‟s Gamble 360). Achebe, however, continues to assert the propriety of using the English language because it provides Nigerians with a national language and a means to communicate not only with the nation as a whole but with other readers and writers on the African continent and beyond. The English to be used by Nigerian and African writers will, however, be a new English “still in communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit its new African surrounding” (English and the African Writer 30). He insists, above all, 12 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY that Africans had used the English language with outstanding creativity and had appropriated it “to carry the weight of their African experience” (English and the African Writer 28-30). This appropriation of the English language is akin to what has become known as the nativization of the English language. In his article “English in the Nigerian environment”, Bamgbose (20-22) shows that the English of Achebe is an example of nativised Nigerian English. According to him, nativisation consists of three aspects: linguistic, pragmatic and creative. Linguistic nativisation includes substitution of Nigerian language vowels and consonants for English ones, replacement of stress by tone, pluralization of some non-count nouns, introduction of culture-specific vocabulary items, back formation, semantic shifts, different verb proposition combinations and some Nigerian L1 induced syntactic structures. The pragmatic nativisation of English in a second language situation is evident where the culture of the indigenous Nigerian language modifies the rules and language- use typical of English language in order to suit its own environment. Examples are when Nigerian English replicates numerous indigenous greetings: welcome, well done, thanks for yesterday, safe journey, how?, till tomorrow; where modes of address are formalized to reflect social status, e.g. Alhaji, Honourable Chief Dr. X, etc.; while creative nativisation manifests itself in two ways. The first is to create expressions, which reflect the Nigerian experience and worldview. Examples are expressions such as „take in‟ (to become pregnant, „suffer head‟ (a luckless person). The second way is to translate an authentic Nigerian native idiom or expression in such a way that it will reflect „the mood of the situation or character‟. However, since there is no Nigerian language but Nigerian languages, it follows that what could be referred to as Nigerian English is the nativised English of Nigerian ethnic languages, which can be used across the country. This means that it is possible to speak of ethnic varieties of English like Igbo English (Igboanusi, Igbo English in the Nigerian Novel 37). The language of Chinua Achebe in TFA and AOG can be, most precisely, seen as Igbo English because of the singular influence of the Igbo language and culture (Igboanusi, Igbo English in the Nigerian Novel 13, 38). 12 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Achebe may not have been so meticulous to demonstrate every single feature of nativisation, especially linguistic nativisation, in TFA and AOG. A reading of both novels will clearly show, however, that he has so consciously and adeptly adapted the English language to suit the temper of the African environment and to carry the culture, experience and worldview of his people – the Igbo. The short sentences and simple words, which make the novels easy to read, have such deliberateness and tone that can penetrate the individual psyche. As Higo observes (Introduction:Things Fall Apart ix) “sometimes both [the short sentences and simple words] invoke the atmosphere of sacredness” like the reply of one of Umuofia‟s clansmen to the district commissioner about bringing down the hung body of Okonkwo and burying it: It is against our custom [to take him down]. It is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offence against the earth, and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil, and only strangers may touch it. That is why we ask you to bring him down, because you are strangers … We cannot bury him only strangers can. We shall pay your men to do it. When he has been buried, we will then do our duty by him. We shall make sacrifices to cleanse the desecrated land. (TFA 147). Ogunba (7) has as well observed that the main artistic achievement of Achebe, apart from the pathos of his tragedies, is the creation of “a convincing mode of speech, one which faithfully mirrows traditional Igbo life”. He further points out that Achebe became aware, early in his life, of the device to use transliterated proverbs to express the thoughts of his people, and that this has been a most suitable technique of penetrating into the psychology of the traditional African. Rao (par. 1) beautifully describes this culture merit of Achebe‟s language: He [Achebe] was able to accomplish the difficult task of transcribing the working of the African psyche from one medium to another, from indigenous oral tradition to an alien form of European origin without obliterating the freshness and vigour of the former despite vast differences separating the two cultures. … The wisdom and philosophy, the poetry and beauty of traditional Africa are impressively subsumed in the language of his fiction. 13 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The penetration of the African psyche means the ability of the Achebean characters in TFA and AOG to think in and to speak Igbo in the English given to them, and to reflect in their speech the context and „sacredness‟ of their African environment that was the result of communal oneness between gods, spirits, man and nature such that a remarkable harmony between character, speech, theme and setting is always achieved. We find an illustration in this long-drawn speech by Ezeulu cautioning his clan, Umuaro, against going to war with Okperi, its neighbouring clan, to avenge the death of its wrongfully sent war emissary, Akukalia, to Okperi, who committed an abomination while there and paid with his life: „The reed we were blowing is now crushed. When I spoke two markets ago in this very place I used the proverb of the she-goat. I was then talking to Ogbuefi Egonwanne who was the adult in the house … [and] to all elders here … who were in the house and yet the she-got suffered in her parturition. „Once there was a great wrestler whose back had never known the ground. He wrestled from village to village until he had thrown every man in the world. Then he decided that he must go and wrestle in the land of the spirits, and become champion there as well. He went, and beat every spirit that came forward. Some had seven heads, some ten; but he beat them all. His companion who sang his praise on the flute begged him to come away but he would not, his blood was roused, his ear nailed up. … he gave a challenge to the spirits to bring out their best and strongest wrestler. So they sent him his personal god, a little wiry spirit who seized him with one hand and smashed him on the stony earth. „Men of Umuaro why do you think our fathers told us this story? They told it because they wanted to teach us that no matter how strong or great a man was he should never challenge his chi. This is what our kinsman did – he challenged his chi. We were his flute player, but we did not plead with him to come away from death. Where is he today? The fly that has no one to advise it follows the corpse into the grave. But let us leave Akukalia aside; he has gone the way his chi ordained. „But let the slave who sees another cast in a shallow grave know that he will be buried in the same way when his day comes. … If you go to war to avenge a man who passed shit on the head of his mother‟s father, Ulu will not follow you to be soiled in the corruption. Umuaro, I salute you.‟ (Emphasis mine). (AOG 26-7) 13 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY and from the speech of Ifeme and Anosi in their greeting to Ezeulu on his return from the whiteman‟s prison in Okperi: „I must go‟, he [Ifeme] shouted so loud that those in the women‟s huts heard him. „We thank the great God and we thank Ulu that no bad story has accompanied your travel. Perhaps you were saying to yourself there: Ifeme has not come to visit me I wonder whether there is a quarrel between Ezeulu and Ifeme. I was thinking all the time that I must visit Ezeulu: my eyes reached you but my feet lagged behind. I kept saying: Tomorrow I shall go but every day gave me a different order. As I said before, Nno.‟ „It was the same with me‟, said Anosi, „I kept saying: Tomorrow I shall go, tomorrow I shall go, like the toad which lost the chance of growing a tail because of I am coming, I am coming,‟ (Emphasis mine). (AOG 185) We note that the speech of Ezeulu, the chief priest of Ulu, matches his status both as an elder in the clan and the intermediary between the communal god and the people, who should point out the right way forward to the people. The gnomic, idiomatic and proverbial flavour of both his speech and that of Ifeme and Anosi, the inclusion of direct Igbo words in both speeches and of a folktale by Ezeulu, and the maintenance or approximation, to a very good degree, of Igbo language structure in, especially, the speech of Ifeme and Anosi not only give authenticity and force to the speeches, but also help to adjust their „English‟ to the Igbo oral speech pattern; while the equal reference to gods, elders and the ancestors, to spirits with seven and ten heads, the division of the world into villages, the measuring of time by market days, the coming and going between the land of humans and that of spirits in Ezeulu‟s speech infuses the African cultural context, worldview and experience in the language and make it meaningful, familiar and accessible to the African reader but revealing to the non-African. Apart from staying within the Igbo cultural environment in his language through the transliteration of native idioms and proverbs; the transposition of native speech structures, tones and rythms; richly drawn cultural characters and through consistent contextual articulation of the Igbo culture, Achebe also adopts a two-pronged transference device with elucidatory effects namely lexical compounding and lexical cushioning (cf: Osundare Caliban‟s Gamble 350-3). In lexical compounding, Achebe 13 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY creates or translates from his Igbo source language and culture English compounds, which often carry „cross-cultured‟ references. Examples include silk-cotton tree (TFA 134) iron-horse (bicycle)(TFA 34) sleeping palm oil (AOG 19) spirit-house (AOG 51) Some of these compounds like „iron-horse‟ carry the African cultural perception of a European view. To the European the bicycle is an invention, a two wheeled pedal- driven vehicle with handlebars and a saddle but to the African the bicycle is simply an imitation of nature. The horse is a living creature of nature; the bicycle is made to behave like a horse without being one. Achebe brings this European invention within the African experience and environment, which is much closer to nature. The European can become aware of this African experience and environment without being confused about what the bicycle refers to within European experience. The compound thus mediates between two cultural perceptions making a single meaning accessible to both an African and a European reader of the narrative. In the second transference device – lexical cushioning, three subtypes can be distinguished namely attributive cushioning, non-attributive cushioning, and contextual cushioning. Attributive lexical cushioning involves doublet compounds, one a native word and the other an English word. The English word serves as an attribute interpreting an aspect of the meaning and function of the source item. In this way the problem of intelligibility is minimized (Osundare, Caliban‟s Gamble 352). Examples include: ozo title (TFA 29) ozo dance (TFA 41) egusi soup (TF 117) ijele mask (AOG 68) ofo staff(AOG 6) otimili fashion(AOG 116) In non-attributive lexical cushioning, a source language word is immediately followed up with its translation marked off either by an appositional and elucidatory “or”, by a coma or by an introductory word such as “means”. Examples include: agadi-nwanyi or old woman (TFA 15) 13 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY ilo, the village playground (TFA 30) ndichie or elders (TFA 160) anwasi or magic (AOG 147) Nne Ofo, the mother of all staff of authority (AOG 70) Idemili means pillar of water (AOG 70). Sometimes the translation precedes the source word as in this example: the little bird nza (TFA 22). Contextual lexical cushioning is more subtle and indirect. The meaning and function of the source word is recognized from the immediate context of the narrative. Some examples include this passage from Arrow of God: “Meanwhile he reached for a little wooden bowl, which had a lump of white clay in it. „Here is a piece of nzu‟ he said as he rolled the chalk backwards to his guest who picked it up and drew on the floor between his legs three erect lines and a fourth lying under them. Then he painted one of his big toes and rolled the chalk backward to Ezeulu …” (AOG 61). And this one from Things Fall Apart: “The drum sounded again and the flute blew. The egwugwu house was now a pandemonium of quavering voices: Aru oyim de de de de dei! filled the air as the spirits of the ancestors, just emerged from the earth, greeted themselves in their esoteric language. The egwugwu house into which they emerged faced the forest …” (TFA 62). It is obvious in the first example that „nzu‟ is a white clay or chalk used in the exchange of goodwill during visits though the exact meaning of each person‟s personal pattern drawn on the floor is not clear. In the second example, it is possible for the reader to know that the „egwugwu‟ refers to the spirit of the ancestors and that the „egwugwu- house‟ is the earth house from which the spirits emerge. The significance of these transference is not just in adding local colour to his narrative and intensifying its orality and cultural consciousness but in easing or cushioning the foreignness or strangeness of these culture-charged Igbo words and making them relatively familiar and intelligible in the new cultural environment of the English, and also easing the discomfort of literary communication. 13 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY We further note the occurrence of Pidgin English (PE) in the narratives of TFA and AOG, though very sparingly. Pidgin English is a brand of Nigerian version of Commonwealth Englishes. Pidgin is a simplified and modified form of language used for communicating between groups of people who normally speak different languages. Elugbe and Omamor (2) postulate that pidgin results from an imperfect attempt of groups to communicate with each other in a language contact situation. The resultant pidgin is a neutral language, a nobody‟s first language for neither of the interlocutors can claim ownership of it. Though the pidgin has a base language, for example English, it is usually a hybrid of the languages of the interlocutors and it is characterized by a modification and, even subversion, of the grammatical structure and, sometimes, the lexis of the base language in order to simplify and make it comprehensible. The primary language contact situations which accounted for the occurrence of pidgin in African languages with non-African, mostly European, languages as base languages are trade contacts between foreigners, especially Europeans, religious contact through the activities of foreign missionaries, and colonial contacts (Obiechina 8, Egbokhare 106-7; Igboanusi, Igbo English in the Nigerian Novel 18). However, from being the basic tool to overcome the communication barrier between two different languages and cultures in contact, pidginized languages in postcolonial Africa have been deployed also as a language of self-assertion and of resistance and protest against dominance and oppression by a linguistically strong and dominant group (cf. Bandia, Code-switching and Code-mixing; Egbokhare 118). According to Bandia (Code- switching and Code-mixing par. 20): In post-colonial Africa, a standard dialect (colonial language) gains its legitimacy from state-sponsored institutions such as education, thus inculcating the dialect‟s authority, imposing it even on speakers of dominated classes who never master it. … And just as a local response to dominant cultures is sometimes an oppositional culture, so the authority of the “standard” dialect does not go unchallenged. Among such responses in the African setting is the creation of hybrid languages such as pidgins and creoles, which are a mixture, or blend of imported European languages and local vernacular languages. 13 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Thus pidginization ensures group solidarity and provides a veritable ground for collective agitation. When we also consider the scenario portrayed by Egbokhare (118-9) in which the so-called minority tribes of Nigeria, linguistically united under Nigerian PE, resist the domination of the major languages and tribes of Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, and successfully imposed PE as the lingua franca of the Nigerian security forces, we see a double deployment of PE as a language of resistance. First, in the context of Nigeria and colonial Britain, the subversion of English in PE is a resistance to British and European linguistic and cultural domination; secondly, in the context of Intra-Nigerian relations, PE is a resistance against the domination of the so-called major nationalities or tribes of Nigeria. In Achebe‟s TFA and AOG, we find examples of the stylistic use of PE to foreground deeper meanings beyond their normal linguistic readings. An example will suffice. In AOG (152-154), Captain Winterbottom, the District Colonial Officer at Okperi, had issued a warrant of arrest on Ezeulu. Ezeulu was to be arrested by two colonial policemen and brought down to Okperi for rebuffing an earlier invitation of the District Officer to come to Okperi. After much difficulty, the two policemen finally arrived Ezeulu‟s compound in Umuaro, but Ezeulu had already set out for Okperi early that morning in the company of his son, Obika. The following conversation ensued in the compound of Ezeulu between the policemen and Edogo [eldest son of Ezeulu], while Akuebue, Ezeulu‟s friend, the women and children and other villagers present watch on: „Which one of you is called Ezeulu?‟ asked the corporal. „Which Ezeulu?‟ asked Edogo „Don‟t ask me which Ezeulu again or I shall slap okro seeds out of your mouth. I say who is called Ezeulu here?‟ „And I say which Ezeulu? Or don‟t you know who you are looking for?‟ …. „All right‟, said the corporal in English. „Jus now you go sabby which Ezeulu. Gi me dat ting.‟ This last sentence was directed to his companion who immediately produced the handcuffs from his pocket. (AOG: 153). Akuebue calmed the tensed atmosphere and explained to the policemen that Ezeulu with his son, who looked very much like him, were already on their way to Okperi. The two 13 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY policemen searched their memory and “conferred in the white man‟s tongue to the admiration of the villagers”: „Sometine na dat two person we cross for road‟, said the corporal. „Sometine na dem‟, said his companion. „But we no go return back just like dat. All dis waka wey we waka come here no fit go for nating‟. The corporal thought about it. The other continued: „Sometine na lie dem de lie. I no wan make dem put trouble for we head.‟ The corporal still thought about it. He was convinced that the men spoke the truth but it was necessary to frighten them a little, if only to coax a sizeable „kola‟ out of them. He addressed them in Ibo: … (AOG: 153-154). In this episode, we see the complex linguistic and stratified nature of the society being mirrowed with the use of PE. To the two Igbo colonial policemen, who wrongly believe they are speaking Standard English, speaking the white man‟s language separates and distinguishes them from their fellow Igbo villagers; it confers status and pride on them and they can expect to earn admiration from their fellow natives. They confer with themselves in the white man‟s language, though they are Igbo themselves, to vaunt the privileged and „superior‟ position which association with the white man confers on them in a colonial society where the real power now resides with the colonial administration, and then speak in Igbo to their fellow Igbo brothers. The admiration they earn is ironic though, for the villagers can associate the white man‟s language with the handcuffs, with extortion and oppression. The same association is extended to these their Igbo brothers, the colonial policemen, who ironically find a rallying point in PE to exploit and oppress their own kinsmen. We find in the use of PE the alienation of kinsmen from one another and the formation of new social cleavages. There is far less use of PE in TFA than in AOG. We find such pidgin words like kotma (TFA 123), tie-tie (TFA 39) and in TFA (31), Obiageli, Okonkwo‟s daughter by his second wife-Ojiugo, broke her water-pot on the way from the stream because she was “making inyanga”. Making-Inyanga is the type of thing little children do when they brag or show-off trying to imitate a grown up. Apparently this PE is included here to add local colour to the narrative, while it also mirrows the linguistic choices that has been become possible in the society through contact with colonialism. But inyanga can as well be 13 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY understood as a metaphoric reference to itself as an alien language, and to the white man from whom it came, which brags itself to be superior to the native language, alienates its speakers from the native culture and give them the freedom and arrogance to live counter to their native culture. In the examples above, PE is not yet a language of protest but a language of alienation that opposes the native culture and a language of oppression and extortion. We see the effectiveness of PE as a creative device that provides deeper meaning to what is said and also leads the reader to see what is left unsaid. Achebe uses PE to represent all the new realities, relationships and, even, contradictions and distortions which colonialism introduced into the native environment. In order to specifically contextualise Achebe‟s language use within postcolonial discourse, we refer to Chantal Zabus‟ problematization of the dilemma between using such „translation‟ strategies as „cushioning‟, „contextualisation‟, and „gloss‟ to explain culture-bound African language words and phrases in the African postcolonial text to the non-African target reader and that of leaving the African words unexplained to meet the postcolonial discourse requirement of presenting an effective Otherness of the African culture and Identity. Using a semiotic analysis, Zabus points out that such lexical cushionings as Achebe and other African writers use like „obi or hut‟ (in TFA) do not all constitute „a sign and a signifier‟ as they are supposed to be with one explaining the other, but two signs representing two worlds referring to the same signifier, and creating a gap of understanding. “In attempting to name the gap between autotelically inter-referential signs”, says Zabus, “writers take the reader along a tortuos route marked with gaps and blanks”, and that “the main draw back to cushioning is that it may defer understanding or overstimulate the reader‟s mind” (160-1). On contextualisation, by which the reader would have to infer from the immediate context or syntax or both “whether the Igbo [or the African word] is a noun phrase, an adverbial or a nominal construction and then infer what it means”, Zabus states that it is “a riddling device [that] involves the non-Igbo reader in a guessing game which … requires supernatural insight”. “Contextualisation”, he goes further, “may prove ineffective because of its reliance on the non-indigenous readers „act of Reading‟ and the ill-defined character of the readership it purports to 13 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY reach” (161-162); and following the authors of the Empire Writes Back, “…gloss gives the translated word, and thus the „receptor‟ culture, the higher status”(Ashcroft, et al. The Empire Writes Back: 65). The preferred alternative is direct loan-translating without footnotes and gloss, cushioning and contextualisation, what Zabus calls “bilateral metisage or reciprocal creolization” by which the West African writer will be able “to insert an African word or refer to an African cultural event in the same manner in which a French writer can throw in his text German, English or Latin locutions and refer to Jupiter, Mozart, and Nietzsche without explanation” (163). Direct loan-translating “will”, Zabus again follows the argument of the authors of the Empire Writes Back, force the reader into an active engagement with the horizons of the culture in which those terms have meaning”. As an ineluctable “sign of a post-colonial discourse”, the untranslated word is “first a sign of distinctiveness …[and], more importantly, … an endorsement of the facility of the discourse situation , a recognition that the message event, the „scene of the word‟, has full authority in the process of cultural and linguistic intersection”. (Ashcroft, Griffiths, Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back: 65; Zabus 163-4) Direct loan-translating and the avoidance of gloss in postcolonial texts, as Ashcroft, et al fully acknowledge, are ultimately political acts (The Empire Writes Back: 65), which potential risk, pointed out by Zabus (164), is in making the text inaccessible to the non- African reader, and this inaccessibility, which though ironically becomes the sign of the value of the texts, “may confirm the non-African reader‟s „colonial‟ suspicions that the African tongue is barbaric” Banjo (29) notes that the English of Achebe‟s novels deviates “quite considerably from even the locally accepted ordinary use of the language” due to the linguistic innovation forced upon him by his creative circumstances by which he has to “weave a great deal of the local linguistic fabric into the texture of his work”. This creative circumstance is one, which demands of Achebe that the language of his narrative should „be English without being English.‟ In other words he uses the English language to carry Igbo culture and experience. It is an „english‟ considerably unclothed of the English 13 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY culture. It is, therefore, only within this creative innovation to the English language that Achebe would realize the purposes for his novels. This domestication or appropriation of the English language, creating what can also be seen as a form of hybridization, is not only acknowledged for its creative or stylistic merit, it is also a political act that interrogates and decenters the hegemony of the English culture through the „english‟ language. Zabus acknowledges that it is yet premature for the (West) African writer to practice the kind of liguistic cultural insertion in his texts that direct loan-translating promises and that some type of clarification has the virtue of clearing the text of obtrusive material when used economically (Zabus 165). The use of some clarification devices like cushionings, gloss and notes, or contextualisation may well continue for a while more untill sufficient understanding of African terms and cultural events have been well circulated to non-African readers through means that can include „intertextual writing‟ of African literatures, where an African literary work may implicate African cultural terms and events in other African literary texts. Achebe may continue to be applauded for his creative use of cushioning, contextualisation, notes and other devices. His linguistic innovations are instructive and suited to both the purpose and understanding of his works; they are, therefore, worth taking note of by the translators of his novels. 4.3 Authorial Communicative Purpose Achebe was prompted by a deep and passionate sense of cultural nationalism to write his novels that were set in African traditional past starting with Things Fall Apart. The violation of the African psyche and the erosion of the dignity and integrity of his person, the denial of his history, the denunciation and misrepresentation of his culture and identity, and at worst, his dehumanisation by colonialism and the colonialist provided the impetus for Achebe‟s entrant into the writing of fiction. In an interview in 1962 which he granted to Lewis Nkosi and published 1972, Achebe declared that he was quite certain at around 1951-2 that he was going to venture into writing and that one of the things that stirred his thought was the novel written by Joyce Cary, Mister Johnson, which was set in Nigeria and was so much praised, but 14 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY which he was sure was “a most superficial picture not only of the country but even of the Nigeria character”. This made him to think that if such novel is famous “then perhaps someone ought to try and look at it from the inside” (in Ryan 5-9). C. L. Innes aptly put Achebe‟s impression of Cary‟s work when he states that for Achebe “Cary was an all too representative colonialist novelist, foremost among those who portrayed the African as inherently primitive and irrational, and whose work reinforced the racist assumptions upon which the British empire had been built and maintained” (1126). In a more recent interview he granted to Katie Bacon in which he responded to the negative portrayal of Africa by such European Authors as Joyce Carry and Joseph Conrad, Achebe (par. 10) asserts that it was really “a straightforward case of setting us up, as it were” by Europeans through the production of “a body of literature that presented Africa in very lurid terms” within the last four or five hundred years of European contact with Africa. A conscience-stricken Europe desperate to excuse the cruelty of the slave trade in order to keep the economic profits from the trade spread claims that Africans “were not really human or that the slave trade was in fact a good thing for them because the alternative to it was more brutal by far”: And therefore describing this fate that the Africans would have back home became the motive for the literature that was created about Africa. Even after the slave trade was abolished in the nineteenth century, something like this literature continued to serve the new imperialistic needs of Europe in relation to Africa. This continued until the Africans themselves, in the middle of the nineteenth century, took into their own hands the telling of their story (in Bacon par. 11). Achebe believes that only the African can tell his own story for as he puts it in his quote of an African proverb of uncertain provenance “until the lions produce their own historian the story of the hunt will glorify the hunter”(The balance of stories in Proudfoot par. 12). It is the retelling of the African story that Achebe initiated in Things Fall Apart and intensified in Arrow of God, drawing his material from African cultural history to provide a comprehensive image, unprecedented in literature, of an African society “reconstituted as a living [well-integrated] entity in its historic circumstance, “engaged in 14 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY its own social processes carried out entirely on its own terms with all the internal tensions that this entailed” (Irele, The crisis of cultural memory par. 1). This story proves the humanity of the African and illuminates the humiliations visited on Africans by colonialism. It is to demonstrate and represent the culture and identity of the African first denied and then distorted, and to tell the non-African, particularly the West, that “African people did not hear of culture for the first time from Europeans, that their societies were not mindless but frequently had a philosophy of great depth and value and beauty, and that they had poetry, and above all, they had dignity” (Achebe, The role of the writer 8). Achebe sees his narratives of Africa within the broad context of the dialogue that must go on between the West and Africa. The “restorying” of Africa by Africans must continue in an engagement of the West‟s narratives of Africa until a balance of stories is achieved, for the age long tradition of the West to narrate Africa sordidly cannot be expected to end too soon, “When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don‟t just turn it off one day”. He continues: When the African response began, I think there was an immediate pause on the European side, as if they were saying, okay, we‟ll stop telling this story, because we see there‟s another story. But after a while there‟s a certain beginning again, not quite a return but something like a reaction to the African story that cannot, of course, ever go as far as the original tradition that the Africans are responding to. There‟s a reaction to reaction, and there will be further reaction to that. And I think that‟s the way it will go, until what I call a balance of stories is secured. And this is really what I personally wish this century to see - a balance of stories where every people will be able to contribute to a definition of themselves, where we are not victims of other people‟s accounts. This is not to say that nobody should write about anybody else – I think they should, but those that have been written about should also participate in the making of these stories (in Bacon par. 12). The redemptoral goals of Achebe‟s Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God did not stop with rescuing African cultural identity from the morass of European denigrating colonial and imperial narratives but also to restore to Africans the dignity and confidence in who they are, which they have all but lost during the colonial period (Achebe, The role 14 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY of the writer 8). In his essay “The role of the writer in a new nation”, Achebe shows the self-effacing and traumatic outcomes which decades of European calumniation of the African cultural and religious heritage has on the African psyche: When I was a schoolboy, it was unheard to stage Nigerian dances at any of our celebrations. We were told and we believed that our dances were heathen. The Christian and proper thing to do was for boys to drill with wooden swords and the girls to perform, of all things, Maypole dances. Beautiful clay bowls and pots were only seen in the homes of the heathen. We civilised Christians used cheap enamelwares from Europe and Japan. Instead of water pots, we carried kerosene cans. In fact to say that a product was Igbo-made was to brand it with utmost inferiority. When a people have reached this point in their loss of faith in themselves, their detractors need do no more; they have made their point (Achebe, The role of the writer 9). This social and cultural consciousness of Achebe, further illustrated with his reference to the boy in his wife‟s class who was ashamed to write about the harmattan because he was afraid that the other boys would scorn at him (Achebe, The Novelist as a Teacher 44), crystallised into the purpose that he aims to realise as a writer. He declares: It is my business as a writer to teach that boy that there is nothing disgraceful about the African weather, that the palm tree is a fit subject for poetry. Here then is an adequate revolution for me to espouse … to help my society regain belief in itself and put away the complexes of the years of denigration and self-abasement. And it is essentially a question of education, in the best sense of that word. Here, I think my aims and the deepest aspiration of my society meet. For no thinking African can escape the pain of the wound in our soul … I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my[African] readers that their past…with all its imperfections was not one long night of savagery from which the Europeans acting on God‟s behalf delivered them (The Novelist as a Teacher 44-5). The aims of Achebe, redemptoral and didactic, for his dual novels set in the past are sufficiently clear: to counter the false imperial and colonising narratives of the West 14 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY against Africa by revealing the reality of that which the West denies and denigrates – African human and cultural identity, and history; to recover the subjugated and displaced knowledge of Africans about themselves in order to help them have faith and pride in who they are and have the voice and boldness to declare it. These are aims or purposes he persuades African writers to continue to keep in view always for he considers these aims to constitute the “fundamental theme” of African human and cultural dignity against such other legitimate contemporary concerns like politics, city life and coup d‟etat. According to him “the worst thing that can happen to any people is the loss of their dignity and self- respect” (The role of the Writer 8) agreeing with Armah Kwei‟s later assertion that the idea of political independence without cultural independence is absolutely meaningless for it is only cultural values that “can inspire a people with national pride, give them a separate identity and something to live and die for” (Kwei par. 2). The aim of Achebe to reveal African cultural identity and dignity by engaging the West in dialogue using narratives of Africa that refute the official narratives of the West about Africa conditions his creative and stylistic bent. His choice of words, speech patterns and sentence structures, sources and selections of narrative materials, choice of genre and language level use are all creatively handled to faithfully realise the purpose of the narratives. The translators of these novels, Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, need to reckon with the complementariness between theme, purpose and style in these works. 4.4. The Post-Colonial context of the novels The moral pretensions and ostensible justification for colonialism by the Eurocolonists was the trumped up need to rescue the primitive and barbaric tribes of Africa from their primitiveness and savagery and to bring them to some state of human decency, sanity and civilisation. This rescue was comparable to the effort to make an animal behave and speak like a human being; for the African was regarded to be less than human being linked with the ape, an animal traditionally regarded as lascivious and promiscuous (Berghan 10). This link presupposed that both the Blackman and his brother, the ape were endowed with the same vices. Later it sufficed the Euro-American race idealists, though without fully abandoning the notion of his subhumanity, to regard 14 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the African to be without a history, without a culture and without civilisation. It was no less a towering figure of European thought as Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel who in his postulations on world history excluded Africa from that history and from having a culture. He claims of Africa that: It has no historical interest of its own, for we find its inhabitants living in barbarism and savagery in a land, which has not furnished them with any ingredient of culture. From the earliest historical times, Africa has remained cut off from all contacts with the rest of the world; it is the land of gold, forever pressing in upon itself, and the land of childhood, removed from the light of self-conscious history and wrapped in the dark mantle of night. (Hegel 152) And Immanuel Kant, acclaimed by the Western world as the thinker of human dignity, no less agreeing with Hegel further provided an anthropological extension to the argument which created the Negro, the Blackman, from “the degeneracy due to natural habitat”(David 11) and imbued him with the exceptional characteristics of laziness, indolence and idleness. According to him: The extreme humid heat of the warm climate must, on the other hand show quite opposite effects […] from the preceding ones [the Mongols, discussed just before]. […] The growth of the spongy parts of the body had to increase in hot and humid climate. This growth produced a thick, turned up nose and thick, fatty lips. The skin had to be oily, not only to lessen the too heavy perspiration, but also to ward off the harmful absorption of foul, humid air. The profusion of iron particles, which are otherwise found in the blood of every human being, and, in this case, are precipitated in the net shaped substance through the evaporation of the phosphoric acid (which explains why all Negroes stink), is the cause of the blackness that shines through the epidermis. […] Besides all this, humid warmth generally promotes the strong growth of animals. In short, all of these factors account for the origin of the Negro, who is well suited to his climate namely, strong, fleshy and agile. However, because he is so amply supplied by his motherland, he is also lazy, indolent and dawdling. (Kant 150-152). 14 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Hegel and Kant, among others, make the list of very influential European and Western thinkers whose views and perceptions of Africa and its peoples provided the basis for the attitude and behaviour of the colonialists toward the African and equally provided the subterranean support to the continuing imperial pretensions of Europe and the West. “…even today”, asserts Trees (par. 2), who sees the same perception of Africans in the European and Western minds being extended to subjugated natives, “the „native‟ is still understood as sub-human. Aborigines, be [they] that of Australia, America or Africa … are considered to be variants of „primitive man‟, never the creators of history, only the subjects of anthropology”. (Emphasis mine) Africa was considered a continent inhabited by acultural species of beings incapable of civilisation suited only for slavery, colonization and servitude; and the continent good only for the exploitation of its gold and resources and as an external reserve for the pleasure of the self acclaimed higher civilisations of the West. Being acultural, subhuman and irrational, Africans cannot be assigned a language and a voice – a deliberate dispossession carried over to and reinforced in various early European fictions on Africa. Achebe underscored this dispossession in his reading of Joseph Conrad‟s Heart of Darkness, numbered “among the half-dozen greatest short novels in the English language”, when he notes that: It is clearly not part of Conrad‟s purpose [in Heart of Darkness] to confer language on the “rudimentary souls” of Africa. In place of speech they made “a violent babble of uncouth sounds.” They “exchanged short grunting phrases” even among themselves. But most of the time they were too busy with their frenzy. (An Image of Africa) This deeply set European prejudices about Africa, flowing through the European imagination, produce monologic narratives and images which disparage and displace Africa, violate her psyche, prevent the emergence of her independent cultural self and affirms a cultural ascendancy for Europe on which Europe bases her undue right to subsume Africa to its whims and pleasures. It is only after hundreds of years that these prejudiced monologic narratives would allow the African cultural self the partial chance to be but only as a distorted and hybridised self given on the grace of Europe. These depersonalising master-narratives are sustained by the prevention of an independent 14 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY African cultural voice that could define the separate identity of Africa and question the myth of European cultural hegemony. The postcolonial condition for Africa is thus characterised by the suppression of her voice, the denial of her culture and identity through the propagation of dehumanising narratives and images of Africa, through nationally administered capitalism and imperialism developed and institutionalised in the period of bounded colonial territories, that were created as exclusive spheres of influence of metropolitan countries of Europe, and through Euro-American capitalism, of “imperialism without boarders”(Magdoff in Manji 628), i.e. without bounded enclaves and subjectivities so that “to be postcolonial is to be more than merely and adventitiously „excolonial‟ ” (Jeyifo in Manji 629). This postcolonial condition also includes nationalist and anti-colonial challenges to foreign domination. It is from this condition that postcoloniality as “normativity” concerned with questions of subjectivity, identity and tradition emerged, the postcoloniality associated with Achebe and his novels Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. It involves a return to the source and “a rediscovery or reassertion of the traditions which colonialism sought to destroy or delegitimize” (Manji 629). It entails the engagement in a dialogic struggle, in debate and persuasion, over representation and identity, the demythologizing of European cultural ascendancy self-myth and the refutation of the monologic master-narratives of Europe and the West that exclude and culturally subordinate Africa. This postcoloniality influences the nature of Achebe‟s writing. For example, the stylistic and expressive ingenuity of Achebe that have been duly acknowledged in the many literature to his works under study, i.e. TFA and AOG, are no mere ornamentations for their own sakes, they stress and give emotive and aesthetic power to a communicative intention or purpose. This intention or purpose is carried in the arguments on the validity and legitimacy of the Igbo African cultural identity presented by these two novels. These arguments are, however, not necessarily to force a conviction on the European/Western readers but to present the suppressed, neglected or ignored truths about Africa and the African. They are to provide the overwhelming evidence that exposes and counters the half-truths and non-truths upon which the European/Western attitude towards Africa is based as well as on which the asymmetrical pre-colonial (in the transatlantic slave trade 14 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY particularly) and colonial cultural and power relations with Africa in favour of Europe/the West were based and is still more or less being based in the postcolonial period. Achebe, therefore, does not seek to valorise African culture over those of Europe nor to demonstrate any superiority, which an idealistic precolonial traditional existence might hold over life in Europe, rather he does seek to illuminate the complicated truth of African existence and to provide a concrete insight into the reality of that existence. He makes neither excuses nor apologies for African existence. The postcoloniality which foregrounds Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God follows a crucial thread to postcolonial theory, which aim is not to assert a newly defined cultural power but “to make visible the relative and partial nature of all „truths‟; to expose the ideological biases underwriting any ethical and epistemological system, which would otherwise regard itself as definitive and axiomatic” (Nettlebeck par. 1). The translators equally need to be aware of this location of the achebean source texts in the postcolonial context and how this context reconciles with the authorial communicative purpose. 4.5. The German and the Igbo Cultural and Religious environments. This subsection traces the prevailing world view and cultural attitude of contemporary Germans. It shows the possible similarity and contrast between the Igbo and German tribal cultures and, more importantly, it provides perspective to the cultural and historical distance to tribal or traditional cultures from which Germans of today, to whom the translation of TFA and AOG into German are addressed, would comprehend and relate with the Igbo African traditional culture and from which the German translators of the Igbo tribal culture in TFA and AOG supposedly undertook their work. It contends that the cultural distance from which the contemporary German stands to the Igbo African culture as narrated by Chinua Achebe in TFA and AOG is considerably measurable by the distance from which he stands to his own tribal culture. From their geographical origin in southern Scandinavia and northern „Germany‟, between the Elbe and Oder rivers, within the years 2000 and 1000 B.C.(Boer 122) to their appearance in history at about the mid-first century BC (Ozment 17) when they established themselves in the eastern Rhine valley within or along the borders of the 14 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Roman Empire, the German people (then collectively known as Germanians, Germanic 1 peoples or Germanic tribes) , then neither racially uniform nor transregionally united but existing in composite tribes, developed a warrior culture with the “comitatus” as the most significant aspect of their socio-military structure. The comitatus was a retinue of warriors that voluntarily attached itself to a warrior-lord or king through oaths of loyalty. This retinue militarily protected the lord or king, who in turn provided the protection of the comitatus to individuals and rewarded them with wealth (Tenbrock 11, Hooker par.6). The comitatus was thus a sophisticated military organization built entirely on the economic logic of reciprocity on which the Germanic tribal economy was also based. These warrior lords or kings were rulers of the Germanic tribes; they were “leading men” (in West German dialect, kuning, “leaders of the family”), whom Romans variously called principes, duces, and regas. They were chosen in time of war by an assembly of noble and common warriors (the tribal host) from among the most outstanding men based on the crteria of royal birth, family service, and exceptional valor. Only such men might hold that exalted position (cf: Tenbrock 10, Ozment 18). Before contact with the Romans, these German tribal leaders ruled more by persuasion than by coercion and maintained social peace by equitable divisions of land and wealth within the tribe (Ozment 19). Julius Ceaser was among early observers of the Germanic tribes. He was qouted to have described “their governance as informal and inconsistent, their society communal and egalitarian, their military tactics haphazard and ignoble”; ignoble meaning their ability to “compose”, i.e. to surprise and ambush, in the battlefield. (Ozment 18). 1 We use “early Germans“, “Germanians”, or “Germanic tribes” interchangeably to contrast “modern/contemporary or today‟s „Germans‟”, who, historically, comprised of the Germanic tribes of Charlemagne‟s (747-814 AD{fm. 768 Franconian king, fm. 800 emperor of Germans and Rome}) East Franconian kingdom that preserved their language from Latin as “diutisc”, later transformed as “Deutsch”, and who, in the course of history, founded a nation state of their own in 1871, subsequently known as Germany. “Native” German speakers/readers are, however, found beyond Germany. “Early Germans”, “Germanians” or the “Germanic tribes/people” refers to the historic peoples or tribes who spoke Germanic language(s) as their natural means of communication, who shared common ancestry, cosmology and (pantheistic) religion, and had similar culture and tribal organisation, despite greater sophistication in some tribes than others. Several of the historic Germanic tribes have either vanished or were absorbed into any of the larger groups of modern Germanic peoples. Modern Germanic peoples and languages comprise Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, Icelanders, English, Frisians, Dutch and German. (Tenbrock 25-6, Kappler 93, Pasley 5-6). Historians, though, tend to use “Germans” and “Germanic people” interchangeably when referring to these historic Germanic tribes (cf: Tenbrock 9, Duiker & Spielvogel 403). 14 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY In the reciprocal economy of the Germanic tribes, goods and services were distributed as gifts in an expression of the social responsibility and mutual obligation inhering between members of the group. The social structure also consisted of class distinctions between the Freemen (nobles and commoners) who had the right to bear arms and participate in the tribal council or assembly; Freedmen (serfs) comprising subjugated aliens with limited rights and freemen who had fallen into dependence or serfdom either by gambling away their freedom or selling themselves for food during times of famine; and slaves employed as domestic servants and administrators of large estates. The hereditary aristocracy and nobility dominated the tribal assembly. Serfs and subject peasants tilled their estates, craftsmen produced their jewelry and ceramics and funerary offerings and sacrifices were made to their burials (Tenbrock 10). However, the crucial social bond among the Germanic peoples was the family, especially, the extended family of husbands, wives, children, brothers, sisters, cousins and grandparents. In addition to working the land together and passing it down to future generations, the extended family also provided protection, which was sorely needed in the violent atmosphere of these early times. Times of peace seemed much like times of war. Every man carried his weapons about with him and used them freely. Human life was held cheap, and a quarrel was often settled by the sword. There was no strong government to punish wrong and protect the weak, so men had to protect and help themselves (Harding par 3). It was regarded as a universal duty to afford protection to one‟s kinsmen, to assist them in the redress of wrongs, and to exact vengeance or compensation in the case of death. Germanic laws were personal. When a homicide occurred, vengeance was regarded as a sacred duty incumbent on the relatives and sometimes, at least, the lord also of the slain man. An injury by one person against the other could lead to a blood feud in which the family of the injured party took revenge on the family of the wrong doer. Feuds could lead to savage acts of revenge such as hacking off of hands or feet, gouging out eyes, or slicing off ears and noses (Duiker and Spielvogel 405). The system for redressing wrong including murder was the payment of the “Wergeld”, which was the value of a person in monetary terms based on social status. It is a fine paid by a wrongdoer to the family of the murdered or to the injured. However, 15 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the fine is light, especially for those not belonging to the nobility. There was no fine for killing a serf (Tenbrock 11). Guilt is determined under Germanic law by compurgation and the ordeal. Compurgation involved the swearing of an oath by the accused person backed up by a group of twelve or twenty-five „oath helpers‟, who would also swear that the accused was telling the truth. The ordeal was based on the idea of divine intervention: divine forces would not allow an innocent person to be harmed (Duiker and Spielvogel 405). These early Germans were organized in clans of fairly nomadic settlements consisting of 100 to 500 persons living in cabins or huts made of wood roughly hewn into boards and timber or of twigs woven together or in caves. A settlement can move when existing pasture was no more sufficient for the entire community. The clan had a legal and defensive significance, while each settlement was a patriarchy inhabited by small families whose fields, homes and cattle were private property and were divided among the heirs in the event of death. Men built the homestead and sheds for livestock and till crops, fight or hunt and when not doing any of those would mostly be found by the fire sleeping, or engaged in gambling; while the cultivation of the field and garden, the care of the home and domestic animals, and the upbringing of the children fell chiefly to the women in a natural division of work (Tenbrock 10, Harding: par. 6). Marriage was monogamous, adultery was forbidden to both partners in marriage but was severely punished in the case of the wife, “an offended husband could whip and even kill an adulterous wife” (Cole 5). They lived in a natural forest environment in which vast and gloomy pine and deciduous forests that worsen the humidity covered mountains and plains like a virgin forest. The few villages and farmsteads as well as the infrequent roads that crudely cut through the thick woods were concealed behind the impenetrability of their trunks. These Germanians were never colonized by Rome because Julius Caesar, according to Kitchen (16), believed that such a country “inhabited by barbarians with its thick forest teeming with unicorns and other mysterious animals could never be colonized and was best ignored”. Germanic tribal religion was both polytheist and pantheist. It consisted in “a form of nature worship in which everything was full of gods”(Gerrish 445): water, spring, 15 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY stream and river, mountain, tree and plant, air, wind and storm either manifest divine powers friendly to man or they manifest superterrene forces and powers against him. Although they share a religious awe of the divine, “attribution of certain divine powers do not necessarily carry with it attribution of divine personality” (Tenbrock 11). Cole (6), however, notes that personal relationships did exist in certain cases between the Germans and some of their gods: “Germanic gods were perceived as superhuman and powerful, with whom tribesmen had a very personal and mutual trust, service and loyalty – except, of course, when particular gods were duplicitous, selfish and cruel”. Consequently, there was no special place set aside for the worship of the divine, no specific picture, no shrine, no special representation in wood, stone or statute in which the divine was especially dwelling. Religious practice was largely shamanistic. Prayer, sacrifice and religious worship took place in sacred groves and, sometimes, by bodies of water offered by a man, or mostly, a woman who was believed to enjoy a special relationship with the divine (Hooker par. 8, Tenbrock 12). Germanic tribes approached their worship in an appeasement mode that sometimes included human sacrifice, often but not always prisoners of war. Among the Germanic tribe of the Cimbri, white-clad priestesses supervised the ritual of suspending the victims over a large bronze cauldron, cutting their throats and letting the blood flow into the vessel. Human sacrifice also included drowning young girls (Cole 6). In the pantheon of Germanic tribal gods were Odin (Wotan or Woden), the oldest and most powerful and the chief of the Germanic gods. He was the storm and wind god or the god of the heavens or the sky. He was the principal representative of the forces of nature, but he was also the god that led souls to the after life and was the source of all magic and special knowledge (Hooker par. 8) as well as the god of war (Harding par. 13), who would summon warriors that had gloriously fallen in battle to Valhalla (hall of the slain) and drink and carouse with them (Oster 3). The spear was his emblem. Odin was believed to have been married to Freya, the goddess of fertility, considered the only important goddess of the Germanians (Karen par. 1). However, Reaves (par. 3,12) records that Odin was married to the polynymous earth-goddess or mother-earth, Jord (variously known as Frigg, Nerthus, Fj”rgyn, and Hlodyn), who was the foremost goddess, the patron of marriage and motherhood and the goddess of love; and that they 15 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY gave birth to Thor, Balder, and Hodr. From a marriage with Audir (also Njord), the god of commerce and the seas, Frigg or Jord, the earth-goddess, also gave birth to Frey and Freya, the goddess of love and fertility. Freya was the most beautiful and propitious of the goddesses; she is the patron goddess of crops and birth, the symbol of sensuality. Frigg was thus the mother of gods. She also possesses the power of prediction. Next in the pantheon was Thor (Donar), the god of thunder and lightening. He is the Germanic god of strength who defended the gods and people against the dangerous giants in Germanic myths (Karen par. 1 Reaves par. 16). He carried a big hammer. Loki was the German god of tricks, who could transform himself into lots of different shapes if he wanted. He was the father of Fenrir, the giant wolf and of Hel, a goddess who ruled the kingdom of the dead. Then was Tyr, the god of war treaties and contracts, of keeping promises and of law. He is a god of order as opposed to chaos (Caren par. 1). Besides the gods mentioned above, there were others in the pantheon; and both heaven and earth were populated with nymphs, spirits, elves, goblins, witches, werewolves ranging from friendly to the hostile, “and spirits of the dead were believed to live on in trees and waters near the locales where they had dwelt in life” (Cole 6). The Germanians were also held together by a common myth of creation and origin by which they believed that “the world started with nothingness” and one primeval giant being emerged out of the nothingness. His name was Yamir (also Twisto or Tuisto), an anthropomorphic, androgynous primeval being, who engendered the dreadful brood of frost giants. Yamir was fed by a cow, Audhumla, which formed out of melting rime. This cow made another primal being, Buri, which she shaped out of the salty block of ice from which she fed. Buri begets a son, Borr. Borr marries Bestla, the daughter of the giant Bolporn. Borr and his wife beget three sons: Odinn, Vili and Ve. Odin and his brothers killed Tuisto, the primeval giant. The flow of blood gushing from his wounds drowns all the frost giants except Bergelmir, who escaped mysteriously with his family to continue the race. Odin and his brothers created the world from the dead body of Yamir, the earth from his flesh, the mountains from his bones, the sea and the lakes from his blood, the sky from his skull, his hair the trees, his brain the clouds (Polome 522-533). They also created man and woman from two pieces of drift wood (Karen par. 2). 15 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The Germanians called the main part of the world where people lived, middle-earth, and they believed that a big ocean surrounded it. Somewhere within middle earth, they said was Asgard, where the gods lived. You got there by crossing the rainbow like bridge. The world of the dead, Hel, was somewhere in the cold north and sometimes associated with a world of giants, who attack fertility goddesses and carry them off to Persephone (Karen 2007:par. 4). They also conceived of a cosmic race of giants separate from the gods and with whom the gods made a war that eventually culminated in their destruction in the „Götterdaemmerung‟ (twilight of the gods). These gods and giants were considered to be beyond good and evil, they were powerful and awe-inspiring, however, they were neither eternal nor omnipotent (Cole 6). There is the possibility of comparison and contrast between the German tribal culture and the Igbo tribal culture narrated by Achebe. This comparison can be found in the egalitarian and communal organisation of their societies; in the appeal of both tribal cultures to the divine, the supernatural, the transcendental and the spiritual; in their location of man between the divine and nature; their recognition of life beyond the present life and of the continued existence of the dead as spirits capable of presence in physical life; their possession of pantheon of gods with anthropomorphic characters, for instance, we note in the narration of Igbo tribal culture that Eru, the god of wealth, goes to visit Idemili or the other deities (AOG 8-9), and that the mother of Agwu (a goddess) gave birth also to madness(AOG 202). Furthermore, except for Chukwu, the supreme God, and Chi in Igbo culture, gods in the religion of both cultures are not eternal. Both cultures have a sense of communality, support and defence that arise from the kinship of the extended family, however, the Igbo tribal culture locates this kinship within a broader communality with deep spiritual significance and implications; both have an autochthonous myth of origin; and each of the cultures is capable of that bizarreness of conduct, like human sacrifice, that can only be understood and explained within its own internal logic without comparison with another. Both tribal cultures are characterized by an attitude of independence and individual self-assertion, but within the clan and community, seen in the democratic spirit of participation in the tribal assembly. In the ancient tribal culture, the Germanians, like the Igbos, have no kings only “warrior leaders” who must continue to be powerful and provide leadership in war times and in 15 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY battle or be dropped as leaders. Both societies are class-structured and included slaves; and significantly, both tribal cultures had the comparative „(dis)honour‟ of being labelled “primitive” and “barbaric” by imperial powers: Rome, in the case of the Germans, and Europe, in the case of the Igbos. However, marriage was dominantly polygamous and the family dominantly patriarchal in the Igbo tribal culture. Furthermore, though both tribal cultures acknowledge the wonder of nature and have each a pantheon of gods and goddesses dedicated to each aspect of mysterious nature, the Igbo gods and goddesses, beneficent or malign, are lesser divinities who are properly seen merely as particular manifestations in time and space of the omnipresence and omnipotence of „Chukwu‟, “as shaped and fleshed out by cosmic forces acting on the human perception” (Umezuruike, Iroaganachi, Nwaogugu, Agba, Elezue ix). Chukwu is the one supreme immanent Being, God, who is creator of all things, including man, spirits and the lesser gods and whose awesomeness nature reflects; and human nature instinctively seeks, asserts and confesses its author. Chukwu is high above His creatures in nature “but present among and in communion with them in action and influence” (Iwe 11). However, as Echeruo (1979:20) makes clear: God among the Igbo is certainly nothing like the God of the Christians. … He has no heaven and no troop of angels and saints ministering to him. He has promulgated no Decalogue, and He has not appointed a day he will judge the living and the dead. In fact, the dead are not dead…because among the Igbo there is continual coming and going from this life to the other and back [in reincarnations]. Iwe (8) presents the basic elements of Igbo traditional religion as a geometrical triangle with „Chukwu‟ at the apex, the two sides symbolizing the good and evil divinities while the baseline represents „chi‟ and the ancestors. Iwe also gives a list of and comments on the major deities of the Igbo pantheon of divinities (12-16). Some of them already mentioned in 4.1 above need no closer elaboration here. The first is “Ala” (Ani or Ane), the goddess of fertility and custodian of public morality in cooperation with the spirit of departed, venerable and deified ancestors. Echeruo (19) refers to Ala as “one 15 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY divinity beyond the capriciousness of Igbo men …which no man or woman and no community could afford to offend, much less discard…”. Next is Ahiajoku, the god of yam and farmwork. It is the custodian of soil fertility and good harvest; Anyanwu is the sun god regarded as a benevolent divinity and prayers are offered to it for good health. The cult of this divinity is, however, more important in the northern Igbo sub-cultural area around Nsukka and Obolafor; Amadioha (also Kamalu or Kalu) is the god of thunder and lightening regarded in Igboland as a divinity of vengeance against the wicked and evildoers. It is Chukwu‟s minister of justice. As a rule, victims of Amadioha are not given normal burial, and their possessions, especially; movable property and personal effects are either alienated or publicly cast away as refuse; Igwe, the god of the sky who sends rain to irrigate the earth. In Igbo mythology, he is the husband of Ala, the earth goddess in union with whom the earth is rendered fertile and productive. However, the cult of this divinity is not widespread in Igboland; Agwu, the god of medicine. These gods and divinities were intermediaries to „Chukwu‟ and it was the height of spiritual arrogance and personal and social indiscretion, considered to amount to suicide “to ignore these powerful intermediary spirits by appealing to God directly” (Iwe 14). CHI, as Echeruo (20) rightly explains, “[is] probably one of the most complex theological concepts ever devised to explain the Universe. It is a concept which both accounts for the Universe, and explains Good and Evil, tragedy and good fortune, order and conflict, character and destiny, freewill and metaphysical order”. In a closer and more specific individual usage, it refers also to the personal divine essence or “spark of the divine in man” with whose cooperation, action and interaction, auspices and guidance every human being lives out his or her divinely ordained course of life, participates in the divine ordering of the universe and shares in the Supreme Being. It is “the basis and pledge of each man‟s immortality and reincarnation, and his avenue of communion with his ancestors and posterity” (Iwe 3, 16). A man‟s relationship with his „chi‟, as Echeruo notes, “is a very complex one”. The Igbo practise a type of „enlightened spiritual pragmatism‟ by which they are ever prepared to abandon the worship of any god whose relevance to their lives is not sustained. Echeruo (18-19) explains this quite profoundly: 15 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY […] part of the peculiar quality of Igbo life […] is that the Igbo do not appear to care about churches and temples, and even about gods! This statement will shock many people who would want to simply hear that the Igbo people are a very deeply religious people, which is true. What is equally true is that we are a thoroughly iconoclastic people; that we keep our gods in our hearts and have only an appropriately respectful attitude to the circumstances that surround them. We respect the gods, but, […], we also expect the gods to respect us humans. We acknowledge the power of the gods, and cultivate that power; but when these gods consistently fail to prove themselves powerful, we reserve the right to discard them and seek out new gods. In fact circumstances greater than the gods themselves will take care of the matter. The above observation by Echeruo explains the precariousness of the priest‟s position in Igbo traditional culture. His god can be abandoned by the people, thereby, rendering his office and power void and of no effect. This also makes the fate that befell Ezeulu, priest of the communal deity in Arrow of God and protagonist in the novel, understandable when his god that has been abandoned by the people abandoned him. He was abandoned both by his god and the people. We wish to point out here that given the comparability of the Germanic and Igbo tribal cultures and religion, though in certain and limited respects, a German target readership located within the proximity of or sensitive to his own tribal culture would most likely respond with less shock and aversion to the strangeness of the cultural content of the source text as translated, especially in view of the affinity of both tribal cultures to the spiritual and the religious and their physical location within an undisturbed natural environment. The cultural distance of Germans today to the tribal culture narrated in TFA and AOG may, therefore, be measured in the distance they stand to their own tribal culture. The march towards the alienation of Germans from their tribal culture and its pantheistic spiritual inclination began with their encounter with Rome beginning from the third century C.E. when they began to move into the lands of the then Roman empire (Duiker and Spielvogel 403) to their acceptance of Christianity with its own spiritual heritage bound in one “personal” supreme God in the catholic church. 15 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The split from the dominant and monolithic Christian worldview that had become the very foundation of Western civilization (Haar 540) was inaugurated by the spirit of dissent engendered by the protestant reformation (Root 131). Although the reformation had not questioned the religious, the spiritual and the monotheistic Christian view of one personal supreme God who is creator of all but only questioned the infallibility and definitiveness of the catholic church‟s doctrines within Christendom, its spirit of dissent was carried into the enlightenment though first transformed by the mechanical- th philosophy of the 17 century which began the alienation of the religious by offering the materialistic worldview that “matter and natural laws of motion explained all phenomenon (Machamer and Poppa par. 4). Darwin‟s works on evolution demonstrated the possibility that living organisms can be accounted for on a material basis without any need of a biblical creator or supernatural purposes (P. Johnson 15-6). This secular Weltanschauung of science was followed and deepened by the cultural movement of the enlightenment, which approves an understanding of the natural world, including humankind, on the basis only of reason with no possibility of appealing to the supernatural. The enlightenment, whose leading proponent was Immanuel Kant, not only secularised or dissolved Christian values and worldviews and adopted them as mere ethical principles (Haar 539-40) but also enthroned rationalism, liberalism, i.e. the inviolable dignity and liberty of the individual, as fundamental world views and determinants of attitudes and behaviours. Swart (82) notes that the roots of the philosophy of the enlightenment are “its rehabilitation of the principle of self-interest, its belief in the power of reason, and its distrust of social institutions including religion”. This implies, therefore, that the world view of the enlightenment approves of the individual to act unrestrained by collective norms and values and to exclude every apprehension of reality that appeals to the spiritual and the transcendental and that is not accessible to reason. The desire and effort of German Romanticism to restore to Western civilisation “a spiritually meaningful philosophy of life” and “to reinstate man in his former position as the being ontologically centred between the divine and nature” (Haar 540) were contained, firstly, in its uncovering of the deeper irrational forces of the human spirit and releasing the yearning of the soul for the lost, the unattainable and disappearing, the 15 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY religious, spiritual and traditional. Secondly, it emphasized „individuality‟, which integrated the individual into an „organic Volk or Gemeinschaft‟ and allowed his individual genius to flourish within the norms, beliefs and aspirations of the collective (Karlberg 337-9). This was in contrast to the „individualism‟ of the enlightenment and liberalism, which permitted a “social Darwinism” (Karlberg 339) that intensified “the spirit of everyone for himself and himself alone, resulting in a cutthroat competition and a struggle of all against all”(Leroy Maxime. Histoire des Idees in Swart 80). German Romanticism further developed a concept of nationhood that thought of the nation as an „organism‟ – a living and expanding community, which could justifiably lay claim to „Lebensraum‟ (livingspace) the more vigorous its life becomes (Tenbrock 175). The romantic worldview, with its cult of the nation, opposed enlightenment and liberalism and “capitalist modernity” with their callous indifference to all hitherto sacred spiritual values (Rosengarten par. 2). German Romantic thinking was one of the strands of thought within the German age of classical humanism, also known as German age of idealism in philosophy, located between the birth of G.E. Lessing in 1729 and the death of J.W. Goethe in 1832. The age is regarded as the most glorious period in German cultural history when the foundations for a German national literature, poetry, music and philosophy were laid; it, however, was also the age in Germany, which brought “the great shift from religious and otherworldly values to secular and worldly ideals” (Pinson 13). All of Lessing, Herder, Goethe, and Schiller promoted a worldview that ultimately pointed to the human element in history and promoted morality and reason rather than the theological dogma of any religion. The attempt of Hegel, considered to be the culminating figure of this German age of th idealism (Lauer 244), to mediate between the rationalism of the 18 century and romanticism‟s inclination to nature and the spiritual by synthesizing or at least embracing “the various contradictions and disharmonies of religion and morality” and reconcile “humanity and nature, science and religion” in his dialectic of history led to a “philosophy of nature” that seemed “to reassert the innate pantheistic instinct of the German soul”(Gerrish 445). In Hegel‟s philosophy, „God‟ (Hegel‟s absolute Geist or Spirit) is viewed not as “God within, certainly not a transcendent God without, but the 15 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY God who ultimately we are …” (Solomon 186), i.e. God existing “only as actualised in nature and becomes self-conscious only through the consciousness of human beings” (Hardimon 51 in Meynagh par. 4). This means that human beings not as individuals but as “the ultimate unity of the whole of humanity and of humanity and the world” (Solomon 186) are God. However, this absolute spirit is neither the transcendent (Christian) God nor nature nor man but a fusion of all three such that neither God nor nature nor man possesses individuality. Solomon notes that the essential element in Hegel‟s concept of spirit is precisely “this loss of individuality” (187). In this hybrid identity Hegel creates a unity in the progress of history that is to be accessible to reason, and all of God, nature and man can be subjected to the observation and analysis of reason. Solomon further observes the significance of this subsumation of God, nature and man to reason in the Hegelian view and in his pursuit of a synthesis: …reason resolves by harmonizing and elevating […] the disharmonies between self and others, between God and man, between morality and personal inclination, between nature and knowledge. The spirit of absolute knowing is both immanent God and human society. It is also nature … there is no separating God from nature or from man and it is folly to separate freedom from nature, or morality from society as Kant seemed to have done in his philosophy. (205) Although the God-nature-man identity conception of Hegel could engender a social theory that made harmony attainable and possible through the expression of solidarity within human community, i.e. through the interaction of individuals with each other within the institutions of family, civil society and the modern state, Hegel‟s philosophy and worldview deny the personal God of the Christians (or of religion), removed him as a vital reality to man, and demystified nature. God and nature became fused in man. Meynagh (par. 20) notes in this regard that “a very important fact about the character of Hegel‟s philosophy is the absence of God as a Vital Reality, i.e. not only as a matter of cognition but as a driving force of Reality as it is crystallized in the form of existence (be it human or otherwise). … [and] in Hegel the Gnostic Cosmos turns into a Social Fabric, which loses its sense of „wonder‟ and „awe‟ ”. 16 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Furthermore, the overall worldview provided by the entire Hegelian thought did not really succeed in removing the tension between reason and religion or faith, and between the individual and community. Hegel had sought to find a logic and inner meaning in the process of history that can be accessible to rational and scientific observation and analysis. However, as Pinson (51) notes concerning Hegel‟s philosophy, Hegel‟s emphasis on the idea of development and change, his conception of the „Volkgeist‟ or unique spirit inherent in each national group, his equal elaboration of the idea of the „Machtstaat‟ with its worship of the powerful state as the highest political entity subject to no law but its own, and his acceptance of the Prussian patriarchal state of his own time as the concrete realisation of his political ideal brought him closer to romantic and historical nationalism and conservatism rather than to the liberal, rational and universal tradition of the enlightenment. Consequently, the synthesis of the Hegelian system was short-lived after his death. It broke up into the idea of the dialectic, and the idea of the „Machtstaat‟ that glorified the romantic notion of the nation. The romantic worldview with its notion of the „Machtstaat‟ provided the zest to the Prussian state for the founding of a German nation-state in 1871, but it was finally turned into a despicable monster in the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler. Karl Marx took the idea of the dialectic, removed whatever spirituality remained in the Hegelian notion of ”Geist” and propounded his notion of „dialectic materialism‟, which would bring about a communist world. However, it would be a world without God and religion for religion as “the opium of the people” is the “illusory happiness of men” that needed to be abolished so that men can attain their “real happiness” (11-23 in Roberts par. 20). The communist ideology further predicates a „cultural Marxism‟ that enjoins the abolition of the family and gender. It is premised on the beliefs that prehistoric communities had neither family, private property nor state and that life in these communities was maternal not patriarchal; that the patriarchal family arose as a product of and the basic unit and stage of private property that resulted in the unjust dominance of the bourgeoisie across time (Poster 43-44). The patriarchal family also produces the “Authoritarian Personality” of the male that created inequality against the largest constituency of the “oppressed”, i.e. the women (Atkinson par. 14 -17, Raehn par. 4, 5). 16 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Marxian cultural thought claims that “the first property of the family was wives and children who were slaves of the husband. This latent slavery in the family was the first property”. The patriarchal family is thus the root cause of slavery (Raehn par. 2, 3). It, therefore, has to be abolished and with it the „authoritarian personality‟ in order that the „proletariat‟ would acquire political supremacy, and both masculinity and feminity transcended so that a “general humanness” suitable to a communist world would be established (cf. Atkinson par. 17, Raehn par. 7). The communist ideology is thus not only opposed to private property and the state, it is also opposed to God and religion as well as to the patriarchal family and gender. The common feature underlining the two parts into which the Hegelian worldview broke up is their isolation of God and religion and the spiritual. Nazi Germany, which was the culmination of the idea of the Machtstaat, de-emphasized religion. The Nazi regime retained religious instruction in schools, however, not for instruction in any religious doctrine but as a vehicle for nationalistic and moralistic indoctrination that “simply bolstered the ideological concepts that were congenial to a regime based on „blood and soil‟ ” (Hunt 309-10). Alfred Rosenberg, Hitler‟s supervisor from 1934 for the indoctrination of the national socialist‟s ideology and worldview through the schools, asserts (cited in Hunt 308) “the structure of the instructional programme in all categories of schools has already been changed to an education in such an anti-Christian and anti- Semitic manner that the growing youth will be kept from the black swindle”. This anti- religious stance of the Nazi regime was a continuation, perhaps a culmination, of a general apathy to religion that characterized the German people such that Nazi propaganda was but absorbed in minds in which Christian instruction had either been completely ineffectual or had merged with a nationalistic philosophy. Hunt (310) further notes in this regard: Prior to this period [the Nazi period], there seems to be little evidence that the brotherhood of man, the fatherhood of god, or even the ideas of mercy and charity were implanted in the German mind. Religion was undoubtedly an important influence in the lives of a minority of the German people, but in spite of a long and thorough system of instruction, the bulk of the nation seemed indifferent to 16 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the institutional program of the church and relatively unaffected by any distinctively Christian theology. However, it was Friedrich Nietzsche who declared in finality that “God is dead” (Nietzsche 80; Haar 542) validating a worldview in which “the individual human being is the measure of all things”, and by which “the secular mind ultimately believes that man is the Ubermensch, or God-unto-oneself”. Speaking through the authorial voice in his "deepest ever written work" Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche writes: Of old man said God when he gazed over far seas; but now I have taught you to say, Superman. God is a surmise [conjecture]; but I will that your surmises overreach not your creating will. Could ye create a god? – Then be silent, I pray you, concerning all gods! But you might well create the Superman. … God is a surmise; but I will that ye limit your surmise to the conceivable. Could ye conceive a god?- -But let this be your Will to Truth, that all be transmuted to that which man can conceive, man can see, man can touch! You shall follow out your faculties to the end! That which ye have called world is yet by you to be created: It shall become your reason, your conception, your will, your love! And, verily, this shall be for for your bliss, ye that have understanding. (Nietzsche 76. Part II: The happy isle) Nietzsche regarded Christianity as “an essentially medieval outlook on life” that “no longer provided a valid interpretation of life” (Bluhm 717, 721). He, however, wished to preserve “the religious attitude of devotion to lofty goals” and, therefore, proposed for the draining of the religious sentiment still operative in his age the replacement of the religious experience or spirit with a secular artistic experience or spirit in which one could “freely indulge his imperious emotional and imaginative needs”(Bluhm 717,721, 725-6). Art as „a purely human secular culture‟ replaced religion and God. But it was not just new knowledge and ideas that alienated the German from his tribal culture and spirituality and sustained his progressive alienation from even his Christian spiritual heritage and from the religious and God. Industrialization, urbanization or the growth of cities, the historical accidents of the two world wars, and the speedy growth of communication and information technology did much to validate a secular, 16 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY liberal, individualistic outlook and faith in material progress which dominate the life and attitude of Germans today. A 1992 survey of religious beliefs in Germany by Der Spiegel magazine through the Emnid Institute, Bielefield and published in the journal of the Sociology of Religion in 199, shows that 56% of Germans in west Germany believe that God exists, 12% do not and 30% did not know whether God exists. A further 17% believe in a higher Being; while in East Germany, 27% believe that God exists, 47% do not and 25% do not know whether God exists. This means that, on the average, only 41.5% of Germans believe in the existence of God. A combined 29.5% and 27.5% average of the respective number of those who do not believe that God exists and those who do not know whether God exists show that to majority of Germans God does not really matter in their daily lives. Furthermore, the survey shows that of the respective 12% and 47% West and East Germans who do not believe that God exists, 11% and 7% are Protestants and Catholics respectively, while out of the respective 30% and 25% of West and East Germans that do not know whether God exists 34% and 23% are Protestants and Catholics respectively (Abschied von Gott 41, 44; Shand 180-181). These results not only mean that more East Germans do not believe in God but more importantly, they show that church affiliation does neither mean belief in the existence of God nor faith in Him. Besides, the percentage of those that believe in the existence of God does not mean more church affiliation because this percentage includes Jews, Muslims and other non-Christians. Indeed, the survey shows that only 10% of Germans go to church “every or almost every” Sunday, 12% go at least once in a month and 35% go to church only on special family occasions: if one is baptized, partakes in communion, is confirmed as a member, is married or buried. There are 62% of those not affiliated to any church. This is obviously more than those who attend church every Sunday (Abschied von Gott 38, Shand 180). The survey further shows that only 32% of Germans believe that man comes from Adam and Eve (Abschied von Gott 37); only 29% and 17% of West and East Germans respectively believe in Jesus as the Son of God. 43% in the west considered him to be just a human being, but a great one who could still be considered a great role model. 23% indicated that Jesus had no meaning for them and 3% questioned that he had ever existed 16 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY (Shand 181, Abschied von Gott 41); 67% of Germans have a Bible in their shelves but only 5% read it often (Spiegel Abschied von Gott 44); only half of Germans believe that the Bible is the word of God, and only one in ten believes that there is nothing false in the Bible (Shand181, Abschied von Gott 41); only a minority believe that the miracles which are reported in the Bible really occurred whether it be the ascension, the raising of the dead, the feeding of the 5000, or the walking on water (Shand 181, Abschied von Gott 41); and only a minority believe either in the virgin birth or in the last judgement(Shand 182, Abschied von Gott 41). The survey finds out a generational gap in belief in that only half as many Germans under thirty years of age believe in Jesus, the son of God, as do their older country men, and that to most Germans the church and religion are considered unimportant (Shand 181, Abschied von Gott 44). The basis of this rejection of and departure from God by most Germans lies in the desire for autonomy and independence by the secular mind to live unrestrained by any form of control that is foreign to it, be it that of any Being considered almighty and supernatural or human. The church and its almighty God, considered by many Germans to be as much puzzled, indifferent, and helpless to the suffering and devastation confronting man as well as guilty of them; parents; teachers; and even institutions that tend to exercise control over the individual including the (traditional) family with its „conservative and old-time values‟ are seen as objectionable obstacles towards the consummation of an individualistic, secular and liberal worldview. The Spiegel report notes as much: Der Wunsch nach Autonomie ist zur Grundüberzeugung fast aller Menschen geworden. Sie sind nicht mehr bereit hinzunehmen, dass ihr Leben fremd bestimmt wird. Dieser Trend, den auch Eltern und Lehrer zu spüren bekommen, trifft die Kirchen besonders hart. In Frage gestellt wird sogar Gott, ihre höchste Autorität …. Bis in Äusserlichkeiten hinein ist zu beobachten, wie wenig das Leben in den Kirchen dem modernen Streben nach Autonomie und Individualität entspricht (Abschied von Gott 44-5). 16 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY This secular, rationalistic, individualistic and liberal worldview and the pursuit of the material happiness of man conditioned the blossoming today in Germany, like in other Western societies, of experimentation with alternative lifestyles and with more accepting beliefs different from those prescribed and validated by a tribal cultural and religious/spiritual worldview which today is considered conservative and outdated. Sexuality long repressed has become open; promiscuity is tolerable and such tribal cultural and Christian spiritual virtues like preserving one‟s virginity until marriage is no more fashionable; transsexuality and other types of sexual perversions are being tolerated; marriage to a partner is no more necessarily for a lifetime; birth control and abortion have become relevant; the roles of couples in marriage are no more strictly regulated by gender but by contract and choice; the definitions of marriage and of couples in marriage are no more gender fixed as same sex marriages and single parenthood by choice have become tolerable; women are increasingly „liberated‟ and are no more accepting the traditional and gender restrictions on how they live their lives and use their bodies; marriage and having children are no more fashionable because they do not seem to fit modern lifestyles and they restrict the freedom and self indulgence of the individual; children have constitutionally or legally guaranteed rights and can challenge their parents. Such society, so functionally stratified by multiple and alternative moralities and in which only the individual and the state is what is left, loses the ability for spiritual communal cohesion and very sharply contrasts the culture and society in Achebe‟s Things Fall Apart and Arrow Of God. Sing (Family Policy... in Germany 1) lists the variations and reclassifications of the family in today‟s Germany that have grown out of these alternative lifestyles and have replaced the “usual or normal” German family of the 50‟s, which he sketched as follows: “married, with child(ren), common household, two natural parents in the household, lifelong marriage, exclusive monogamy, heterosexuality, husband as the main breadwinner, two-adult household”. The list includes: “singles, non-marital partnership, childless marriage, living apart or together, one-parent family, binuclear family, step-and adoptive family, successive marriages, non-exclusive relationships, homosexual partnership, egalitarian marriage, marriage with dual careers, house-husband marriage, 16 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY household with more than two adults, three-plus generation household and/or a flat sharing community”. Dorsinville shows that the socio-ethical code and cultural features of today Germans described above also characterise contemporary European culture. The European culture is one in which religion is absent and faith is rather invested in material progress. According to Dorsinville: European culture subjugates the world of the spirits, the supernatural or denies it. Instead of submission to nature there is domination of nature. In ethical and social terms, Europe considers the individual as being above the group. It stresses his pragmatic sense. The measure of an individual‟s success in life is his ability to translate his feelings, his outlook, in practical terms of a move away from the mysteries of nature. Rebellion seems to win over obedience; the child rebels against his parents, the young man against his society (215). This contemporary German/European culture sharply contrasts that of the Igbo African in which man does not see himself as an individual but as a member of a group, whether it is the family, the tribe or the clan; and this belonging extends to the animal world, the world of the “telos” (plants, rivers and air) i.e. nature, and finally the world of the spirits and gods, the dead and the ancestors, and the unborn. “There is a basic sense of communality in the traditional culture, a seminal stance of solidarity and togetherness. In short the group, in all its extensions, exists before the individual, who upon birth enters into an integrated order of beings” (Dorsinville 214). The contemporary German socio-physical environment also differs from that of the Igbo tribal culture narrated in Achebe‟s TFA and AOG. While the Igbos narrated in TFA and AOG live in the middle of nature, 88% of Germans today live in towns and cities of differing land and population sizes (Hintereder 9). These towns and cities, independent of an economy dominated by agriculture and characterized by modern industries and factories and technological innovations in information, communication, transportation, health, energy, water and other spheres of material life provide numerous occupational choices and alternative lifestyles unknown in traditional cultures. The physical environment of these towns and cities represent, in the least, a conquest of the natural 16 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY environment known to tribal cultures: specially planned housing arrangements on well- constructed and tarred streets with street lights, street trees and rooftop gardens for pleasure and to ameliorate temperature extremes, large or small public squares at all significant intersections, street trams and rails above and below ground, automobiles, light rail or rapid train, museums, huge stadiums and theatres for entertainment, restaurants and hotels and holiday resorts, water borne to houses on pipes, and other city and town infrastructures, which have taken the place of natural vegetations. All these features of modern towns contrasts to the physical environments affecting the people and culture narrated in the source texts. This secular, individualistic and liberal contemporary German European world view and culture and the agelong degrading media and narratives on Africa by Europe and the West in general represent the alienation from tribal culture, and the cultural and attitudinal distance and difference from which the German target readership receives the narratives and images of the Igbo African culture portrayed in Chinua Achebe‟s “Things Fall apart” and “Arrow of God” translated into German. It also forms the background from which the German translators may carry out the translating of these two African novels or at least the background which the translators may give consideration in their translating. Source and target culture difference or similarity, proximity or distance can be significant in the translation of foreign cultures from literary sources with regard to the understanding of purposes. For instance, taking the case of the Germans, could the translation of such novels as “Things Fall apart” and “Arrow of God”, which detail a foreign tribal culture into the German cultural system serve through innate comparison to awaken in the German readers of the translations the consciousness of their own “lost” tribal culture? Could it be to affirm a self-acclaimed supremacy or superiority of the German European culture above others by making the German readers see how “inferior and degraded” these other cultures are and, therefore, make them see how proud and contented of their own culture they should be? Could it be to bring to the knowledge of Germans the existence of other cultures and peoples so that Germans could become more open-minded to difference? And such other questions. Purpose in this study is considered to be important to translating approaches and techniques. 16 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Chapter Five Analysis and Discussion of TFA 5.1. The Translation of Proverbs. 5.1.1. The Nature of Proverbs. Proverbs form a part of a people‟s oral traditions. Oral traditions are “testimonies of the past which are deliberately transmitted from mouth to mouth” (Vansina 11 in Andah & Okpoko 203). These testimonies are not only the main available sources for the reconstruction of the past especially in those parts of the world without writing, and even among people who have writing (Vansina 11), they also constitute one form of a people‟s oral literature (Andah & Okpoko 203, Ajadi 120) that like other forms of literature are dependent on a performer who formulates them in words, spoken on a specific occasion and constitute one formalized aspect of oral communication (Andah & Okpoko 203). From the point of view of literature, oral traditions constitute the oral genres or the classified means and methods, which a cultural community uses to communicate or transfer to its young ones the most important elements of its culture including its values, beliefs, customs, thoughts, attitudes and norms, and the expectations of its race. The authorship of these traditions is usually not known. Although emphasizing their importance to the historian, Andah and Okpoko refer to oral sources that do not deliberately attempt to recreate history to be the wide range of popular materials associated with the arts and religion which among others include riddles, jokes, anecdotes, proverbs, songs and stories set in the past (203). AbdulRasheed Na‟Allah (103) classified oral literary traditions into prose, poetry and drama forms. Among the prose are included myths, legends, folktales, proverbs, and riddles and jokes, while Obiechina (26) in his work “Culture, Tradition and Society in the West African Novel” with particular reference to the works of Chinua Achebe lists folktales, legends, myths, proverbs, traditional maxims and cryptic anecdotes as oral traditional forms. This list also includes incantations. The content of a people‟s oral literature depends on the environment, temperament and occupation of the people. A sea-faring people or a race of hunters will base their oral 16 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY literature on the sea and land respectively, whereas mountainous and lowland peoples will respectively base their oral literature accordingly. People who live in the tropics are likely to have been exposed to influences different from those in the temperate regions. Speaking on the integral nature of environment to culture and literature, Nwoga says of the Igbos: The Igbo, like every other people, have observed their environment and interacted with it. They have embedded their observations and reactions in their language and literature, in their patterns of organisation and relationships. (NKA na NZERE 9) Proverbs are wise and apt sayings or compositions that validate and lend credence to assertions during discussions. Terse and imaginative, they tacitly point out the value or relevance of traditional wisdom in a given situation or context. In Africa, elders are usually the custodians of proverbs and they are used to convey precise moral lessons and to create more impact on the mind than ordinary words would. The various definitions of the proverb observed in Nwoga affirm the source of proverbs from culture and tradition, and its communicative function. The proverb, says Nwoga (Appraisal of Igbo Proverbs and Idioms 186), has been variously defined as “the wisdom of many and the wit of one”, “the experience and wisdom of several ages gathered and summed up in one expression”, and as “the edged tools of speech”. Drawing from variable sources including Udoidem (132) and Obiechina (156), Zabus (138) further notes: African proverbs have been described as repositories of communal wisdom, mnemonic devices for effective communication, and educational tools. Because they have their origin in specific communal experiences and are reproduced by “a memory”, their epistemological basis may give us insight into the African perceptive mode. In Igbo art of conversation, proverbs are both modes of conversation and retrievers of communication. Structurally, the proverb is a sentence mostly of two or more units of speech utterance brought together in different associations. Chukwuma (105) notes that the Igbo proverb is dominantly bipartite and is marked off by syntactic pauses or junctures, which are intentionally made to serve grammatical and rhetorical purposes. The junctures show 17 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the interrelationship between the parts of the proverb and how the proverb statement fits its complete context of speech, while its bipartite syntactic structure or arrangement makes the proverb memorable; for a more involved network of hierarchies, “a complex dependency of relations would be a demanding burden on memory and recall” (Chukwuma 106-107). The proverb and the „cultural idiom‟ (discussed in the next subsection) cover the same areas of observed life, drawing from them images of intense picturesqueness that reveal cultural aspects of the people and add flavour and depth to larger sentence structures. These areas of observed life come mostly from the local environment and occupation of a people; from their temperament and behaviour, everyday habit and social relations and experiences; and from the behaviour, habit and relations of animals and birds. Ene (Akpaalaokwu 1), speaking of Igbo proverbs notes that it was in an attempt by our ancestors to be politically correct that many of the proverbs were attributed to „anu- uno (domestic animals) and „anu-ofia‟ (wild animals) both big and small, beautiful and ugly, and powerful and meek. Some proverbs come also from such other oral traditions like fables and anecdotes. For example the proverb “onye gba oto na-achu onye ara bukwa onye ara” (He who pursues a madman naked is himself mad) comes from the anecdote of a very important man in his community, who was having a bath in the village stream after the days work in his farm when a madman crept up to the tree stump on which he hung his loin-cloth and removed it. Angered by the madman‟s mischief and worried by the thought of having to walk home naked, he ran after the madman in the hope of retrieving his cloth until he found himself right in the market square. (in Nwachukwu-Agbada 27). The proverb means at three levels or partitions of content. It is also at these three levels that it contains its own fraction of knowledge and image of a people and their culture. Nwoga (Appraisal of Igbo Proverbs and Idioms 190-191) identifies these three levels to be the literal, philosophical and the contextual. The literal content comes from an observed area of human and/or animal life or from the observation of nature and reduced to a figurative or philosophical statement. The philosophical content is a philosophical statement drawn from the wisdom of the culture and provides the thought, idea or belief that underpins the proverb. Finally is the contextual content, which outlines 17 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the specific sociocultural situation in which the proverb is used. The contextual content restrains the interpretation and applicability of the proverb to the given situation. The literal-level content, picturesque and epigrammatic in its presentation, preserves the religious, historical, social and scientific knowledge of the people and “it is impossible to understand the literal statement made in some proverbs without appreciating the basis of information out of which they were constructed” (Nwoga Appraisal of Igbo Proverbs and Idioms 191). Furthermore, the literal level content of proverbs is also a comment on the ability of a culture for rational life and critical thinking. It illustrates the ability of the culture to sum up its environment into bits of observed data and to process out of this data a body of both enduring and everyday wisdom that it needs to adequately cope with varied situations of life within its environment and to relate with other cultures. This has an important implication for translation in an intercultural communication and postcolonial relations contexts. Translation of proverbs by substitution, for instance, can be a denial of this culture‟s ability for rational life differentiated from life driven by instinct that is characteristic of animals. Such translation can, therefore, be a denial of the „cultureness‟ of the culture being translated. The philosophical-level content of many proverbs makes them useful in the socialisation process of the young. However, the philosophical or idea or belief content of an Igbo proverb may not be inferred to represent the worldview or philosophy of the Igbo except within the context in which the proverb has been used and after careful consideration of other relevant proverbs. Nwoga notes in this regard: What each proverb says generally is not too difficult to decipher. But when we pass on to […] “This proverb shows that the Igbo think that …”, we are at a more precarious level. … The achievement of the correct interpretation of the social values of any group through their proverbs can only be arrived at with circumspection, guided by taking into account of all the relevant proverbs and the situations in which they are used. (Appraisal of Igbo Proverbs and Idioms 195) 17 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The relationship between the idea or thought-content of a proverb and the context of the proverb is important to the translation of the proverb; for it suggests that a mistranslation can, at least, occur where a proverb is translated out of the context(s) it is used. Furthermore, the above caution by Nwoga for drawing inference from a proverb outside its context(s) suggests the real possibility for such an inference being drawn, at least, by ignorance, thereby, bringing about the misrepresentation of an entire people and culture. This possibility demands of the translator to be alert and cautious in the management of content-context relationships in the translation of proverbs. We further differentiate between three contexts in our analysis of proverbs. The first is the textual or linguistic context, the second is the situational context and finally is the sociocultural or simply the cultural context. The textual or linguistic context can be inferred from Catford (35) to refer to the formal relations entered into by the linguistic units of grammar and lexis within the structure of a text or passage. These relations, in grammar, will include those between systems of pronouns, number, case, tense, prepositions, etc; while in lexis they occur between one lexical item and others in the lexical set, i.e. the formal co-textual or collocational relations between lexical items in the text. The situational context refers to the circumstance or state of affairs in the surrounding: mental disposition and memory, position of the speaker to the audience, position of material objects in the surrounding, etc, at a particular point in time which condition or relate to a speech act or to which a speech act is pertinent. Catford describes the features of situational context as those specific objects, events, relations, and so on, in the situation “which led the performer to produce these particular vocal movements and no others” (Catford 2). In our analysis we designate this context variously as the situational context, immediate narrative context, narrative context or the immediate context of narration. It is the specific situation or experience at a point in the narrative to which a proverb (or idiom) applies. The cultural context is the environment of shared beliefs, values, habits and customs; the entire way of life peculiar to a people in which they use their language to express reality and meaning. It is also the context to which the linguistic and situational contexts are implicit or under which they are subsumed and from which the situation has 17 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY meaning. This is because words have meaning within lived experiences and situations, and the responses, i.e. behaviour and utterances in the situation, are determined by cultural role expectations. The formal linguistic relations will be important, in our analysis, only to the extent that they are relevant to the understanding of the situation and the culture. Considering the cultural context, we further conceive the proverb as showing the cognitive mapping of situations and experiences into units or categories that are stored in the collective memory of the culture. Each category consists of similar or related situations and experiences that envisage other similar and related situations and experiences. All situations and experiences in a category are bound by or share the same proverbial wisdom, i.e. the wisdom from one proverb. The literal phrasing of the proverb by the culture is, therefore, such that it possesses the latitude or openness to accommodate or apply to all the situations and experiences, present and envisaged, in its category. The cultural context is the context that provides each proverb with this latitude or openness that enables it to apply to similar but different situations and experiences in its category. A treatment of the proverb in translation that removes this latitude by either restraining the proverb from applying equally to all situations and experiences in its category or by mapping the proverb to apply to situations and experiences not within the category prescribed to it by the culture is a distortion of the proverb. 5.1.2 Analysis of the Translated proverbs; Approaches and Techniques Used Over fourteen techniques within the Communicative and Semantic approaches have been used either singly or in combinations by the translators in the translation of the proverbs in TFA from (Igbo-) “english” into German. The techniques include simplification, implicitation, explicitation, omission, substitution-replacement, elaboration, amplification, paraphrase, calque, borrowing, transliteration-Naturalisation, transposition-restructuring, modulation, normalisation, and „literalization‟, i.e. the literal 17 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY translating technique. Following are the application of these approaches and techniques to the translation of proverbs in TFA and analysis: 5.1.2:1 Communicative: Simplification and Implicitation Simplification refers to the economy of words, concepts and style in translating realised through various operations and strategies. These operations include the use of less words than occurred in the source text, approximation of concepts expressed in the source text, use of circumlocutions rather than conceptually matching high level words, use of paraphrase to bridge gaps in culture, reducing the complexities and length of syntax, and others. This technique is used together with the implicitation technique to translate the proverb: He who brings Kola brings life (TFA 5) Translated into German as: 1 Kola bedeutet Leben (kola means life) (trans. 12) The implicitation technique allows the translator to use target context or situation to make less obvious or non-transparent information, details or meaning that are transparent in the source text. In the translation of the above proverb, the concept, i.e. the idea or thought-content, of the proverb is approximated and rendered or rephrased into a brisk non-proverbial statement that is no more an Igbo proverb: the Igbo do not say “Cola means life” as a proverb. The proverb lost its bipartite proverbial structure or syntax in the translation. It also lost the social relational premise of its use represented in the clause “he who brings”. In the narrative context, Okoye, a neighbour, visits Unoka, Okonkwo‟s father. Unoka presents to him a kolanut in a wooden disc. The disc contains also some alligator pepper and a lump of white chalk. Okoye acknowledges the Kola with the proverb. The proverb contains in its bipartite structure and literal content the socio-relational premise of its usage and understanding in the Igbo culture. This premise shows that the 1 “trans.” refers to the German version of the source text. 17 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY kolanut as a symbol of life in the Igbo culture is viewed only within the relationship between the one who brings and the one who receives the kolanut. The kolanut as a seed or fruit is neither life nor does it signify life in the Igbo culture outside this relationship. The translation overemphasises the kolanut in isolation of this relationship and, to that extent, does not, per se, incorporate the complete cultural knowledge and image or picture contained in the proverb. It is possible that the translators expect the immediate narrative context, which clearly contains the social relationship that supports the proverb, to make clear the literal content of the proverb that was left out in the translation and so make up for the deficiency in the rendering or phrasing of the translation. This means compensating for the loss in the literal phrasing with in the implied context. This implicitation strategy would then enable the brisk translation of the proverb to carry force and impact. To a good extent, it is possible to say that the complementarity of the translation and narrative context still preserves the knowledge of the value of the kolanut in the social life of the people, and simultaneously could possibly awaken curiosity in the target reader to inquire further about the kolanut in the Igbo culture. However, the target readers cannot know the correct phrasing of this Igbo proverb through the translation. Besides, the translation leaves the risk, no matter how slight, of the wrong inference that to the Igbo kola means or is life in isolation of the social context in which the kolanut is viewed in the source culture.The translation of the message of the cultural text unit is inadequate to intercultural communication, and to the depiction of the true and authentic knowledge of the source culture through the proverb. 5.1.2:2 Communicative: Transposition and Modulation Transposition-restructuring allows for changes in the sequence or form of parts of speech or word categories and grammatical structures from SL to TL while maintaining basically the same meaning or point of view; example: change from singular to plural, change of an SL verb to TL word, change of an SL noun group to a TL noun, and so on. Change is usually required when a specific SL structure does not exist in the TL; while in modulation, different phrases or sentences from the TL are used to replace those of the 17 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY SL conforming the SL to TL norms and producing a change in the point of view while maintaining sameness in „meaning‟ or idea. Put otherwise, modulation produces the same mental representation (idea, thought, meaning) through a different process of interpretation (perspective or point of view). In the proverb: The sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under it. (TFA 6) translated into German as: Die Sonne scheint zuerst auf den, der steht und nicht auf den, der kniet. (trans. 14) The translation drops the structuring of the Igbo proverb, which uses the subordinating conjuction “before” to link the second part of this one sentence proverb to the first, thereby, establishing an obvious logical sequence, clarity and completeness in the contextual use of the proverb. The subordinating conjunction „before‟ is transposed with the negating adverbial particle „not‟. The translators use the time adverbial “first” and an ellipsis of the same adverb in the second part of a compound sentence translation of the proverb. This is clear in the back-translation of the German translation of the proverb into English: The sun will shine first(ly) on those who stand and not on those who kneel. This German version of the proverb is made up of two sentences linked together with the coordinating conjunction „and‟, i.e. a) the sun will shine first on those who stand b) the sun will not shine [first] on those who kneel The German target reader would have to mentally insert another „first‟ in the second sentence to get the completeness of the translation as the translators intended it. This translation eliminated the sequence that is present in the proverb realised with the subordinating conjunction „before‟. The possibility that the sun will afterwards ever shine on those who kneel can only be presumed to have been implied in the translation but the emphasis of the translators is on „first‟. This undue or sole valorisation of the „first‟ 17 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY subtly introduces a subtext or sub-meaning outside the narrative and cultural context of the proverb. It is a subtext that gives little or no consideration and protection to anything or anybody in a position less than that of the „first‟. This is a mistranslation of the proverb and an alteration of cultural perspective in the use of the proverb. The cultural text unit is thus inadequately transferred. In the narrative context, Okoye, the neighbour to whom Unoka is indebted, asks Unoka to pay back what he owes him. Unoka uses the proverb to buttress his reply that he has bigger debts which he must first repay before repaying small debts like that of Okoye. He did not say that he would not pay Okoye his money. The wisdom of the proverb is based on the logic of the natural order of succession, i.e first, second, third, etc. Those who kneel can be exhorted to be patient and not to become violent since the sun will definitely get to them. 5.1.2.3 Communicative: Substitution-Replacement Substitution refers to the whole or partial replacement of a proverbial or idiomatic expression , clichés and sometimes , even , names in the source text with an equally fixed expression from the target culture that is capable of modifying meaning or point of view and the impact of the proverb or idiom. Substitutions are usually made on the basis of similar connotation and function in the TL culture rather than referential equivalents. Substitution may also occur with the replacement of all or part of a non-fixed expression in the source text with a fixed expression from the target culture. Partial replacement may be at the level of the sentence or phrase. In the proverb An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb (TFA 15) Translated into German as: Stets sieht man nur den Spliter im Augen des anderen (one always sees the spliner only in the eyes of another) (tran. 28). The German expression chosen to translate the proverb mistranslates it both by the narrative context and in the wider use of the proverb within the culture. The idea or 17 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY thought content of the proverb is that the pain of a misfortune or a regrettable condition that is being healed or being overcome in the course of time is re-experienced or relived with the fresh confrontation of a similar misfortune or condition elsewhere or in another person‟s circumstance. The German expression means that one always sees only the faults of the other person, and impliedly, but not one‟s own faults. In the narrative situation, the gathering in the house of the wealthy Nwakibie to whom Okonkwo has gone to request yam-seedlings for share-cropping laughs at the story of Obiako, who requested the oracle to ask his dead father if he, i.e. his dead father, ever had a fowl when he was alive. The oracle had earlier told Obiako that his dead father wanted Obiako to sacrifice a goat to him. Okonkwo laughs uneasily. The narrator uses the proverb. The proverb refers in the narrative context to Okonkwo, whose father died a failure and a shame, a pain to his son. Okonkwo struggles daily to erase the memory of such a father and to work himself out of the fate that befell his father. The story of Obiako and his father brought back to him the painful memory of his own father. He laughs at all because the social situational context of the gathering demands that he laughs with the others. Besides he is the one that is in need in that gathering, courtesy demands that he does not offend his host and potential benefactor. But he laughs uneasily because of the pain in his soul at the reminder of his father. By the literal referent of the proverb, an old woman, who obviously has shed the plumpness and robustness of her youthful form, is compared to dry bones. Dry bones refer to her old-age physical form and to her closeness to the grave – a rather regretful condition, as it were, when compared to her youth The German translation not only ignores the contextual link to Okonkwo‟s father, it also misrepresents the cultural perspective of the people in TFA and fails to transfer that knowledge. All of the thought content, the concrete cultural image and the literal content of the proverb were unnecessarily lost in the translation. The proverb is substituted by a non-equivalent German idiomatic expression. The translation is inadequate. 17 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 5.1.2.4 Communicative: Substitution-Replacement When mother-cow is chewing grass, its young ones watch its mouth (TFA 49) Translated into German as Wie der Vater, so der Sohn (like father like son) (trans. 81) The translators substituted the proverb with an “functionally” equivalent proverb from the target culture. The translation aptly recovers the thought-content of the proverb by the comparison of father and son as it is in the source text proverb, but from a different perspective that avoids the literal allusion of the proverb. At Obierika‟s house, his in-laws have come to perform the traditional bride-price settlement rite in respect of his daughter, Akueke. The discussion among the men in Obierika‟s hut shifted to Maduka, Obierika‟s son, whose dash to get the kolanut sent for by his father highlighted his agility. Obierika‟s elder brother compares Maduka to his father using the proverb. The allusion of the proverb to observed animal life or behaviour is ignored in the translation. The animal imagery in the proverb refers to a gradual process of imbibing adult habit by the young. This allusion is the emphasis of the cultural and situational contexts in which the proverb is used. Obierika‟s elder brother addressed Obierika who somewhat indulgently had complained that Maduka was „too sharp‟, “you were very much like that yourself … Maduka has been watching you”. (TFA 49). Contrastively, the proverb substitution chosen for the translation lacks the precise reference and suitability to the situation in the narrative context because it emphasises, or at least introduces the ambiguity of, inherited character traits; while the proverb emphasises learned behaviour. The literal imagery and allusion to animal behaviour is lost. Though the translation does not interrupt the flow and understanding of the narration, it does obscure and deny the rational capacity of the source culture to think metaphorically, to draw wisdom by implied association of its fauna and social relations. This allusion itself is a pointer to the power of observation and thought present in the culture and important to identity claims.The translation is considered inadequate. 18 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 5.1.2.5. Communicative: Substitution and Omission In omission or deletion, a word or expression or meaning of the source text is left out in the target text; it is the ignoring of certain parts of the source or original text. In the proverb If a child washed his hands, he could eat with kings. (TFA 6) translated into German as Jugend, die sich bewährt, wird auch vom Alter geehrt. (A youth that proves to be a success will be honoured by the elderly/the aged)(trans. 15) the translators substituted the words “child” and “king” in the proverb with “youth” and “elderly or aged” respectively. Apparently the translators try to adjust the above words of the proverb to refer directly to Okonkwo who is being spoken about in the narrative context. Okonkwo is still „young‟ but in sharp contrast to his father, he has risen to such recognition in the clan that the clan could entrust him with the custody of Ikemefuna, the ill-fated child given to Umuofia by Mbaino to avoid war and bloodshed. Ikemefuna is collectively owned by the clan. This effort of the translators, however, ignores the wider reference of the proverb in the culture to which the specific context or case of Okonkwo perfectly fits in. This wider reference is first to the level of social insignificance, i.e. child, from which a person could rise and secondly, to the level of social and political prominence and recognition to which a person could attain, i.e. recognition by the king. It is also possible in the source culture to use the proverb in a context in which a child and not a young person is the subject. The substitution of „kings‟ in the proverb is remarkable, especially in view of the fact that the translators also removed another mention or use of that word in the remaining part of the paragraph. The sentence immediately following the proverb reads: Okonkwo had clearly washed his hands and so he ate with kings and elders. (TFA 6) But the translation reads: 18 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Okonkwo hatte sich zweifellos bewährt und wurde folglich von den Alten geehrt (trans.15) (Okonkwo had doubtlessly proved himself a success and was, as a result, honoured by the elders) The translators retained „elders‟ and omitted „kings‟, perhaps to reflect that the Igbo societies described in the novel have no kings (cf. TFA 105) or to create a singularity and consistency of reference between their translation of the proverb and the narrative context. However, in either case of the translators‟ probable intention, it is misleading to remove the word „king‟ from either the proverb or narrative context. In the archetypical polis of precolonial Igbo society and culture, the village-group, the Eze (king) as the “number one” political authority (Afigbo, Igbo Enwe Eze... 17) located in the bloodline of ancestral descent is differentiated from the authority and spiritual significance of the elder who is close and connected to the ancestors and is their most visible representative and guardian of the mores and values of the land. The personage bearing the ezeship authority may be referred to as “nna anyi (our father), onye-nwe-ala (owner of the community), isi ala (ruler of the land) and so on”: he derives his authority from correct genealogical descent which fact earned him the inalienable support of the living, the ancestors and the gods as well as the right to hold the highest ritualised symbol of authority of the group – an ofo or aro or whatever. In the context of Igbo culture and usage only such a person could be called the Eze of the group and was the eze of the group (Afigbo, Igbo Enwe Eze: 17-18). Although so many foci of authority and so many complex checks and balances within the culture make the Eze barely little more than a titular official (Afigbo 2001b: 20) except, perhaps, in few Igbo communities like “Nri, Aro, Oguta, Onitsha, Orlu, Abo, Osomiri‟, etc (Afigbo, Igbo Enwe Eze: 20; Nwajiuba 22 , Anyanwu 70), and though there was no pan Igbo leadership or kingship, neither were the Ezes privileged with retinue and courtiers nor do they wield absolute powers over a centralised political community in comparison to the practice of kingship in Europe, precolonial Igbo society, nevertheless, has the awareness and experience of kingship not only within itself but also in its 18 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY neighbouring cultures and societies like the Edo and Igala (Afigbo, Ropes of Sand 22) such that the inclusion of the concept of „king‟ in the novel is not misplaced. Furthermore, there are in Things Fall Apart references to „king‟ which show that the Igbo culture presented in the narrative was fully aware of the power, pride and prestige that belong to a king. In the Igbo proverb “looking at a king‟s mouth, one would think he never sucked at his mother‟s breast” (TFA 19), there is an implicit reference to the power and pride associated with the words of the king. Okonkwo, the proud emissary of war to Mbaino, is treated “like a king‟ by the Mbainos (TFA 19). In TFA (16, 24) yam is „the king of crops‟ and a very „exacting king‟. In TFA (81), Akueke, the daughter of Okonkwo‟s bossom friend, Obierika , who is being married off is described by one of the titled men, Ogbuefi Ezenwa, as „the bride fit for a king‟, while Akunna, one of the great men of Umuofia, in his discussion over religion and faith with Mr. Brown, the white missionary in Umuofia, describes „Chukwu‟, the supreme God, as the overlord and king of the other gods that are his messengers just like the british king/queen to whom the colonial officers and administrators are subservient (TFA 126-128). Kingship is here used or conceived in this sense of a strong absolute ruler with regard to the Igbo concept of God, i.e. Chukwu. To eat with the king by the context of the proverb suggests the highest, or at least the foremost, level of social and political recognition possible with hardwork and success; and to eat with elders suggests the deep location of hardwork and achievement within the morality of the clan They are principal values and virtues prescribed and supported by the ancestors. Recognition by the elders, therefore, has a spiritual and moral significance. The translators have not only translated in ignorance of this aspect of Igbo culture but certainly have, perhaps without being aware of it, translated ethnocentrically or eurocentrically for they would not recognise kingship that is not comparable to the European concept and practice of kingship. Furthermore, by this translation, they have wrongfully modified the meaning and perspective and completely set aside the phrasing of this Igbo proverb. The substitution and omission techniques used here to translate the proverb and adjust it to the cultural sensibilities and preferences of the target culture denies the target readers the possibility of a significant and true insight into and 18 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY knowledge of the source culture. The translation of the text unit here does not assist intercultural communication and understanding. 5.1.2.6 Communicative-Semantic: Substitution, Paraphrase and transposition: In the paraphrase technique, a text or passage is loosely reworded giving the meaning in one‟s words. It is translation with latitude, where the author or the message is kept in view by the translator, so as never to be lost, but the exact words of the Author or of the message are not so strictly followed as his/its sense. In paraphrasing, the meaning of a SL word or culture-bound term is explained or elaborated in less or considerable detail. In the proverb: Those whose palm-kernels were cracked for them by a benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble (TFA 19) Translated as: Derjenige, dem das Glück über alle Massen hold gewesen sei, solle niemals vergessen, woher er stamme. (trans. 34) (He whom fortune has abundantly favoured, should never forget where [family, background] he hails from) The translators substituted „those whose palm-kernels were cracked for them by a benevolent spirit…‟ with the German idiomatic expression „das Glück jemandem hold sein‟, which means „fortune to smile upon someone‟, and paraphrased „should not forget to be humble‟ with „should never forget where he hails from‟. The other parts of the proverb are paraphrased. Furthermore, the translation transposed „those‟ of the proverb to „derjenige‟ (he), a singular subject. As a matter of fact, the entire translation of the proverb is a substitute from the target language and culture. The substitution technique used here may have been to remedy the distance between the two cultures created by the absence of palm-kernels and the “palm-kernel-cracking” experience in the target culture. The translators successfully recovered and transferred the thought-content of the proverb into German which is: that people who are successful and fortunate in life should not look down on those who are less or not fortunate. The substitution, transposition and paraphrase techniques leave the translation of the proverb in the target culture. This means that the proverb has to be understood by the target readers from the sensibility or 18 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY point of view of the target culture. As a result the proverb as translated not only make for a smooth reading and understanding by the German reader, it also could have impact. Furthermore, the translation enabled the omission of „spirit‟, a phenomenon that the German mind has argued out of its everyday life and relegated to the realm of fables and folk-tales. However, the translation by substitution, transposition and paraphrase denies the target readers the knowledge not only of the correct phrasing of the Igbo proverb, but also of an aspect of Igbo life alluded to in the literal phrasing and imagery of the proverb. „Those whose palm-kernels were cracked for them by a benevolent spirit…‟ carries the possibility of the insight that the palm-kernel is an invaluable and unavoidable part of subsistence and to extract its value, it has to be cracked – an arduous task to which any assistance rendered is highly appreciated, and which fulfilment is regarded to be a real accomplishment. „Spirit‟ refers not only to the culture‟s belief in supernatural incorporeal beings but also in their involvement in the daily affairs of the people either for good by benevolent ones or for bad by malevolent ones. The German language is, however, capable of a semantic rendition of the text unit to bring out the allusions to source cultural knowledge and meaning. The German language and culture are already aware of the palm tree, its oil and fruit and have the language resources to explain the palm-kernel in internal note or at best in a glossary. The translation is considered inadequate. 5.1.2.7 Communicative: Substitution, Omission and transposition A man who had ten and one wives and not enough soup for his foo-foo (TFA. 37) translated into German as: Ein Mann, der zwar tausend Frauen hatte, aber nicht genug zu essen (A man who had a thousand wives but not enough food to eat) (trans. 62) The narrator reveals Okonkwo‟s desire for the kind of man he wants his son, Nwoye, to grow into. He wants him to be a wealthy and prosperous man with rich enough barn to feed his household but much more to be able to feed his ancestors with sacrifices. He wants him to grow into a tough young man that will be able to rule his father‟s 18 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY household when he (Okonkwo) would have been dead and gone to join the ancestors. moreover, Nwoye must be able to control his wives and not be like the man in the proverb. The proverb is an anecdote from a folksong. The translators use the substitution technique to replace the idiomatic phrase in the proverb „ten and one wives‟ with an equivalent German phrase of the same meaning „tausend Frauen‟ (thousand wives). Both mean „very sufficient‟ in their separate cultures. „Not enough soup for his foo-foo‟ is omitted and that part of the proverb is replaced with „not enough food to eat‟, while the „and‟ that connects the lack of soup in the proverb is transposed with „but‟ in the translation on the basis of similar function as contrastive coordinates to introduce an unexpected outcome. The entire proverb, except for the subject and the relative pronoun „and‟, becomes replaced with a German expression. Although the translation retains the thought of the proverb, the flavour and phrasing of the proverb have been lost in the translation through the use of substitution, omission and transposition techniques. „Soup and foo-foo‟ is a staple and main meal of a family in the source culture, especially for the man. The translators are not under the pressure of the target language to omit „soup and foo-foo‟ which at best can be borrowed into the translation and glossed or explained in a footnote or transliterated as „Fufu‟ as the translators have already done in chapter five (TFA 26, trans. 45) of the novel. The proverb is used here in its context to show a possible outcome of a man being unable to control his wives. The fact that this proverb comes from a song of the culture suggests that the culture expects a man to control his wives. However, how this control should be effected in the culture cannot be concluded from the perspective of Okonkwo. Okonkwo ruled his house toughly, with „a heavy hand‟ (TFA 9), in contrast there was Ogbuefi Ndulue „who had one mind‟ with his wife, Ozoemena, and „could not do anything without telling her‟ (TFA 47-48). Okonkwo doubted that Ogbuefi Ndulue was a strong and tough man.Obierika replied Okonkwo that Ogbuefi Ndulue was in his days the chief warrior, who led the clan to war. This is an inadequate translation of the text unit. 18 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 5.1.2.8 Communicative: Substitution and Paraphrase: As the dog said, “If I fall down for you and you fall down for me, it is play” (TFA. 51) This proverb is translated into German as: Aber wie der eine zum anderen sagte, “senkst du den Preis, dann will auch ich mich nicht lumpen lassen, denn dann ist es ein Spiel” (But as one said to the other, “if you lower the price, then I will also be generous, for then it is a play”) (trans. 83) This proverb comes from the observation of animal behaviour, precisely the dog, in play. Dogs in play fall to the ground and roll over for each other. Obierika, Okonkwo,s bossom friend, is giving his daughter, Akueke, in marriage. Obierika has called his kinsmen and his friend, Okonkwo, to join him in the performance of the bride-price payment rite with his prospective in-laws. The bride-price is settled through a process of bargaining by which a bundle of short broomsticks of a certain number is presented by the father or by the family of the bride to his/their prospective in-law family, each broomstick representing a bundle of cowries. Each family makes concessions by adding or subtracting from the bundle of broomsticks, consulting among its members present each time the bundle is passed to it. This process continues until a certain number is agreed. Machi, the eldest brother to Ukaegbu, uses the proverb. Ukaegbu is the father of Ibe, the suitor. The proverb drives home the point that the ritual process of deciding the bride-price is symbolic: it is play and not fight, which is a pointer to the cultural expectation of what relationship should subsist between the families-in-law. The situation in the narrative context does not exist in the target culture. The translators, therefore, decided to insert the German colloquial expression “mich nicht lumpen lassen” into the proverb and to remove the animal reference, most presumably to adapt the proverb to the cultural sensibility of the target readers and to make the situation in the source text clear and accessible to them. The phrasing of the proverb in the translation is, consequently, adjusted to fit into a German world view. The translation very well preserves the ideas of concession, compromise and sportsmanship that are visible in the Igbo African culture seen in the narrative situation. However, the substitution of the literal content and imagery from which the proverb is 18 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY logically processed to suit the narrative context appears to be really unnecessary for the play life or behaviour of dogs is the same in both cultures. There is, therefore, no pressure of cultural distance between source and target cultures associated with the animal imagery on the translators. The removal of the literal content denies the target readers the flavour and phrasing of this Igbo proverb and also an aspect of insight into the source culture. Besides, the substitution technique of translation, in this instance, denies the instance of similarity or commonality between the source and target cultures. Furthermore, the translation can be seen as an implicit, perhaps inadvertent, adaptation of the context to a new market dominated (modern) culture by replacing the animal imagery with the market-place bargaining imagery thereby subtly weaving a perspective into the context that refutes the presentation of the source culture meant by the author here. In the dialogue among the men soon after the bride price has been decided, the narrative clarifies that the bride price ritual varies in its detail across Igbo clans but insists that „it is play‟ and not the selling of the bride as if she were an item for sale in the market. It condemns practices in the ritual that deface its true symbolic nature. Here is the dialogue: „It was only this morning,‟ said Obierika, „that Okonkwo and I were talking about Abame and Aninta … „All their customs are upside-down. They do not decide bride-price as we do, with sticks. They haggle and bargain as if they were buying a goat or a cow in the market.‟ „That is very bad,‟ said Obierika‟s eldest brother. „But what is good in one place is bad in another place. In Umunso they do not bargain at all, not even with broomsticks, the suitor just goes on bringing bags and bags of cowries until his in-laws tell him to stop. It is a bad custom because it always leads to a quarrel.‟(TFA. 51) The animal imagery most agrees with the context and meaning of culture being presented by the author. The bride-price, besides being the ritual, indeed spiritual representation of the blood-tie that henceforth binds the two families in marriage, its settlement ritual is a symbolic and public demonstration that, henceforth, the tie that binds the two families forbids them to injure or hurt each other. Disagreements between the families have to be settled through mutual consideration for and deferment to one 18 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY another and not through fights. In the context, dogs in play symbolically demonstrate and fulfill the basic need for „society‟, family and friendship without any obvious hidden or ulterior motive for monetary or material profit or any motive to exploit or take advantage of the other as the market place imagery implies. It is in the bid to be precise and “politically correct” and to avoid such manipulation and misrepresentation of intention and cultural context as the translators have knowingly or unknowingly done that the wisdom of the proverb and the cultural significance of the bride price is phrased in animal imagery. The animal imagery in the proverb is thus to forestall a possible misunderstanding of the cultural context of the narrative situation. The translation is inadequate to intercultural understanding and postcolonial communication. 5.1.2.9 Communicative: Substitution, Modulation and ‘Literalisation’. In the literal or literalization translation technique, the grammar structures of the SL sentences are converted to their closest TL equivalents. However, lexical units (words) are translated word-for-word, i.e singly, mostly without due regard for either connotative or contextual meanings. In the narrative context to the proverb: Looking at a king‟s mouth, one would think he never sucked at his mother‟s breast (TFA 19) translated as: wenn man sich das grosse Maul eines königs so ansieht, dann käme man nie auf den Gedanken, dass er jemals von seiner Mutter Brust getrunken hat. (If one looks at the boastfulness of a king, one would never think that he ever sucked his mother‟s breast)(trans. 34), the narrator recalls the proverb used by an unnamed old man to disapprove of Okonkwo‟s impatience and insolence to less successful men. This attitude does not show any humility Okonkwo ever learnt from the great poverty out of which he struggled to become one of the lord‟s of the clan. 18 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The translators replace the plain English word „mouth‟ with the German colloquial and derogatory idiom „großes Maul‟, which literally means „big mouth‟. Its idiomatic reference is to „showing-off, boasting. As a noun, it refers to a braggart, boaster and blusterer (Springer, Langenscheidts Enzykl.). Besides „Maul‟ is used in German for the mouth of animals and if applied to a person, it is absolutely derogatory. In the narrative context, the translators appear to have used the idiom to refer to Okonkwo‟s insolence and contempt towards less successful men to be the result of haughtiness arising from his successes and achievements. Other parts of the proverb were translated literally. The translators try to bring into their translation of the proverb the negative behaviour of Okonkwo described in the narrative context by using the derogatory idiomatic phrase „großes Maul‟ to translate the proverb. Secondly, by using the idiomatic replacement, they limit in the translation the phrasing of the proverb to a direct and closed-reference to Okonkwo. However, in doing both above, the translation rewrites this Igbo proverb and limits its use only to such negative contexts as that, which applies to Okonkwo in the narrative. „The mouth of a king‟ as it occurs in the proverb is not necessarily derogatory if the proverb is used in non-negative contexts in the Igbo culture. Besides, in socio-political usage, the pride of a king to which „mouth‟ in the proverb partly refers is not necessarily the personal pride and arrogance of the king. A king carries in himself the pride of a kingdom, a people and a culture such that the pride he exhibits is not necessarily arrogant and haughty but represents the dignity of the people, kingdom and culture. Furthermore, the proverb can be used in a positive affirmative and admiration contexts rather than condemnatory as in the narrative context. For instance, the proverb can be used to encourage and exhort a struggling youth by referring him/her to a successful person, whose present material and social standing do not reflect anymore the sufferings and struggles of his/her youth. By inserting the negative and derogatory or pejorative term „grosse Maul‟ the translators eliminate the latitude of the proverb that makes it capable of being used in more than one similar or related contexts or situations and that makes it to be well suited and applicable to the particular case of Okonkwo in the situation in context. 19 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Furthermore, the translation grossly modifies the perspective of the proverb on Kings in the source culture. As a result it has the potential of misleading the target readers into having the impression that insolence, impudence and arrogance are traits of kingship in the Igbo culture; and, therefore, that kings or persons in positions of authority or of noble status in the culture can with impunity be unruly and insolent to their subjects or fellow countrymen. The possibility of a use of the translation of the proverb outside its source text context may not be completely overruled. Sensitivity to intercultural postcolonial communication requires the translator to be considerate of such possibilities in the translation of foreign proverbs. The proverb by its literal referents is saying that if the authority and pride with which a king speaks were to be considered, it would not appear that he was at any time as weak and humbled like any other human being who as a baby sucked from its mother‟s breast. The proverb refers to Okonkwo‟s seeming forgetfulness of his humble past and the influence, which this past should have on him in his relations with other men. It is rather a sharp criticism by the old man of Okonkwo‟s attitude to weak and less successful men and a criticism of his betrayal of what the role of a man of title should be in his culture. Though the translation captures the precise narrative reference to Okonkwo in the immediate narrative situation, it removed the proverb from the Igbo culture. The Igbo do not use „boastfulness‟ in that proverb. The target reader is denied knowledge of the correct phrasing and usage of that Igbo proverb. It is also a proverb that shows that the Igbo culture has a political life from which traditional wisdom can be processed. The translation is inadequate. 5.1.2.10 Communicative: Elaboration and Modulation Elaboration is when important semantic elements of the source text are identified for explanation or emphasis. Put otherwise, it is the use of extra words to clarify and/or emphasize the meaning of the SL text without changing the meaning or point of view of the text. 19 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY When a man says yes his chi says yes also. (TFA 19) Translated into German as: Wenn der Geist und die Tat eines Mannes übereinstimmen, dann ist sein persönlicher Schutzgott nicht weit. (When the spirit and the action of a man concur, then his personal guardian god is not far [away])(trans. 35) The translators isolate the two „yes‟ and the „chi‟ in the proverb for elaboration. The first „yes‟ they explain to refer to „the spirit and action concurring‟, while the second „yes‟ is rendered as „not far [away]‟. The „chi‟ in the proverb they explain to be „personal guardian god‟. Apparently the translators have depended on pragmatic inference to supplement the text with information that is not obvious in the immediate narrative context of the source text. In the immediate narrative context of the story, the narrator makes an observatory comment to the effect that Okonkwo‟s success and achievements could not be completely attributed to luck as the oldest man in a kindred meeting held when he rebuked Okonkwo for being rash and disrespectful. The narrator notes Okonkwo‟s struggle with poverty from his early age and concludes that his success in life is mostly the result of his determination and hardwork and that, at best, his „chi‟ or personal god was good. The narrator uses the proverb to support his position. The translators have been helped by the context, which already has „personal god‟ as „chi‟. It is possible to see in the translation the effort of the translators to make this complex and difficult aspect of Igbo spiritual worldview, which does not exist in the target culture, accessible to the target readers. Their relative success must be commended. The rendition of the first „yes‟ in the proverb as „the spirit and action concurring‟ most closely qualifies the reference of the narrator to „determination and hardwork‟. However, it is doubtful if that explanation should be in the translation of the proverb or if it should be rather glossed. However, the translation of the second „yes‟ to mean that the „chi‟ is not far away from this man introduces a change or shift in the cultural perspective of the proverb. The „yes‟ of the „chi‟ means that the „chi‟ fully supports him. The translation introduces the modified and erroneous view that the „chi‟ maintains a reasonable closeness. This 19 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY modification to the perspective of the proverb is critical to the understanding of this aspect of Igbo cultural belief. Furthermore, the rendition of „chi‟ as „… guardian god‟ amounts to overtranslation. Neither the proverb nor the immediate context justifies the inclusion of „guardian‟ in the translation. Though the inclusion could help the target readers‟ understanding by connecting them to the idea of „guardian angel‟ that already exists in their culture, guardian angel is, however, not an appropriate, though the closest equivalent in the target culture, to the Igbo concept of „chi‟. Central to the Igbo spiritual worl view is the spiritual immortality of the human being. Each individual is bestowed with a „Personal Divine Essence‟ called „chi‟, with whom the individual steadily relates in order to live out his/her divinely ordained course of life. The relationship of an individual with his/her „chi‟ is deep and complex. A „chi‟ may be said to be good or bad and a bad chi can bring misfortune to the individual, and even bring about his/her destruction (TFA 92, 108; cf. p. 156 of this thesis). The translation betrays the ignorance of the translators of this aspect of Igbo culture and the technique they used for its translation is not the most appropriate. A complete literal translation with a glossary explaining this aspect of culture would have been most suitable to communicate cultural knowledge. The translation is inadequate on the whole. 5.1.2.11 Communicative: Amplification and Substitution. Amplification of context is the identification and elaboration of important semantic elements that are implied in the source text contexts. Amplification is a form of explicitation by which what is translated is what the textual speaker could or should be saying in the context or situation and not the literal statement or the exact words of the speaker. It is not bravery when a man fights a woman (TFA. 66) Translated into German as: Es zeugt wahrlich nicht von Tapferkeit, wenn sich ein Mann mit seiner eigenen Frau schlägt. (It does not show bravery at all, when a man beats his own wife. trans.106) 19 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY In the narrative context to this proverb, Uzowulu has brought a marital dispute between him and his in-laws before the ancestral and highest judicial panel of the entire clan – the Egwugwu. His in-laws have forcefully taken back their daughter (his wife) on account of several cases of wife battering by Uzowulu. The Egwugwu uses the proverb and judges that Uzowulu should go to his in-laws with the traditional pot of wine and plead for his wife‟s return. The replacement of „…a man to fight a woman‟ with „… a man to beat his own wife‟ amplifies the narrative situation or context in the proverb. Although this translation accurately captures and clarifies the precise socio-situation of the narrative context, it contains several defects to intercultural postcolonial communication. Firstly, it disfigures the proverb, defamiliarizing it from its own Igbo culture, while not being a German proverb itself that belongs to the German culture. Secondly, it shields away from the target readers, the correct phrasing of that Igbo proverb. Thirdly, it eliminates the latitude of the proverb (cf: see p.174 of thesis) and so restricts its possible use in other contexts not dealing precisely with wife beating, and fourtly, it modifies the perspective and meaning of the proverb in the socio-culture of the Igbo, and thus misrepresents them and suppresses the knowledge of the Igbo culture to the target readers. A woman in the proverb includes wife and „non-wife‟. The proverb aptly carries the precise situation in the narrative context without the substitution made in the translation. It also carries the relations between man and woman acceptable within the culture. In the Igbo culture, it is not bravery for a man to fight „any‟ woman. The substitution made to the proverb in the translation permits the erroneous view that in the Igbo culture a man may justifiably fight or beat a woman who is not his own wife. It is a mistranslation that through the backdoor presents the source culture as justifying wife-beating: if the source culture justifies „woman-battering‟, then it justifies wife-battering because a wife is also a woman. A combined reading of both Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God clearly shows that the Igbo African culture regards wife-battering to be the evidence of a dysfunctional marital relations that needed to be healed or restored; and the culture provides for the institutions and mechanisms for such healing and restoration. This cultural text unit is inadequately translated. 19 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 5.1.2.12 Communicative: Modulation and Paraphrase In the proverb: If one finger brought oil, it soiled the others (TFA. 87) Translated as Es ist besser einen Finger zu verlieren als die ganze Hand (It is better to lose a finger than the entire hand) (trans. 142) The proverb is modulated with a paraphrase that is treated like an alternative proverb, but which subtly diverts from the meaning and cultural perspective in the proverb. Okonkwo has accidentally killed a kinsman at the funeral rites of Ogbuefi Ezeudu. Ezeudu was a great man and the oldest man in Okonkwo‟s part of the clan. He had, as an emissary of the ancestors, warned Okonkwo, when he was alive, not to take part in the killing of Ikemefuna. The kinsman Okonkwo killed is the dead man‟s sixteen years old son. The crime of Okonkwo is an abomination against the earth-goddess. He and his family must go on exile from the clan for seven years. If the earth-goddess is not appeased or if her sentence is not carried out, she will unleash her wrath on the whole land and not just on the offender. Obierika uses the proverb as he silently ponders over this aspect of the earth-goddess‟ relationship with the people. Although both proverb and its translation deal with the idea of community and the individual in the culture, each emphasizes a different perspective to the idea. The proverb emphasizes the spiritual „knittedness‟ of community in the culture by showing how the fate of the entire community is linked to the offence of an individual; while the translation emphasizes the attention and action of the community to its own self- preservation by punishing the offence of the individual. The translation, therefore, neither preserves the perspective of the proverb nor the exact image of culture being presented in both proverb and context. The emphasis and cultural significance of the proverb is not the rightness or wrongness of the action taken by the clan on Okonkwo but the fact that the sense of community in the source culture is a spiritual blood-bond mediated by the gods [and ancestors] by which the individual cannot be separated from the whole. The banishing of Okonkwo is the healing and preservation of the whole including Okonkwo himself, who can come back at the expiration of his exile. The translation betrays the translators 19 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY misunderstanding of the context, ignorance or deliberate omission of it. Furthermore, the proverb has been disfigured in the translation such that it cannot be rightfully said to be the Igbo proverb in the source text, as target readers would believe. The phrasing of the translation seems to suggest its origin to be from the biblical quote: And if thy right hand offends thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. (Matthew 5:30. King James Version) The translation is inadequate. 5.1.2.13 Communicative: Modulation, Amplification and Transposition A child cannot pay for its mother‟s milk (TFA 117) Translated into German as Ein Kind kann die Liebe seiner Mutter niemals vergelten (A child can never repay its mother‟s love) (trans. 184). „Mother‟s milk‟ is amplified as „mother‟s love‟, and the „not‟ transposed with the time adverbial „never‟. Whereas the adverbial negating suffix with its modal verb „can‟, i.e. cannot, means that the child has not the ability to pay, the time adverbial „never‟ suggests that the child „at no time‟ can pay for his mother‟s milk. The transposition with „never‟ appears to be an improvement to the meaning of the proverb. „A child cannot‟ subtly connotes that „the child as a child cannot‟ pay, while „never‟ could suggest that „at no time can the child as child or adult be able‟ to pay for its mother‟s milk. The transposition stretches and strengthens the point of view of the proverb without altering its meaning or cultural reference. „Mother‟s milk in the proverb is the breast milk that sustains the life of a new born from infancy until it is able to feed on solid meals. The significance and importance of breast milk to infantile life is understandable in every culture such that its retention in the translation need not create any ambiguity to understanding the proverb in its immediate context or situation in the narrative. The amplification of „mother‟s milk‟ to „mother‟s love‟ while not distorting the overall emphasis of the proverb on the relationship between the child and its mother, extended that relationship beyond the time-frame in childhood, 19 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY i.e. infancy, that is the concern in the narrative context and reflected in the proverb. Mother‟s milk in the translation now included other cares and affection of the mother to the child beyond infancy. The metaphor of the breast milk in the proverb-in-context is that it is life to the child, it is unquantifiable, the child cannot repay its mother‟s life given to it, for that life becomes the child‟s own life and the child cannot repay for its own life either. In using „love‟, the translators remove the concrete imagery and emotion of the proverb, destroys the preciseness of the metaphor of life, minimises drastically the depth of meaning and force or impact of the proverb, and defaces the proverb as an Igbo proverb in its context. Stylistically, the change from a concrete term „breast milk‟ to a figurative one „love‟ does not reflect the characteristic of this culture to express itself concretely in its proverbs. The figurative term „love‟ is ambiguous in this context. In the narrative context, Okonkwo is in the last of the seven years of his exile in Mbanta, his maternal home. His clan for an abominable offence against the earth-goddess exiled him. He fled the clan by night with only his family. His houses and properties were destroyed as part of the appeasement for his offence (TFA 870). He arrived Mbanta like a fish cast out from the water, gasping for life breath (TFA. 92). He has to begin life all over again depending „entirely‟ on the benevolence and goodwill of his late mother‟s family and people. In the last year of his exile, he expresses his gratitude to his mother‟s kindred that were gathered at the feast or farewell dinner he prepared for them. He explains that he cannot repay them for all the benevolence and goodness that they had shown to him during his sojourn with them. He uses the proverb. This lifeline given to Okonkwo by his maternal kindred so that he could survive the „seven years‟ of his exile is what compares with „breast milk‟. The seven years compares aptly with the infancy of a life began all over again. The translation by amplification modifies the reference and meaning of the proverb in context and so does not help in this instance to effectively communicate the knowledge of the source culture. On the whole the translation is inadequate. 19 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 5.1.2.14 Semantic Approach: Transposition and Paraphrase As a man danced, so the drums were beaten for him (TFA. 130) translated as: Der Tanz eines Mannes bestimmt den Rythmus der Trommeln (The dance of a man determines the rhythm of the drums. trans. 203) The structure of the proverb has been grammatically transposed from a causal dependent clause construction to a single unbroken declarative or assertive statement. “as a man danced” is transposed to “the dance of a man” and “so the drums were beaten” is paraphrased into “rhythm of the drums”. The synecdoche “drums” is complemented and explained by its substance “the rhythm” in the translation. The restructuring of the proverb through transposition and paraphrase did neither distort the thought and imagery of the proverb nor alters the allusion to the social life of dance from which the wisdom of the proverb is processed. The thought of the proverb affirms the equity of reaction to action. What is lost is the flavour and phrasing of oral expression contained in the proverb. The proverb has a bipartite structure by which a proverbial pause is observed after the first part in order to duly emphasize the concluding part. The proverbial pause is like an interlude in which the weight or depth of a proverbial thought is absorbed in meditative silence before pronouncing it definitively in the conclusion, while the flavour (or temper or tone) of oral expression refers to a way of saying that reflects the „cultural mood or emotion‟ of a context or situation spoken by an observer or performer. The flavour and phrasing of oral expression in the source text is stylistically important and style also reveals the source culture. Besides in communication what is said and how it is said are equally important. Furthermore, the target language can accommodate the phrasing of the proverb in the translation to more accurately reflect its source origin such that the changes made in the translation of the proverb are really unnecessary except to normalize it to the textual conventions of the target reader. In the narrative situation or context, the Reverend James Smith replaces Mr. Brown, the white missionary to Umuofia. Mr. Brown was considerate of the culture of the clan 19 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY even when he did not agree with most of its beliefs and practices. He sought by peaceful means and persuasion to convince the people to accept the new Christian faith. Revd. James Smith, in contrast, is aggressive to the customs, beliefs and traditions of the people. He strengthens the overzealous members of his church against the beliefs and customs of the clan. This brought inevitable confrontation between the church and the clan. The translation is adequately translated on the whole. 5.1.2.15 Semantic: Transposition You can tell a ripe corn by its look (TFA 16) translated as: Ein reifes Korn bleibt dem Augen nicht verborgen (A ripe corn is not hidden to the eyes)(trans. 30). The grammatical structuring of the proverb has been transposed from an active to a passive voice though the translation is still at the semantic literal level. The transposition deviates from the general tendency of Igbo proverbs to be in the active voice which gives them directness, briskness and force. The passive voice, however, seems to emphasize that a ripe corn is so obvious and visible that it does not take any effort at all to search for it; such that in an ironic way, it strengthens the point the proverb is making in its context. In the narrative context of the proverb, the wealthy Nwakibie has been refusing to give his yam seedlings to young men for share-cropping because, in his observation, many young men of today have become lazy with farm work. He, however, makes exception of Okonkwo and acknowledges the progress that he has already made in his youth by sheer hardwork as well as his obviously strong physique. Nwakibie uses the proverb in his acceptance to lend his yam seedlings to Okonkwo. Though the translation preservers the thought, literal image and allusion as well as the content-context of the proverb, the preferred phrasing of the translation to reflect the proverb is still the active voice and this is possible in the German language with the use of the indefinite pronoun „man‟, i.e „one‟. For instance: “Man erkennt ein reifes Korn durch seinen Aussehen” (One recognises a ripe corn by its look). On the whole, the cultural text unit is adequately translated. 19 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 5.1.2.16 Communicative: Transposition and Modulation I cannot live on the bank of a river and wash my hands with spittle (TFA. 117) Translated as Wer am Fluß wohnt braucht seine Hände nicht in einer Pfütze zu waschen (trans. 183) (Whoever lives on the bank of a river does not need to wash his hands in a puddle) In the renderedering of the proverb, the personal pronoun singular „I‟ has been transposed with the impersonal pronoun „who‟, and the first person possessive singular pronoun „my‟ transposed with the third person singular possessive pronoun „his‟. These transpositions make the proverb-in-translation to take the form and structure of a proper Igbo proverb that is usually in the form of an observation or insight independent of the person stating it. However, the translation lost the association with or revelation of the force and temper of Okonkwo‟s character carried in the proverb through the use of the personal pronouns. Pfütze (puddle) is used to amplify „spittle‟ in the proverb. The proverb disapproves of stinginess in what one has in abundance. The translation preserves this thought. However, „Pfütze‟ i.e. puddle used to translate „spittle‟ in the proverb refers either to a small amount of rainwater in a hollow place in the ground or to a thick paste of sand, clay and water. Any of rainwater, a paste of sand, clay and water or spittle is an amount incomparably smaller to the river but either of a small amount of rainwater in a hollow place in the ground or a thick paste of sand, clay and water represents an amount more than the spittle. The spittle may account for the degree of stinginess involved in the imagery. Besides, the German language can include spittle in the translation with no awkwardness of expression to the target reader. In the narrative context, Okonkwo is now in the last year of his exile in his mother‟s land. He plans a feast of gratitude for his mother‟s kindred. He insists to his wife, Ekwefi, on providing generously for the feast since he is rich enough. The wife had objected to killing three goats for the feast as Okonkwo directed. She thought two would be enough. The restructuring of the proverb in the third person by the translators, presumably to give it the form of a proverb, deviates from the stylistic use of the the proverb in the immediate narrative context. The author has presented the proverb in the first person as a 20 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY direct statement by Okonkwo. However, this deviation still agrees with the dominant style the author has used to introduce proverbs in the narration and so it is still an acceptable form for the translation of the proverb. Besides, the restructuring did not affect the force of the narration. The use of puddle for spittle still upholds the thought or idea of the proverb, although the thought may be said to be insignificantly weakened through the weakening of the metaphoric reference. Culturally significant, however, is that the Igbo use spittle for that proverb. It is possible that the hygiene culture of the Germans does not imagine nor envisage washing the hands with spittle, and that the translators, inadvertently or advertently, avoid an imagery that could be perjorative to the source culture in the eyes of the target readership. This would also be an instance of normalising the target text to the cultural sensitivity of the target readership.The translation is on the whole adequate. Semantic: ‘Literalization’ (Literal Translating) 5.1.2.17 Example I Eneke the bird says that since men have learnt to shoot without missing, he has learnt to fly without perching (TFA. 16) Translated as: Eneke der Vogel sagte:seit die Menschen gelernt haben zu schiessen ohne zu fehlen, habe ich gelernt zu fliegen, ohne innezuhalten (transl. 29). (Eneke the bird says that since men have lernt to shoot without missing, he has learnt to fly without a pause). The proverb has been translated close to its German syntactic and lexical equivalents. However, the verb „fehlen‟, which the translators chose means „to be lacking‟, „to be missing‟, „to be wrong‟ in its current usage. It is only in its obsolete or archaic usage that it connotes the sense for which it is used in the translation (Spriger, Langensheidts Enzykl.; Wahrig 1992). Furthermore, though the verb „innehalten‟ chosen by the translators has the meaning of „pause‟, and „stop‟, it is less contextually appropriate than the verbs „hocken‟ or „niederlassen‟ that means „to perch‟. The choice of an obsolete verb or a contextually less appropriate one is, with regard to style, unsuitable 20 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY for easy access of target readers to the knowledge of the source text message. The author of the source text has written in very simple and easy prose style and in non-elevated or poetic language in order to reach to as many and to every segment of his audience in the other culture. Obsolete and archaic language puts undue pressure on the „modern‟ target reader „to find out‟. The translation, however, preserves the thought, perspective and literal imagery of the proverb and so preserves its cultural importance. The pragmatism and dynamism of the culture is seen in the perspective that a new or an unusual situation demands or requires a new or an unusual response. This perspective or meaning is also visible in the narrative context of the proverb. Nwakibie, to whom Okonkwo has gone to request yam seedlings for share-cropping, justifies his refusals to lend his yam seedlings on the reason that many young men „of today‟ have become lazy with farm work. This makes him to be selective of those to whom he would sharecrop his yam seedlings. Nwakibie uses the proverb. The translation is on the whole considered to be adequate. 5.1.2.18 Example II Dimaragana, who would not lend his knife for cutting up dog meat because the dog was taboo, but offered to use his teeth. (TFA. 48) Translated as: Dimaragana, der seine Messer zum schneiden von Hundefleisch nicht hergeben wollte, weil Hunde für ihn Tabu waren, der sich aber statt dessen erbot, das Fleisch mit den Zähnen zu zerreißen (trans. 80) The anecdotic proverb has been translated literally with no distortion to its literal phrasing, imagery or thought. The translation still gives the proverb the full appearance or identity of its source origin. In the narrative context to the proverb, Okonkwo visits his friend, Obierika, two days after the killing of Ikemefuna by a team that included Okonkwo. Their discussion on a number of issues turned to the restriction placed by the custom on titled men from 20 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY climbing tall palm trees to tap palm wine. However, they could tap from short palm trees without climbing them. Obierika jestfully doubts the propriety of that law by pointing to its incongruity with what obtains in many other clans around where such restriction on titled men does not exist, and to its hypocrisy for appearing to differentiate between a palm wine tapped from a tall palm tree and that tapped from a short palm tree. However, Obierika finally agreed with Okonkwo that the law is good and the clan can hold the ozo title in high esteem. Obierika uses the proverb. The proverb draws from the metaphor of hypocrisy in the anecdote of Dimaragana to highlight the comparative situation of titled men in the clan in regard to tapping palm wine. The translation of the proverb is judged to be adequate. 5.1.2.19 Example III A baby on its mother‟s back does not know that the way is long (TFA. 71) translated as: Ein Kind auf dem Rücken seiner Mutter weiß nie wie lang der Weg ist.(trans. 115) (A child on its mother‟s back never knows how long the way is). The proverb has been literally rendered with „baby‟ and „does not‟ transposed with „a child‟ and „never‟ respectively. Also „that the way is long‟ is transposed with „never knows how long the way is‟ in order to conform the structure of expression to its closest German equivalent. „ein Kind‟ is a superordinate term that incorporates the reference to „a baby‟ without any distortion to the meaning and imagery of the proverb. The thought in the proverb is that the one being cared for does not know the pain it takes to care for him/her. The application of this thought in the narration is self explanatory at the literal level of the proverbial context. In the narrative context the priestess of Agbala, Chielo, called on the Okonkwo‟s late in the night with the message that Agbala wants to see Okonkwo‟s daughter Ezinma straightaway. The Okonkwo‟s consented after initial reluctance. The priestess has to carry Ezinma on her back to the shrine. The priestess uses the proverb. The proverb is adequately translated. 20 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 5.1.2.20 Example IV Never kill a man who says nothing (TFA 98) Translated as Töte nie einen Mann, der nichts sagt (trans. 156) The proverb is rendered grammatically and structurally into its closest German equivalent with no alteration to the phrasing of the proverb, to content and meaning. The proverb comes from an animal fable of the kite, duck and hen, which illustrates the ominousness of silence. In the narrative context to the proverb, Obierika accompanied by two other young men, visits Okonkwo in exile. As the men are drinking, Obierika tells them the story of how the Abams killed a white man, who appeared in their clan, after they had consulted their oracle. The white man was presumed to have said nothing while he was being killed. Some days later, a band of white men came back to Abam on a market day and massacred the Abams while many of them alive fled their clan. Uchendu, the eldest old man in Okonkwo‟s mother‟s kinsmen uses the proverb from the fable. The translation is adequate. 5.1.2.21 Example V Never make an early morning appointment with a man who has just married a new wife (TFA 99) Translated as Man sollte sich nie am frühen morgen mit einem Mann verabreden, der gerade erst eine Frau geheiratet (trans.158). The grammar and lexis of the proverb are converted to their closest German equivalents without altering either the literal phrasing or the thought of the proverb. The thought of the proverb is self explanatory and visible in the narrative context. Obierika visits his friend, Okonkwo, who is on exile in his maternal clan, Mbanta. Okonkwo asks Obierika at what time he and his company set out from Umuofia for the visit. Obierika explains that they set out well after the cockcrow. That was later than they had intended to set out because the newly married Nweke, one of the young men with 20 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY him, came out late for the journey. Obierika uses the proverb. The translation is adequately rendered. 5.1.2.22 Example VI Living fire begets cold, impotent ash (TFA 109) Translated as: Lebendiges Feuer zeugt kalte, tote Asche (trans. 171) The proverb has been rendered in its closest target language grammar and lexis equivalents with no distortion to literary phrasing, imagery and thought. Although the phrase „living fire‟ is unidiomatic in both English and German, the German translators still render it literally. However, it is easily understandable from the immediate narrative situation or context from which it arose The wisdom of the proverb follows the perspective that there exists a logical sequence in the natural order. This is made evident in the narrative situation or context. Okonkwo sits in his hut on a night gazing into a burning log of fire and pondering over the disturbing awareness that his first son, Nwoye, has joined the white man‟s religion. It was unbelievable to him that he, Okonkwo, known as the „roaring flame‟ in the clan could be father to Nwoye, who is so degenerate and effeminate. The ashes of the burnt- out log led him to the insight that his birth to Nwoye follows a natural order of succession. The translation is judged to be adequate. 5.1.2.23 Semantic: Literal and Transposition In the proverb: When the moon is shining, the cripple becomes hungry for a walk (TFA.7) translated into German as: wenn der Mond scheint, lechzt selbst der Krüppel nach einen Spazierung (trans. 17). (When the moon shines even the cripple desperately longs for a walk) 20 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the translators transposed the verb „hungry‟ in the proverb with the superordinate verb „lechzen‟(to desperately long for something) and added the adverbial particle „selbst (even). The other parts of the proverb they translate literally. The translation enhances the pragmatic impact of both the internal phrasing of the proverb and of the narrative context of its use through the addition of the adverbial particle, „selbst‟, and by the choice of a stronger verb‟ „lechzen‟ that both preserves and strengthens the meaning of hungry. The adverbial particle sharply or forcefully contrasts the cripple from the non- physically challenged and makes his desperate longing for a walk emphatic and strange, strange because his longing disregards his handicap but at the same time understandable considering the compelling beauty of the night environment created by the moon. The cripple in the proverb stands for the old men and women who, in the narrator‟s commentary, can no more play in the moonlit night like the children and young people though they desire to. The moonlit night only reminds them of their own childhood and youth. The proverb, in the narrative context, brings out the dual character and personality of night in this culture and shows how the people stand in relation to it. The people fear the dark still night. The proverb focuses on the moonlit night in order to sharply contrast it with the terrific character of the dark still night. The dark still night is, by this contrast the emphasis of the context, in order to bring out the „dark‟ and „ominous‟ atmosphere vis-a-vis the mood in which Okonkwo received the town-crier‟s message that vaguely forebodes the tragedy of his own life. It was the message that eventually began the story of Ikemefuna in the story of Okonkwo. The proverb provides by contrast the knowledge of the dual attitude of the people to night and depicts the image of a culture living within the rhythm of nature. The translation improves the force of the literal phrasing of the proverb, enhances the force of the immediate narrative context of the story and helps to emphasise the image and knowledge of culture contained in the passage. The proverb is adequately translated. 20 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 5.1.2.24 Communicative-semantic: Literal and Omission A child‟s fingers are not scalded by a piece of hot yam, which its mother puts into its palm (TFA 47). translated as: Ein Kind verbrennt sich nicht die Finger an derselben heissen Yamswurzel, die seine Mutter ihm in die Hand gelegt hat (trans. 77). (A child does not get his fingers burnt by the same hot yamroot that his mother put into its hand) The translators have with considerable success converted the grammar structures and the lexical units of the proverb to their closest target language equivalents making such addition of words like „an derselben‟ (by the same) for emphasis and to create the flavour of a target language expression. The translators omitted „piece of‟ that is present in the proverb or translated it as „Wurzel‟. If omitted, then „Yamwurzel‟ presumably stands for „tuber‟. If not omitted then „Wurzel‟ is to form a compound noun with yam to mean the „piece of yam‟ of the proverb. This presumable attempt of the translators to assist the target readers to correctly conceive this staple food item of the Igbo culture, yam, is unfortunately unsuccessful. „Wurzel‟ rather created an unnecessary ambiguity for it does not correctly identify the yam „tuber‟ nor does it mean „piece‟. „Wurzel‟ refers to the root of plants or crops. The yam may be a root crop but the enlarged and edible part of its root is correctly identified as „tuber‟ for which the closest word in German is „Knolle‟. Knolle means tuber or nodule. The closest root crop to the yam in German is the potato and „Knolle‟ describes its enlarged and edible parts, though the potato may still not give the most accurate picture of the yam tuber size. The word for piece in German is „Stück‟. The introduction of „Wurzel‟ in the translation of the proverb is really unnecessary. „Yamstück‟ could have given a more adequate reference to „piece of yam‟ and thus achieved a more acceptable translation. The transposition of „palm‟ with „hand‟ is basically with no loss of meaning to the proverb, but an unnecessary replacement with a close rather than with an exact part of the body. Notwithstanding the inability of the translation to properly identify the yam in the proverb to the target reader, it, nevertheless, preserves the mother-image in the proverb 20 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY and the perspective of the proverb-in-context on mother-child relationship. The mother is not expected inflict injury on the child. In the immediate narrative context to the proverb, Ikemefuna, the child kept in the custody of Okonkwo by the clan, has been killed two days earlier by a team that included Okonkwo. The oracle had decreed his death. Obierika, Okonkwo‟s friend, refused to participate in the killing. At the meeting of these friends after the incident, Obierika protests Okonkwo‟s participation pointing out that his participation is capable of incurring the wrath of the earth-goddess on his household. Okonkwo tries to justify his participation claiming he acted in obedience to the instruction of the earth-goddess and protests the very idea that the earth-goddess could hold him guilty and punish him for obeying her messenger. Okonkwo uses the proverb for self-justification. The translation of the proverb is judged to be mostly adequate. 5.1.2.25 Semantic-Communicative: Literal and Modulation. In the proverb: A toad does not run in the daytime for nothing (TFA 15) translated into German as: Eine Kröte zeigt sich nicht ohne Grund am hellichten Tag. (trans. 28) (A toad does not show itself in the daytime without reason) the translators use the literal technique which converts the grammatical constructions and the lexical units of the source text into their closest target language equivalents. However, the verbal phrase „does not run‟ is replaced by the verbal phrase „does not show itself‟. The significance of this choice of equivalence by the translators is contained in the difference between „run‟ and „show itself‟ introduced in the situation. The proverb is used in the narration on the occasion of Okonkwo‟s visit to the wealthy Nwakibie to request from him a number of yam-seedlings for share-cropping. Those present during this visit discuss Obiako, who was said to have suddenly given up his palm-wine tapping trade. Ogbuefi Idigo uses the proverb to point out the fact that there must be a compelling reason for Obiako‟s behaviour. One of the discussants, Akukalia, 20 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY subsequently informs the gathering that Obiako had to stop his trade because he was said to had been warned by the oracle that he would fall off a palm tree and kill himself. The translation by the literal technique preserves the area of observed animal life from which the proverb arose. It also allows the basic thought of the proverb, the fact of an action being the result of a cause, to be considerably understood within the context of the narrative situation; however, with a consequential loss in the depth of meaning and a shift in perspective contained in the translation. The verb „show itself‟ eliminates or omits the imagery or element of fright and compulsion that usually go with the proverb and that is present in the narrative situation. It is likely that the translators, in their consideration for the target readership and the target culture‟s mode of expression, doubted the propriety of using „run‟ for the movement of the toad, which in English is qualified by the word „leap‟ and in German by the word „springen‟ (leap). The word they chose „show itself‟ is a neutral word that omits mention of the type of movement by which the toad comes out in the daytime. Instead it contains an implicit element of surprise that could be felt by those that see the toad in the daytime because they do not expect to see it at that time. The use of „show itself‟ by the translators weakens the proverb and makes it incongruent with the narrative situation because it eliminated the metaphor that connects the proverb to the situation or to its context, the metaphor of fright and of compulsion. Obiako giving up of his palm-wine tapping trade is aptly reflected in the proverb by the word „run‟ because that trade has become „a threat‟ to his life going by the divination of the oracle. The fear of death compelled him to give up the trade. Furthermore, the use of „show itself‟ by the translators betrays a superficial representation of the keen observation of this animal‟s life in the source culture that informs the literal phrasing of the proverb to capture the narrative situation. The toad is a nocturnal creature and the snake is the creature that feeds on toads and frogs and rodents. When the toad flees in the daytime, it is almost always because the snake pursues it to feed on it. The use of „run‟ in the proverb presents an imagery that underscores the faster leaps of the toad away from danger as flight and a compulsory running away for dear life. The absence of this imagery and metaphor of fright and compulsion mistranslates 20 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the proverb and eliminates an aspect of knowledge and experience of culture associated with the proverb. This metaphor of fright and flight for dear life becomes obvious elsewhere in the novel where the proverb is used in a different but related context. The overzealousness encouraged in the members of the church by the Revd. James Smith, missionary and successor to the more tolerant Mr. Brown, led Enoch, a member of the church to unmask an Egwugwu – a masquerade, an abomination tantamount to killing an ancestral spirit. The Egwugwu cult marched to the mission‟s compound and burnt down the church. The district commissioner, in response, craftly arrested and imprisoned six prominent men of Umuofia, including Okonkwo, who after humiliating treatments, were released on bail after about a week. The bail was paid by the entire clan. An emergency general meeting of all the men in the clan was subsequently summoned to discuss and take decision on the appropriate and definitive response of the clan to the foregoing events. Okika, one of the great men of Umuofia and also one of the men that was imprisoned addressed the gathering first using the proverb in a rather elaborate phrasing: You all know why we are here, when we ought to be building our barns or mending our huts, when we should be putting our compounds in order. My father used to say to me: “whenever you see a toad jumping in broad daylight, then know that something is after its life.” When I saw you all pouring into this meeting from all the quarters of our clan so early in the morning, I knew that something is after our life. … All our gods are weeping. Idemili is weeping. Ogwugwu is weeping, Agbala is weeping, and all others. Our dead fathers are weeping because of the shameful sacrilege they are suffering and the abomination we have seen with our eyes. … (TFA. 143) In this context, the very life and fabric of the Umuofia clan are threatened right to the tie of that community with its gods and ancestors. The emergency meeting is the „toad jumping in broad daylight‟; the flight for life to find safety in the decision the clan will take in the meeting. The translators render the proverb here literally capturing the context and meaning adequately: 21 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY wenn du eine Kröte am hellichten Tag umherhüpfen siehst, dann weißt du: sie ist in lebensgefahr! (trans. 221) (when you see a toad jumping about in broad daylight, then know: its life is at risk.) The rearrangements in the structure of the proverb and the transposition in punctuations are to conform the translation to the grammatical structure of the target language. The colon introduced in the translation is not only a punctuation but a rhetorical device that serves as the proverbial pause before the definitive conclusion. This conclusion has been more forcefully stated as a full clause in the restructuring of the proverb in the translation. In the first translation of the proverb, the translators did not give adequate consideration to the context, and the translation is both unsuccessful and inadequate. 5.1.2.26 Semantic-Communicative: Literal and Amplification Let the kite perch and let the eagle perch too. If one says no to the other let its wing break (TFA 14) translated into German as Der Milan soll ebenso niederlassen können wie der Adler. Wenn einer von beiden den anderen nicht dulden will, soll ihm auf der Stelle die Schwingen brechen. (trans. 26). (Let the kite perch just as well as the eagle. If any of the two will not tolerate the other, let its wing break off from its place) The translators have translated literally converting both the structure and words of the proverb to their closest German language equivalent. Amplification is used to explain „no‟ in the proverb to be „not tolerate‟, while „if one‟ is transposed to be „if any of the two‟. The amplification is in actual fact a simplification of the „no‟ particle in the proverb. The techniques used here preserve the meaning of the proverb and did not alter its imagery and literal allusion. However, the amplification ignores the economy of words that characterises the proverb so as to maintain its briskness and to preserve as far as possible its original phrasing in the translation. The target readers, without the 21 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY amplification, could still have properly understood the proverb in its narrative context. Maintaining the original phrasing of a proverb as far as it is possible is important in translating interculturally. The significance of this translation is not only in the target readers knowing that a culture has a certain thought in its proverb but also in knowing just how and with what imagery this culture states this thought in its proverb. In the narrative context of the proverb, Okonkwo has gone to the wealthy Nwakibie to request for a number of yam seedlings from him for share-cropping. Nwakibie presented kolanut to Okonkwo and others present. According to custom, Nwakibie has to break the kolanut after he has said the traditional kolanut prayers. He uses the proverb during the prayer. The translation is mostly adequate. 4.1.2.27 Semantic-Communicative: Literal, Paraphrase and Omission A chick that will grow into a cock can be spotted the very day it hatches (TFA. 46) Translated as: Ob ein Küken einmal ein Hahn wird, kann man schon erkennen, wenn es aus dem Ei schlüpft ( trans. 76) (Whether a chick will become a cock can already be seen as it hatches.) The grammatical transposition with a conditional dependent clause and the omission of the emphatic adverbial particle „the very day‟ are to conform the proverb to the structure and rules of German grammar and expression. However, this conformity did not alter the thought, literal imagery and allusion to animal life in the proverb, neither did it deface the proverb from its Igbo origin. The sense of the proverb is rendered literally through the retention of the exact images and allusions of the proverb in the translation. The proverb is one of the proverbs in the culture that shows the high regards for success and achievement. The thought in the proverb is that a child that will become a success in life begins in early childhood to show it. In the narrative context to the proverb, Okonkwo expresses his worry to his friend, Obierika, that his (Okonkwo‟s) son, Nwoye, is weak and lazy. Obierika tries to dismiss Okonkwo‟s fears by pointing out to him that his children are still young. Okonkwo 21 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY responds to this effort by Obierika with the proverb. The translation is judged to be adequate. 5.1.2.28 Semantic-Communicative: Literal and Substitution A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for his own greatness (TFA 14) Translated literally into German as: Ein Mann der den Großen Achtung erweist ebnet den Weg für seine eigene Große (trans 27). (A man who shows respect to the great paves the way for his own greatness) The idiomatic phrase „pays respect‟ in the proverb is substituted with an equally idiomatic phrase from German „Achtung erweisen‟ (to show respect), which is a fitting substitution. Both idiomatic phrases carry the meaning of to „express respect‟. The word „pay‟ in the proverb appears to call attention to itself and to carry the obvious connotation in the narrative context that expressing respect to the great is „an obligation that goes beyond words‟ for the one who would pave the way for his own success. This is also evident in the narrative context: Okonkwo took „a pot of palm wine and a cock‟ to wealthy Nwakibie and said, “…I have come to pay you my respects and also to ask for a favour…” (TFA 14). The favour he came to ask was yam seedlings that he does not have and which successful cultivation in large scale would turn him into a great farmer and a wealthy man like Nwakibie, perhaps more than Nwakibie. The suitability of the word „show‟ in the translation is in the fact that it also carries the meaning of „to demonstrate‟, „to exhibit‟ both of which carries the connotation of „pay‟ that occurs in the proverb. The translation recovers the full content of the proverb. The proverb gives insight into the belief in the relationship between the wealthy and the non-wealthy. Its translation is considered to be adequate. 5.1.2.29 Semantic: Literal and Borrowing By the technique of borrowing, words are taken directly from the source language into the target language without translation. 21 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The lizard that jumped from the high iroko tree to the ground said he would praise himself if no one else did (TFA. 16) Translated as: Die Eidechse, die vom hohen Iroko-Baum zu Boden sprang sagte: wenn mich keiner lobt, dann muß ich mich eben selber loben (trans. 29) Okonkwo uses this proverb in his formal address requesting Nwakibie to loan him yam seedlings to sharecrop. To assure Nwakibie that he will not waste the seedlings if they were given to him, Okonkwo recounts to Nwakibie how he (Okonkwo) began to fend for himself at quite an early stage in his life through hardwork. The thought and perspective of the culture in this proverb is that hardwork and achievement deserve commendation. The lizard, in the literal allusion of the proverb, behaves the same in the environment of both cultures such that there is no pressure from the target language or culture on the translators to substitute the proverb. The translators have rendered the proverb literally in the translation, though borrowing iroko into the target language or text. „Iroko‟ brings the local colour of the source language and culture into the target text without creating difficulty to the understanding of the proverb. This is because the base meaning of iroko as a type of tree is visible in its compounding as „iroko-tree‟. The translators preserve the thought in context of the proverb as well as its literal allusion to observed animal life. The translation is adequate. 5.1.2.30 Semantic: Literal/Borrowing ….the little bird nza who so far forgot himself after a heavy meal that he challenged his chi (TFA 22) translated as: …den kleinen Vogel nza, der sich nach einer schweren Mahlzeit soweit vergass, dass er sein chi zum Kampf herausforderte (trans. 39) 21 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY In the narrative context to the proverb, Okonkwo has trangressed the earth-goddess by beating his youngest wife, Orjiugo, during the week of peace. Though he became repentant and appeased the earth-goddess, he would not openly admit his errors. His enemis and detractors believe that his good fortune has made him arrogant and disrespectful to the gods of the land. They compare him to the proverbial bird, nza. The proverb comes from the fable of the nza. The proverb in its context shows the contempt of the culture for a man who challenges his fate or a man who does not know his limits. Besides, it gives us somewhat more insight into the concept of „chi‟; how significant and powerful it is. A man does not fight his chi because it is the same as fighting himself. The literal translation preserves the thought-in-context of the proverb as well as the allusion to the bird, nza. The target reader can as well learn of nza, and its proverbial relevance to the understanding of the culture. The translation is judged to be adequate. 4.1.2.31 Observation to the translation of the Proverbs The translation techniques which permit changes in and the substitutions of the proverbs create the most problems to cultural knowledge communication and to the ascriptions of cultural identity to source language expressions for they obscure the source culture origins of the proverbs and in some cases they ignore the proverbial allusions that give knowledge of the source culture to the target readership. Furthermore, the use of two or more techniques by the translators in most cases shows their effort at a pragmatic deployment of techniques to make the text accessible to the target readers. It also shows the difficulty they have trying, even if inadvertently, to mediate in the differences between the two cultures. However, such pragmatic deployment of techniques is, in more cases than not, uncomplemented by a thorough knowledge of the source culture, and, therefore, leads to mistranslation. Moreover, the conflict or tension between the two cultures in the translations is, in some cases, artificially created by the overindulgence of the translators to satisfy the cultural sensibilities and preferences of the target readers. This is evident by the fact that in those cases the changes and substitutions are evidently unnecessary because the German language can accommodate a semantic translation of 21 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the proverbs with little or no awkwardness of expression; for instance in proverbs Nos 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 13. Also in the substitutions made in Nos 3, 4, 16, and others. In proverbs Nos. 2,3,4,5, and others, the translators mismanaged the relationship between context and content of the proverbs. Such mismanagement not only obscures cultural knowledge but in some cases like in proverbs Nos. 9 and 11 gives a negative and false presentation of the source culture. However, there are cases in which he translators may be said to be under the pressure of the target language and culture to introduce changes in the translation of certain proverbs. These are cases in which a source text situation or context or a concept borne by a proverb does not exist in the target culture. These instances occurred in proverbs Nos. 8 and 10 in which the respective bride-price settlement situation and the concept of „chi‟ do not exist in the target culture. Nothwithstanding, the clarification can be glossed or „footnoted‟ without having to obscure the cultural origin of the proverbs and to distort their true significations in the culture. In some other cases, such concepts may be explained by nominative or possessive compounding. An example is proverb No. 14 where „so the drums were beaten‟ is explained with the transposition „the rhythm of the drums‟ without damage to the allusion to drum and the dance life of the source culture. Proverb No. 23 does show, notwithstanding, that a technique of change like transposition can positively improve and enforce both meaning and context and aid intercultural understanding and communication. 5.2. The Translation of Cultural Idioms and Expressions 5.2.1 Cultural Idioms and Figurative Expressions Idioms constitute a part of the „fossilized sayings‟ or „traditional maxims‟, which meanings come from the tradition and culture of the people (Obiechina 27). They are often colloquial metaphors and figures of speech that show the manner of speaking peculiar to a language and acceptable within a culture. Like the proverb, they can also reveal customs, values and attitudes, physical and social environment, as well as the 21 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY material aspects of culture such as food, clothing, houses, and so on; indeed all the aspects of the cultural universe of a people. Both the proverbs and the idioms cover areas of observed life providing imageries and expressions that can lead to the knowledge of a culture. However, unlike the proverbs that are sentences, idioms are mostly phrases, collocations, and expressions to be used in sentences. Schweigert and Moats define idioms to be common expressions used in colloquial speech with accepted figurative meanings that differ from their present literal meanings (281). However, the use of idioms is not necessarily restricted only to colloquial speech contexts. Phrasal verbs (e.g. set up; to establish), figurative (e.g. pay a dividend; to produce a benefit), and grammatical (e.g. in due course; eventually) idioms are frequently found in formal writing and formal speech contexts. Nwoga defines the idiom as an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meaning of its constituent elements or from the general grammatical rules of language (in Ogbalu and Emenanjo 186). Both definitions admit that there are two different interpretations or meaning levels to the idiom: a literal one, which comes from the words of the idiom and a figurative one, which is the accepted meaning. Both definitions, however, did not establish any relation possible between the literal phrasing of the idiom and the figurative meaning or between the literal and figurative meanings neither did any of them show any possible significance of the literal phrasing of the idiom. The meaning of an idiom like “to kick the bucket”, i.e. “to die”, obviously appears to have no relation with the literal phrasing of the idiom. The entire idiomatic utterance is a culturally embedded symbol where the relation between the expression and the expressed seems arbitrary and so fits within the conception of the above definitions. However, the meaning of the idiom „to carry coals to new castle”, i.e. to take something to a place that already has enough of it, derives its true meaning from its allusion, at the literal level, to Newcastle, a coal-mining city. A a foreign reader of the idiom may not make out the full sense of it if he/she does not know what Newcastle stands for in the idiom. Besides being the basis of a figurative meaning to the idiom, Newcastle and coal mining in this context, belong to a culture and a people. They provide knowledge about an aspect of them that has become part of their cultural universe and part of their 21 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY language and communicative life. Two points become obvious here: firstly, there are idioms, which literal referents posses allusions that are important to a full understanding of their real or figurative meaning, i.e. the ideas or thoughts they contain, and secondly, like proverbs, the literal reference basis of some idioms can be important to a wider knowledge and understanding of a culture and a people outside the idiomatic utterance. The above two points strengthen the fact that a person‟s knowledge and correct use of the idioms of a language indicate such a person‟s intimate knowledge of the language and culture. In a further observation, Nwoga notes that idioms serve as a language‟s “shorthand notations for emotive speech” and that the accurate use of the idiom is appreciated where the emotion or situation being described “possess equivalent vigour to the connotations of the idiomatic imagery” (Appraisal of Igbo Proverbs and Idioms 202). This means, as Nwoga illustrated, that if the Igbo idiom “Obi iwụi n‟afọ (the heart pouring into the stomach) is to be accurately used, it must be used in a situation which perfectly justifies “sudden fear”. The above observation by Nwoga makes obvious that there are at least three components to the idiom: imagery, situation or emotion, i.e. context, and connotation. Imagery is the picture called up in the mind or imagination by the words and allusions contained in the idiom. Context is the circumstances or state of mind that surrounds the utterance of the idiom, and connotation is the appropriate shade(s) of understanding or meaning the idiom represents or that is possible from the context of the idiomatic utterance. However the impact or depth of the meaning of some idioms may be fully realized through the „unbundling‟ of the allusion. It is also in the allusion of the idiom that the knowledge of culture is contained. Allusion is the prior cultural knowledge taken for granted by the author (Albakry par. 3), which bestows a specific density on the original or source language (Ordudari par. 20). Allusions need to be explained or understood to bring out the richness of meaning and knowledge of culture in the source language text. The rootedness of the idioms of the Igbo language in the Igbo culture can be inferred from the name of idiom in the Igbo language – “Akpaalaokwu”. A term both striking and imaginative that connotes the “undersoil” of the language. It is this culture 21 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY boundedness of the idiom that raises its significance and importance in the communication of culture. It is also this culture boundedness that is of interest in this analysis. Cultural idioms are used here to refer to those fixed, mostly, non sentence expressions whose contextual and literal images and allusions are capable of revealing the characteristics or features of the source culture including customs, values, attitudes, and so on as well as the features of the environment of the source culture. These revelations give knowledge of the source culture to the target readers. „Figurative Expressions‟ is used to refer to every other expression(s) that evokes a picture or mental representation of the source culture or which lexical constituent or meaning, literal and figurative, extends to or provides a knowledge and understanding of the source culture. The analysis of the translation of these idioms will examine the techniques used in their translations and with what significance to the communication of knowledge of the source culture and cultural representation in relation to the purpose of the author of TFA. Specifically, how have the translators helped the target readers to gain authentic and adequate knowledge of culture in the idioms? 5.2.2 Analysis of Translated Cultural Idioms and Expressions. Semantic: Literal Translations 5.2.2.1. Example I In TFA (6), the narrator records that when Okonkwo‟s father, Unoka, died “he had „taken no title at all‟ and he was heavily in debt”. The translators rendered the expression “he had „taken no title at all” literally as … “hatte er nicht einen einzigen Titel erworben….” (…he had not acquired a single title. trans. 14) transposing „at all‟ with „a single‟ without a distortion to the perspective and meaning of the idiom. The entire narrative of TFA makes obvious the significance of titled men in the Igbo society of Umuofia. In a society without a „visible‟ or „pronounced‟ institution of 21 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY kingship, the titled men constitute indispensable foci of authority that take part in every important decision the clan makes. Titled men in Igbo society compare favourably to that privileged and prestigious class in German and European monarchical and feudal/agrarian society known as the nobility. “To take no title,” means unable to accede to the social status of a noble. Just like in German monarchical feudal societies where a nobleman was not expected to do certain things that would undermine the integrity of his class, so also in Igbo society, a titled man has things he must not do to preserve the integrity and respect of his status. For example, a titled man in Umuofia must not tap a tall palm wine tree, he must not be involved in criminal behaviours like stealing (TFA. 48), he must not pound foofoo for his wife (TFA. 51), and others. In the entire narration of TFA, „titled men‟ has been translated literally. There was no attempt to refer to what is similar between the titled men in Igbo society and the titled or noble men in German society. Such crosscultural reference could have promoted intercultural communication by establishing not only a measure of commonality in both cultures through which the same idea or object could be accessed but also, and more importantly, by establishing to the target reader the equal validity of the source culture. This is possible by the translating technique of semantic cushioning whereby, a literal translation is combined with paraphrase or elaboration. The context passage could have been translated: … hatte er nicht einen einzigenTitel erworben und deshalb zählt er nicht zu den adligen Männer des Dorfes. Außerdem war er hoch verschuldet (...he had not acquired a single title and so was not one of the noblemen in the clan. Besides, he was heavily in debt. The translation is clearly an evidence of distancing the source culture by drawing an artificial line of incomparability between source and target cultures. This distancing of the source culture might be seen as the translator‟s (perhaps unintentional) way of preserving the target culture‟s claims of higher worth and meaning. The translation of the idiom is inadequate to intercultural postcolonial communication. 22 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 5.2.2.2 Example II The prowess of Umuofia in war is accentuated by the character of its goddess of war, the „agadi woman or old woman‟, who would not “fight a fight of blame” (TFA. 9); an idiomatic phrase meaning “to pursue an unjust and unjustifiable course of action”, which the translators rendered literally as “Einen Krieg der Schande” (trans. 19) (a war of blame.) transposing ‚fight‟ in the idiom with ‚war‟ to properly reflect the narrative context. The literal semantic technique used for the translation is in order for the narrative context makes obvious the meaning of the idiom. The translation of the cultural text unit is considered to be adequate. 5.2.2.3 Example III Okonkwo appeased the earth-goddess for his crime by bringing to the shrine of the goddess all items listed by her priest for the appeasement sacrifice, and even added a pot of palm wine that was not in the list as a sign of inward remorse and repentance. However, Okonkwo would admit his errors neither publicly nor to his neighbours. His detractors and other people, therefore, accuse him of being disrespectful to the gods of the clan and that “his good fortune had gone to his head” (TFA.22). The expression “his good fortune had gone to his head” is translated literally as “Sein Glück sei ihm zu Kopf gestiegen” (trans. 39) (His good fortune has climbed into his head.) The translation is perfectly in order where both cultures have idiomatic expressions with almost similar phrasing for the source text situation. “His good fortune had gone to his head” means that he has become proud and arrogant as a result of his success and achievements. The translation is adequate. 5.2.2.4 Example IV The wrestling feast of Okonkwo‟s village is celebrated with a wrestling match. The last wrestlers are the respective leaders of the two wrestling teams. Ikezue and Okafo. Both wrestlers appeared equally matched and were to be separated when Ikezue made a last miscalculated move to which Okafo responded, “quickly as the lightening of Amadiora” (TFA. 36) and finally threw Ikezua. 22 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The figurative expression “quickly as the lightening of Amadiora” means “in a flash”, but contains metaphoric allusion to Amadiora, the Igbo god of thunder. The translators render the expression literally as “blitzschnell, wie ein Blitzstrahl Amadioras …(trans. 60). (with the speed of lightening, like the lightening of Amadiora.) The literal semantic translation technique is appropriate here; for it preserves the allusion to an aspect of Igbo cultural religious belief. The need for a full understanding of the idiom would stir curiosity on what Amadiora stands for in the idiom. The translators would, however, need to complement the literal technique with internal note or gloss to assist the target reader with the knowledge of what Amadiora is. The translation is considered to be adequate on the whole. 5.2.2.5 Example V Ikemefuna has lived three years in Okonkwo‟s household. The narrator comments on the healthy progress of Ikemefuna in Okonkwo‟s house. He has adapted to his new home and has been fully integrated within the family of Okonkwo. The narrator describes his growth as rapid “like a yam tendril in the rainy season” (TFA. 37). “Like a yam tendril in the rainy season” is a cultural simile that shows not only the rapidity but also the robustness of Ikemefuna‟s physical, mental and social development in the house of Okonkwo. The idiomatic simile can more clearly be understood from this allusion to „yam growth in the rainy season‟ in the culture. This concrete or literal imagery in the idiom points to the physical and climactic environment of the source culture, i.e. the season of rains. It also points to the growth of the yam. Both the season of rains and the yam, a type of food, are typical of the source culture, located in the tropics as against the temperate climactic environment of the target culture and the target readers. The tendril of the cultivated yam in the rainy season grows succulent with a luxuriant and rich greenish colour, and it gracefully climbs its stake. This is because the 22 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY rains provide enough water for the planted yam seed to develop well. The translators have rendered the idiom literally: Er [Ikemefuna] wuchs so rash heran wie ein Yamssprößling in der Regenzeit (trans. 61) [He Ikemefuna] grew so rapidly like the shoot of the yam in the rainy season). The literal semantic translation preserves mention or the allusion to the aspect of climactic environment significant to the understanding of the cultural expression. The translation is considered to be mostly adequate, though harmattan may be well explained in a note or glossary. 5.2.2.6 Example VI The family of Okonkwo had taken their night meal and are relaxing. Okonkwo is reclining in his obi while each of his three wives sits in her hut with her children telling folk stories; so also is Ekwefi and her only daughter and child, Ezinma. The story telling is suddenly interrupted by the voice of the priestess of Agbala, Chielo, approaching Okonkwo‟s compound with greetings and prophecy, possessed by the spirit of her god. She announces to the Okonkwo‟s that Agbala wants to see Ezinma straightaway in his shrine. Ekwefi would want to go along with Chielo and Ezinma to the shrine of Agbala; to which wish Chielo rejects with a fierce exclamatory “tụfia-a!” The narrator describes Chielo‟s voice at this instance as “cracking like the angry bark of thunder in the dry season” (TFA. 71). The translators render the expression literally as: deren Stimme zerbarst wie das zornige Grollen des Donners in der Trockenzeit (trans. 115) (whose voice cracks like the angry rumble of thunder in the dry season) but transposing “bark” with “rumble”. “The angry bark of thunder in the dry season” is a metaphoric allusion to a climactic and natural factor of the environment that is an integral part of the cultural universe of the people. A full understanding of Chielo‟s expression and the meaning of the emotive allusion in the exclamatory “tụfia-a!” comes from 22 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY understanding “the … bark of thunder „in the dry season‟”, which the translators wrongly render as “rumble”. The expression refers rather to „the sharp, dry and metallic blast‟ of thunder rather than to the deep rolling sound (rumble) of thunder typical in the rainy season. The blast of thunder in the dry season agrees with the emotion contained in the exclamation “tụfia-a!” “Tụfia-a!” in the context and in the Igbo culture expresses strong and sharp abhorrence or repulsion to an occurrence, event or action that almost equals an abomination. The translation betrays the failure or difficulty of the translators in this context to adequately explain the „dry season‟ of the source culture and to relate it adequately to the cultural emotion. That emotion is a cultural allusion that reflects the reaction to something bad, foul and abominable in the culture. The German Language is capable of an adequate translation Viz: deren Stimme zerbarst wie der zornigen Schlag des Donners in der Trockenzeit (trans. 115) (whose voice cracks like the angry blast of thunder in the dry season) The translation of the cultural text unit is inadequate to intercultural communication and understanding. 5.2.2.7 Example VII In preparation for an aspect of the marriage rites of his daughter, the “uri” ceremony, Obierika has to buy three plump goats for the festival. He sent Nwankwo to the market of Umuike to buy the goats. The market of Umuike is a very big market with so much people but also with crimes such as stealing common in it. Obierika warned Nwankwo, when sending him, “to keep a sharp eye and a sharp ear” (TFA 79). “To keep a sharp eye and a sharp ear” is an idiomatic expression calqued from the native oral language into English. The metaphor of sharpness is drawn from the agrarian traditional culture where the machete and other sharp pointed instruments are used for farming and in traditional aspects of life like security and warfare in which alertness with 22 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the sharp blade is required. The idiom connotes alertness of mind, keenness of sight and hearing. In its context, it means to be very watchful and attentive. The translators render it near literally with a transposition of the verb as “Augen und Ohren offenzuhalten” (trans. 129), i.e. “to keep the eyes and ears open”. Although the translation preserves considerably the communicative value of the source text expression by preserving the ideas of watchfulness and attentiveness, the force or intensity of these ideas in the context of its use was, however, weakened by the loss of the allusion to, imagery and metaphor from the cultural life of the people in the phrase „sharp eye [and] ear‟. There is a unique story of cultural life in those words that is not contained in the replacing verbal phrase “to keep open‟. Also the flavour of oral expression is lost. Furthermore, the German word for sharp “scharf” connotes the meaning of keenness. The possibility of a translation close to the source text phrasing without loss of meaning exists in the German language.The translation is on the whole inadequate to intercultural postcolonial communication. 5.2.2.8 Communicative: Amplification When the church finally settled in Umuofia, it misled not only the “low-born‟ (TFA.23) and outcasts but sometimes a worthy man like Ogbuefi Ugonna. Ogbuefi Ugonna is compared to the madman that “had cut the anklet of his title and cast it away” (TFA. 123). The translators amplified the idiomatic phrase “low-born” as “Menschen von geringem Ansehen” (trans. 192), i.e. “People of low repute”. “Low-born” in the source text refers to a commoner, somebody without noble rank. He is contrasted to a “worthy man” (TFA 123), a man of title, “whose word was heeded in the assembly of the people” like Ogbuefi Ugonna”who had taken two titles” (TFA. trans. 101). The translation of the idiomatic phrase can be regarded to be an adequate and improved rendition of its meaning especially as the connotation of its literal phrasing, i.e. low-born is misleading to a proper understanding of the source culture. “Low-born” literally connotes a hereditary social class rank. That is not correct in the source culture because in this culture “a man was judged according to his worth, and not according to the worth of his father” (TFA. 6). 22 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 5.2.2.9 Semantic: Paraphrase When Ogbuefi Ugonna “cut the anklet of his titles…” and joined the church that amounted to „denobling‟ himself. What the translators rendered by paraphrase as: Den Fußreif mit den Zeichen seiner Titelwürde durchtrennt... (trans. 192). (To cut the anklet along with the dignity it symbolises) The translators have added additional information to help the target readers to know that the anklet is the symbol of dignity that goes with a title or social rank. The translation by paraphrase makes available to the target readers the knowledge of what the anklet stands for and yet retaining the items explained by the paraphrase in the translation. This is an aid to intercultural communication. However, the translators did not see the holding of title as a noble rank but a dignified position in the source culture society.The translation is considered to be adequate. 5.2.2.10 Semantic: Literal and Transposition The laziness of Okonkwo‟s father, Unoka, is strongly highlighted during his consultation with the priestess of Agbala, the god of divination. Unoka recounts his disappointment with his harvest in spite of the great effort he put into his farming and the sacrifices he makes to the gods for good harvest according to the laws of the land. The priestess stops him halfway into his story telling him that a man‟s harvest will be good or bad according to the (a) “strength of his arm” if he is at peace with the gods and the ancestors, and that he, Unoka, is known to stay at home and (b) “offer sacrifices to a reluctant soil” while his neighbours (c) “cross seven rivers” to make their farms. (TFA. 13). The idioms a) “strength of his arm” means the quality of physical labour, b) to “offer sacrifices to a reluctant soil” means to expend labour cultivating an infertile soil, i.e. expending labour or resources on an unfruitful venture, and c) to “cross seven rivers” to make their farms means literally to cultivate distant, virgin and fertile soil. The translators rendered the “strength of his arm” literally as “die Kraft seiner Arme” (the strength of his arms. trans. 24). The literal translation technique leaves the image of the idiom intact. The translators appear to trust that the target readers would be 22 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY able to get the meaning of the idiom from the context; that is no doubt a respectful treatment of the target readers, and truly the context could guide the target readers to the meaning of the idiom. The same is true of the second idiom to “offer sacrifices to a reluctant soil” which the translators equally rendered literally as: “du…bietest einem erschöpften Boden Opfer an” (you offer sacrifices to an exhausted soil. (TFA trans. 25) transposing „reluctant‟ with „exhausted‟. However, a combination of the literal and explicitation techniques would have brought out the meaning fully: Du…bietest einem erschöpften Boden Opfer an und verschwendest du Arbeit aufs Land, dass keinen Pfofit bringt (you offer sacrifices to an exhausted soil and expend labour into an unprofitable land). The idiom actually contains information in its cultural allusion that is downplayed in the context of narration, and that is the fact that Unoka laboured at all. To “offer sacrifices” is drawn from the religious life of the culture. It is an activity done in praise, appeasement or prayer to the gods and the ancestors. In the idiom, the god to whom sacrifice is made becomes „a reluctant soil‟. A „reluctant soil‟, itself a metaphor in the context of the conversation between the priestess and Unoka, stands for the gods and the ancestors who cannot give Unoka a bountiful harvest when he makes the wrong choices – cultivating an infertile soil and not working hard enough. The reluctance or inability of the gods, in the situation of Unoka, is thus equated to the infertile soil refusing to give increase just like the gods and ancestors. However, to “offer sacrifices” carries at once the connotation of an obligatory and most times, painful expenses, which in this case, is labour expended. The idiom not only carries an allusion to culture at the literal level and, therefore, the potential for a deeper knowledge of the source culture, but also a qualified explanation of context. To bring this cultural knowledge to the target reader would require the use of glossary. To “cross seven rivers” to make their farms is translated literally as well as: Sie überqueren sieben Flüße, um neues Land urbar zu machen (trans. 25) (They cross seven rivers to cultivate new lands. 22 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY transposing correctly the verbal category “to make farms” as “to cultivate” and “new land” to stand for the contextually explicit reference to “virgin soil”. “Seven rivers” refers contextually not only to the great distance away from “exhausted farmlands” to “virgin forests” but also by idiomatic allusion to the magical number of seven which in Igbo culture represents completion and good fortune and the limits of distance. For instance, in the kolanut custom of the Igbos, a kolanut with seven cotyledons or lobes is very rare but highly valued because it carries good luck (Osuagwu 7). It shows communion with the ancestors; brings goodluck, bright destiny and posterity. The smallest part is not eaten, but thrown away to the ancestors to consume. The person who breaks it in a gathering is highly praised; he is regarded to have brought good fortune to the rest. Nwoga (NKA na NZERE 37) further notes on the significance of numbers in Igbo culture: For some reasons which have yet to be explored, the Igbo have abstracted certain numbers and given them symbolic significance. In offering kola, multiples of two and four are given and not the odd numbers – thus events demand four, sixteen, sixty four kola nuts and some multiples of four in- between. When kola is split, the number lobes found in the kola nut have been given symbolic meaning – three is aka dike, four is peace, five is wealth and children, and so forth. Seven appears in speech and in folktales to represent the limits of distance and suffering so that when one is said to have crossed seven rivers and seven deserts, it is implied that he has reached the limits of the world. A land located in the distance of seven rivers is a land that is optimally fertile, enjoys the favour and blessing of the gods and the ancestors, and, therefore brings good harvest. This contradicts the exhausted soils which Unoka farms. The translation by the literal technique may be acceptable for it preserves the cultural imagery and allusion. However, to communicate the knowledge of the source culture contained in these imagery and allusions, the translators need to use more than one technique. The target readers would be better informed of the source culture if they can know why the rivers to be crossed have to be seven and not more nor less. This could require some form of elaboration in a footnote or glossary. On the whole, the translation of this cultural text unit is mostly inadequte for intercultural postcolonial communication. 22 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 5.2.2.11 Communicative: Omission and Simplification Simplification refers to the technique of reducing the lexical, syntactic and stylistic load or complexity of the source text in the target text. In TFA (15), the gathering at the house of wealthy Nwakibie drinks the palm wine brought by Okonkwo on his visit to Nwakibie to request yam-seedlings from him for sharecropping. After the men have drunk two or three cups each, Nwakibie sent for his wives to come and take a drink. Beginning from the first wife, Anasi, to the last of the four out of his nine wives present. Each wife accepts the drinking horn from the husband, Nwakibie, kneels on one knee, drinks a little from the horn, and hands back the horn, rises and “calls him [the husband] by his name”, and goes back to her hut. The verbal idiomatic phrase “called him by his name” or “to call him by his name” is translated into German by paraphrase and Omission in the sentence in German Dann stand sie auf, grüßte ihn...(trans. 27) (Then she stood up and greeted him. The literal phrasing of the cultural idiom “calls him by his name” is omitted. The idiom is then simplified into its generic meaning “to greet”. Though the translators render accurately the generic meaning of the idiomatic expression, they, however, omit the allusion to a type of greeting in a specific situation or context in the culture that is obvious in the literal phrasing or form of the idiom. The text says the woman greets her husband by calling him by name. What name? Does she use the phrase “thank you? In this context in Igbo culture, a woman to call her husband by name is to (publicly) recognise him by by his noble rank, his honourary title or his praise name. Nwakibie is a wealthy and powerful man in Umuofia with three huge barns, nine wives and thirty children. He had taken all but the highest title that a man could take in the clan (TFA. 13). He is a titled or nobleman. His wives could only have greeted him publicly by name through calling him by his noble title or praise name. The nature of this cultural greeting is illustrated elsewhere in the novel in a related but different incident. In TFA (47), Ogbuefi Ndulue of Ire village is dead. His first wife, who was too old to attend to him during his illness, came over to his obi on being informed that the husband was dead by one of the younger wives. She knelt on her knees 22 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY and hands at the threshold and called her husband three times by his noble title, “Ogbuefi Ndulue” and went back to her hut. This greeting of recognition summarises the esteem, pride and respect and endearment to which the woman holds her husband. To bring out this cultural information and knowledge could be possible by combining the literal and elaboration techniques. The translation could read: Dann stand sie auf, grüßte ihn mit seinem adligen Titel. (Then she stood up and greeted him by his noble title). On the whole, the translation of this cultural text unit is inadequate to intercultural postcolonial communication. 5.2.2.12 Communicative: Substitution and Modulation Okonkwo was provoked to anger by the negligence of his youngest wife, Ojiugo, to prepare his launch. He beats her during the week of peace, and so infringed on the law on the observance of the week. Ezeani, the priest of the earth goddess came to charge Okonkwo for his crime. He countered Okonkwo‟s excuse of his crime by telling him that whatever his wife‟s crime, he had no justification to infringe on the week of peace even if he, Okonkwo, came into his obi and found “her lover on her top”. “Her lover on her top” is a calque of the Igbo euphemistic reference to “having sexual intercourse”. “Having sexual intercourse” is a taboo expression that is usually not stated explicitly in „decent public discourse‟ in the Igbo culture. The same applies to its use in the German culture. This could have informed the translators‟ substitution of the idiom with another euphemistic reference to the same act: … in den Armen eines Liebhabers... (trans. 39) (…in the arms of a lover.) Furthermore, “her lover” in the context of the idiom is understandably a man other than her husband, the affair is an extramarital affair and the crime is adultery. Substitution is used to modulate the source text expression in order to reflect the sensitivity of both cultures to an act and situation that both cultures regard as taboo. “Her lover on her top” and “in the arms of a lover” evokes images of different intensity, yet 23 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY both refer, in the context, to the fact that the woman compromises her marital vows or faithfulness to her husband. However, “in the arms of a lover” could refer simply to an embrace, which is a looser or milder representation of the „sexual situation‟ that is more graphically presented in the imagery or allusion of the source text, i.e. “her lover on her top”. The translation can be regarded to be adequate in view of the sensitivity of both cultures to the same situation. However, there is always a feeling of loss in both the depth and impact of meaning due to the difference in images used. 5.2.2.13 Communicative: Paraphrase and Modulation In TFA (26), the narrator describes the new yam festival as a celebration of harvest in the culture and a joyous occasion for families and their relations, friends and loved ones. In this celebration, custom requires that every man “whose arm was strong” should invite large numbers of guests from far and wide.(TFA26) The idiomatic phrase “whose arm was strong” has been translated by the combined techniques of paraphrase and modulation to read: … jeder Mann der eine reiche Ernte erhoffen konnte (trans. 46). (...every man who can look forward to a plentiful harvest.) The translation sought to interpret and clarify the idiom using its source text context and rephrasing the idiom into plain prose in the target language. It leaves out in the target text the precise or literal phrasing of the idiom in the source text. Both the idiom and its translation refer to the same idea of someone being able to lavishly feed and entertain his large numbers of guests from his harvest; the metaphor of “strong arm” is, however, an allusion to an aspect of cultural knowledge. Furthermore, the translation introduces a new perspective to the meaning of the idiom. “Strong arm” refers to the direct personal and physical labour invested in farm work and by extension to the agrarian economy of this culture that uses neither animal nor machines for farming. “Every man” that prefaced the idiomatic expression “whose arm was strong” refers, in the context, to the „wealthy‟ farmer with a large or fairly large yam farms who is not only physically strong to work in the farm but also has the wherewithal 23 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY to put in the needed amount and quality of labour, and consequently, to expect a rich and plentiful harvest, as the translation paraphrased. However, this „wherewithal‟ is not necessarily hired labour, but labour from one‟s family size and possibly „slaves‟ (TFA. 33) such as the very wealthy Nwakibie that has nine wives and thirty children (TFA. 13) and the wealthy Okonkwo (TFA. 16) with three wives and eight children (TFA. 10). While the translation approached the meaning of the idiom from the viewpoint of and emphasis on the expectation of plentiful harvest, the source text idiom approached the same meaning from the viewpoint and emphasis on the kind of labour that produces such rich harvest and simultaneously alluding to an aspect of source culture economy. But the idiomatic phrase “whose arm was strong” if translated literally into German to read “dessen Arm Stark ist” would not only be unidiomatic in the target text but also hardly meaningful in the target text context. This is an instance where the target language puts pressure on the translators to disregard source cultural connotations and transfer with latitude. The technique of paraphrase used here by the translators appears to be an acceptable solution. However, the technique of “semantic cushioning” would be more appropriate to mediate the differences between the source and target cultures here. Semantic cushioning combines the literal and elaboration techniques. By this technique, the cultural idiom is translated literally so as to leave it with all its potentials to provide (clues to) cultural knowledge through its allusions to the culture, and also to measurably retain its flavour of oral expression. This literal translation is supplemented with elaboration to give meaning to the literal phrasing that could be possibly unidiomatic or meaningless in the target language. Using semantic cushioning, the idiomatic-context could be thus translated: …jeder Mann, dessen Arm stark ist, der, deshalb, eine reiche Ernte erhoffen konnte... (...every man, whose arm was strong, who therefore, could look forward to a plentiful harvest). This translation is on the whole inadequate to intercultural communication. 23 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 5.2.2.14 Semantic: Literal and Elaboration The end of the week of peace begins the new farming season. Okonkwo prepares his yam seedlings, allowing his son, Nwoye, and Ikemefuna to train in the difficult art of preparing yam-seedlings for planting. Though the boys are still young, he believes in beginning early to train them. Besides, he is worried about his son, Nwoye, whom he feels shows early signs of laziness. He does not want a son “who cannot hold up his head in the gathering of the clan” (TFA. 24). The idiomatic expression “to hold up one‟s head” is meaningful in its cultural allusion “the gathering of the clan”. The expression is translated as: …der nicht mit hocherhobenem Haupt im Ältestenrat erscheinen kann . (trans. 42). (…who cannot appear in the gathering [or council] of the elders with his head erect.) The translators render the expression almost entirely literally but with the addition of the verbal category “erscheinen zu können” that could help to realise a smooth target language expression. “Assembly of the clan” is, nonetheless, rendered as “the gathering/council of elders”. “To hold the head up” and “to hold the head erect” give the same mental representation or point of view and carry similar meaning and function in the context. However, “the gathering of the clan” is confused with “the gathering or council of elders”. The two are different and separate. The gathering of the clan is the general assembly of the clan that comprise every man from a certain age grade upwards (TFA. 7- 8, 139, 142). The gathering of the elders comprises only the elders to consider weighty issues of non-general nature like war and peace (TFA. 9, 40). “To hold one‟s head up” in the general assembly of the clan is to be able to speak up in this gathering with boldness and confidence knowing that one‟s words have weight and elicit attention. This boldness and confidence are, however, hinged on material and social achievements, moral integrity and distinguished participation in the life of the clan. This altogether means hardwork and achievement. 23 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The confusing of the two gatherings did not distort the meaning of the idiom “to hold up one‟s head” but it failed to apply it to the right context and to stir the curiosity of target readers to the understanding of the idiom and the correct cultural allusion. The translation is considered to be fairly adequate. 5.2.2.15 Communicative: Substitution Okonkwo‟s impatience over feasts is tasked by the three days waiting period for the new yam feast. His preference for work in his farm is restrained by these days of waiting and preparation for the feast. His bottled-up discomfort and impatience now turned into anger found outlet in the discovery that some leaves of the banana tree in his compound have been cut. Okonkwo exaggerated the cut of the leaves to be the killing of the banana tree. He beat his second wife Ekwefi who had cut a few of the leaves. He also missed killing her by gunshot when the beaten wife taunted him with his utter failings as a hunter. Okonkwo was about going to hunt. The news of this incident filtered the entire village. During the pause in-between matches at the village-wrestling feast, Chielo, the priestess of Agbala inquired from Ekwefi if it was true that Okonkwo nearly shot her. Ekwefi confirmed the incident adding the statement “I cannot yet find a mouth” with which to tell the story” (TFA. 34). This idiomatic expression is calqued from Igbo oral expression and alludes to an emotive situation in which the speaker is benumbed with shock or pain or grief. The expression is used three times in the novel almost as a recurring motif to a culture benumbed by the shock, pain and grief of its invasion and approaching acquiescence to the intruding colonial culture. The second context of its usage is in the land dispute between Anaeto and the Nnama‟s that resulted to a fight between Aneto and Oduche. Oduche was fatally wounded and died seven days afterward. Before Aneto could flee the clan into exile because of Oduche‟s death that is an abomination against the earth goddess, the Christians had told the white man about the incident. Aneto was arrested and imprisoned along with the leaders of his family at Umuru. In a misjudgement, because the Nnama‟s bribed the Whiteman‟s messenger and interpreter, the land was given to Nnama‟s family. Aneto was hanged and his other family members were released from imprisonment; but 23 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the released members “have not found the mouth with which to tell their suffering” (TFA 125). In the third context, an overzealous member of the church, Enoch, unmasked an Egwugwu. This is an abomination tantamount to killing an ancestral spirit. The egwugwu cult marched to the mission‟s premises and set the church building ablaze. The district commissioner invited the leaders of Umuofia ostensibly to discuss the misunderstanding between the church and the clan. They were, however, arrested and locked-up and subjected to such humiliating and painful treatment that when the six of them were left to themselves “they found no words to speak to one another” (TFA. 138). The translators render the expressions in each case below by substitution with equivalent fixed expression: a) Mir fehlen noch immer die Worte, um diese Geschichte erzählen zu können (trans. 57) (I lack the words to be able to tell the story.) b) ... es ihnen die Sprache verschlagen, und niemand hat je erfahren, was sie durchgemacht haben (trans. 195) (...they are yet speechless and no one ever knows what they went through). c) ... brachten sie kein Wort über die Lippen (trans. 213) (...they said nothing.) The substitution technique may be considered adequate in each case because the equivalent fixed expressions not only contain implicitly or explicitly the reference to mouth and words but they capture the emotive situation in the contexts. Besides, there is no allusion of the idiom to any other cultural item or phenomenon that could provide any separate and additional knowledge on the source culture. What is, however, lost is the source culture phrasing of the idiom, especially in the first and second contexts, which carries the flavour of Igbo oral expression. 5.2.2.16 Semantic: Literal and Simplification In TFA (44), the narrator describes the unease, which Okonkwo experienced following his active participation in the execution of Ikemefuna. For two days after the 23 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY killing of Ikemefuna, Okonkwo suffered from sleeplessness, acute weakness, loss of appetite and restlessness. He is troubled by the thought of Ikemefuna. He felt “like a drunken giant with the limbs of a mosquito” (TFA. 44). In the translation of the figurative expression into German as: Er [Okonkwo] fühlte sich wie ein trunkener Riese auf Mückenbeinen (trans.73) (He felt like a drunken giant with the limbs of a gnat.) the translators use the literal technique but simplifying mosquito with the generic term gnat (Mücke). The mosquito is an environmental and health factor unique to the source culture. Although the translation perfectly carries the fact of Okonkwo‟s dizziness in the incongruous imagery of a giant frame being supported by weak legs, the replacement of mosquito with gnat leaves out an aspect of environmental and health life of the source culture contained in the allusion of the expression. Apart from being significant to the flavour of oral expression for that phrasal idiomatic expression, the inclusion of mosquito in the communicative life of the culture shows how much it has become an integral part of the cultural universe of the Igbos. Although „Mücke‟, i.e. gnat, is a superordinate term that includes insects of the size of the mosquito and so responds generally to the apparent inexistence of the mosquito in the target culture environment as a health factor, the target culture and language have already become aware of this tropical insect so that its replacement with a generic term is really unnecessary. In other words, there is no pressure from the target language to drop mosquito from the translation. Besides, mosquito has already been calqued or transliterated into German as “Moskito”. The translation is on the whole inadequate. 5.2.2.17 Communicative: Substitution Okonkwo visits his friend Obierika. He compliments Obierika‟s son, Maduka, who in the last wrestling match of the village, cleverly threw his opponent. However, Okonkwo worries about his own son, Nwoye, whom he considers a weakling claiming “a bowl of pounded yam can throw him in a wrestling match” (TFA. 46). The metaphor of the idiomatic noun phrase “bowl of pounded yam” refers to an extremely weak opponent 23 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY in a wrestling match. The entire expression “a bowl of pounded yam can throw him in a wrestling match” translated into German by substitution as: Selbst ein Windhauch kann ihn umblassen (trans. 76). (Even a gentle breeze will knock him down.) contains two allusions to the culture, i.e. “bowl of pounded yam” and “wrestling match”. Both allusions are connotatively associated with each other in the context in order to bring out the meaning of the expression. “A bowl of pounded yam” highlights one of the various preparations of this all-important staple food of the source culture. The yam is cooked soft, pounded into dough in a mortar and served in a bowl with soup. Wrestling is a sport in the culture. The presentation of the yam (cooked or uncooked, pounded or not) as an opponent in a wrestling match illustrates the highest regard of the culture for the yam. Yam has the status of a male human being. Indeed the yam is a male crop and stands for manliness in the culture (TFA 23) just as wrestling is exclusively a male sport in the culture. In referring to the strength of Nwoye to be less than that of such a weakened opponent, Okonkwo equates a very severe form of weakness, indeed unmanliness, to his son. The translation by the substitution technique, though it preserves the idea of weakness, lost the sociocultural value of the source text expression, the cultural image and fine connotations of the yam, and the flavour of oral expression The translators may have presumed that the knowledge of the instruments and processes of preparing pounded yam, and the knowledge of wrestling as a sport in the culture are already made known in the respective pages of TFA (26, 78) and TFA (33-36) such that the target reader will not loose cultural knowledge through the substitution of the source text expression. Such presumption is faulty in so far that the cultural associations between the yam, manliness, wrestling, strength and weakness is significant to the fuller understanding of the expression and for the knowledge of the source culture. A literal semantic technique and a glossary or note would be a better alternative.The translation is inadequate. 23 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 5.2.2.18 Semantic-Communicative: Literal and Substitution The Reverend James Smith who succeeded Mr. Brown as the white missionary in Umuofia does not respect the tradition and the beliefs of the natives like Mr. Brown who did. Revd Smith encouraged overzealous members of his church to transgress the customs of the land. The narrator describes Mr. Smith as “dancing a furious step “as a result of which “the drums went mad” (TFA. 131). “To dance a furious step” and “the drums went mad” are idiomatic expressions that have sociocultural allusions. They come from the social life of dance in the culture and refer to seemingly wild and uncontrollable dance steps that are off tune with the drums and which the drummers frenetically try to bring into harmony with their rhythm. Furious dance steps, in the context, literally means dancing disharmoniously and “the drums went mad” means the frenetic drumming to match the disharmonious dance steps. The idea is that of reacting appropriately in equal measure to an action. The idiomatic expression is calcqued from the oral speech of the source culture. The translators render it into German with a combination of both the literal and substitution techniques as: Herr Smith vollführte einen rasenden Tanz, und so gerieten auch die Trommeln außer Rand und Band. (trans. 203) (Mr. Smith danced a furious dance and so the drums became boisterous) The translators began with the literal technique and ended by substituting the last part of the text unit with a target language idiomatic expression. “Außer Rand und Band” is a figurative expression that means boisterous. However, while boisterous connotes some cheerfulness in the noise and roughness, the context of the source text expression suggests a bitter confrontation. Nevertheless, the translation preserves the communicative value of the source idiom as well as the allusion to dance; and so is considered on the whole to be adequate. 5.2.2.19 Semantic-Communicative: Paraphrase and Omission One of the overzealous members of the church is Enoch. In defiance of the customs of the land, he unmasked an egwugwu. This is an abomination regarded as killing an 23 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY ancestral spirit. Consequently, all the egwugwus of the clan marched to the church in a definitive confrontation with the intruding Christian religion. Among those that went with them were “men whose arms were strong in ọgwụ or medicine” (TFA. 132). What the translators render by paraphrase as; …alles Männer, die über große Zauberkräfte verfugten. (trans.206). (...all men who possess great magical powers) “Medicine” used in the “strong in ọgwu or medicine” to explain the source culture term “ọgwụ” is a weak representation of its meaning in the context. “ọgwụ” in this narrative context alludes to esoteric and magical powers. The men and people of Umuofia regards the church to be a shrine, the habitation of a foreign god and its priest (TFA. 134). Therefore the march to go and destroy the church is seen as a confrontation with this foreign god. Both the troop of egwugwu and the elders that accompanied them were armed with their charms and amulets. The translators have translated adequately to meaning retaining and improving the sociocultural and communicative value of the source text expression. However, the omission of the term „ọgwụ‟ in the translation removes local colour and the evidence of identity from the cultural expression. A semantic cushioning technique will be appropriate here: …alles Männer, die kräftig in ọgwụ sind: d.h. sie verfugten große Zauberkräfte (...all men that are strong in ọgwụ, who possess great magical powers.) The translation is judged to be fairly inadequate on the whole. 5.2.2.20 Communicative: Substitution The narrator comments on the family and work life of Okonkwo and the passions which drive his life; principally, to abhor all that his lazy and poor father stood for including gentleness and idleness. In the planting season, Okonkwo worked daily on his farm “from cock-crow until the chickens went to roost” (TFA. 10). 23 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The idiomatic time expression “from cock-crow until the chickens went to roost” is a way of telling the time in the source culture using the rhythms of life and nature. The expression refers generally to the period from „dawn to dusk‟, i.e. before sunrise to the darker part of twilight. In the context, the expression suggests that Okonkwo set out for the farm somewhat earlier before dawn in other to begin work in his farm by dawn and it means to work “tirelessly”. It is the representation by concrete imagery of Okonkwo‟s determination and due diligence by extra hard work to prove himself different from his father. The translation of the expression by substitution as: “von Sonnenaufgang bis Sonnenuntergang” (trans. 21) (from sunrise to sunset) did not adequately recover the precise daily time frame covered by the idiomatic allusion. However, the idea in the source text expression and the hint it gives on how the culture reckons time is well preserved in the translation. The loss in the translation is not the result of the technique used but the translators‟ ignorance of the source culture. Besides, the animal imagery is lost. Although, using sunrise and sunset to tell time is equally using the rhythm of nature, the animal imagery offers a variation to these kinds of methods of telling the time. From „cockcrow‟ would best be “vor sonnenaufgang” (before sunrise) in German to adequately reflect the cultural context of the source text expression. The translators may have also been under the pressure of the modern German cultural environment to omit the animal imagery. This modern cultural environment would find the use of animal to reckon time totally strange and incomprehensible. This strangeness is due to cultural difference between the German and Igbo cultures in the reckoning of time; “Time in Igbo culture”, unlike in the German culture, “relates to the context of experience rather than to an absolute duration measured by the clock” (Nwoga 1984:36). The need in the translation here is, however, to fully reflect the traditional cultural environment. The translation is, therefore, judged to be inadequate. 5.2.2.21 Semantic-Communicative: Paraphrase and Implicitation In the house of Nwakibie, to whom Okonkwo has gone to request yam seedlings for sharecropping, the gathering drinks the palm wine brought by Okonkwo and tells stories. At last the wine gets to the dregs and the youngman pouring out the wine asks to whom 24 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the dregs should go. Idigo replies, “whoever has a job in hand” (TFA. 15) the gathering agrees that Igwelo should drink the dregs because he has married his first wife a month or two ago. The regard for palm wine dregs is well explained in the narrative context. The dregs are believed to be good to the reproductive health of the man. The idiomatic expression “whoever has a job in hand”, means in the context whoever “goes in to his wife (TFA. 15), i.e. another figurative expression used in the context to refer to copulation with the aim of conception, of bearing children. The translators have rendered the two euphemistic expressions a) whoever has a job in hand, and b) men who go in to their wives by paraphrase as: a) wer sie gut gebrauchen kann (trans. 28) (Whoever can make good use of it) b) Männer, die sich anschickten, ihren „ehelichten Pflichten“ nackzukommen (trans. 29). (Men who are about to fulfill their „marital obligations) Both translations use abstract imagery for concrete representations and leave the meaning of their expressions implied in the contexts. The translations are adequate target language versions that recovered the thought and context of their source text equivalents. Both “going in to their wives” and “fulfilling their marital obligations” are acceptable euphemistic expressions in the respective cultures for the idea of copulation. However, there is always a feeling of loss in a translation that does not capture the flavour of oral expression of the source culture and the direct image and allusion of the idiom. Target-Text-Only Idiomatic Renditions Besides the translation of source text idioms and figurative expressions, there are a number of non-idiomatic and non-figurative source text units that are rendered into the target text with target language idiomatic or figurative phrases and expressions. A few examples will suffice. 5.2.2.22 Example I. Communicative: Substitution On a night in Okonkwo‟s compound, after the night meals, Okonkwo‟s second wife, Ekwefi, and her only daughter and child, Ezinma sat on the floor of their hut telling folk 24 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY stories in turns. On Ezinma‟s turn, she began with the story of the great famine in the land of the animals by which “everybody was lean except the cat” (TFA.70). The plain statement “everybody was lean” is substituted with the German figurative expression “alle waren „mager bis auf die Knochen‟” (everybody was lean to the bones; trans. 113). The German figurative expression means, “severely emaciated”. The German translation is an improvement to the story; for if the famine is “great”, which means “severe” in the context, the leanness should as well be severe. “Lean to the bones” gives the literal image of bones shrinking because they have not been nourished. 5.2.2.23 Example II. Communicative: Substitution Furthermore, in TFA (123), the narrator comments on how much Umuofia has changed in the seven years of Okonkwo‟s absence in exile. “The church had come and led many astray” notes the narrator. The plain language expression “the church had come” is translated by substitution with a German idiomatic expression: “Die christliche Kirche “hatte Fuß gefaßt” (trans. 192). The idiomatic phrase “hatte Fuß gefaßt” literally mean, „to find a foothold” and in its context “to settle down permanently” or “to become established”. Here again, this translation is an improvement to the plain language of the source text. The translation attempts to point out the fact, though implicitly, that hostilities against the church have ceased and the clan, even if it is not fully comfortable with the presence of the church, has learnt to tolerate it well enough. These German figurative and idiomatic expressions used to translate plain language expressions of the source text did not distort the cultural representation of the source text; they rather improved the narration or story and make the target text accessible and acceptable to the target readers. Moreover, they carry the representation and knowledge of the target culture into the narration making the target text more culturally hybrid than the source text. 24 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 5.3. Culture-Specific Terms and Concepts (CSTC). Culture-Specific Terms and Concepts (CSTC) in translation refer to terms and concepts, institutions and personnel that are bound to the source culture. Newmark (A Textbook of Translation, 95-102) lists cultural categories into a) Ecology, b) Material culture or artefacts, c) Social culture, d) Organisations, customs, activities, procedures, concepts, and e) Gestures and habits. Ecology includes flora, fauna, winds, plains, hills, etc. Material culture or artefacts include food, clothes, houses, towns, transport, etc. Social culture includes work, leisure, and etc. the fourth category comprises organisations, customs, activities, procedures and concepts that may come from the political and administrative, religious, artistic, legal and other spheres of organised or institutionalised life of the people. The last category comprises gestures and habits. In this section, we will identify names, concepts, institutions, etc associated with any of the above cultural categories and examine how they have been translated into the target text, the approaches and techniques of their translation and what significance their translation possibly have on the communication and representation of culture. First is the translation of proper names, i.e. the name by which a person, place or thing is identified. We group names into personal names; honorific or praise names; names of events, ceremonies and rituals and cults; familial names; and place names. 5.3.1 Personal Names. Generally, names form part of the cultural identity of the source culture and the source text. They are also cohesive units in the discursive realisation of the text. Being markers of individuality, they build contexts and enclose the essence of messages (cf. Apostolova par. 2, 15). The bearer of a name is both the name and the referent of the name. In the Igbo culture, as in most African cultures, the circumstances, events and, indeed, the history of a person‟s name are all part of the name such that the name is part of a personal and also a cultural history. Apostolova affirms the cultural functions of names in his observation of naming in translation: 24 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Translation is introducing – names should … be treated as … universally valid notions of individuality. They can be isles of the past, they can be openings to a foreign land, and they can be patches of reality leading the psychoanalytician to the domain of the subconscious. Introduction is carried out in each single situation through a procedure, which could generally be called renaming. (par. 26). The above observation affirms, by the prospect a name has to be a vista to the understanding of a foreign culture, that individuality as used is not just the individuality of the person, place or thing bearing the name but also the individuality of the culture in or from which the name arose and to which the name directly or indirectly refers. To this extent that names form part of the cultural identity and meaning of the source culture and the source text, the handling of names in translation is, therefore, the bridging of meanings and the representation of identity. Igbo personal names are complete meaningful expressions that can be the result of individuals‟reflection on their world and the human condition; of people‟s personal experiences: their successes, failures and expectations; and they can also be the record of a family or community‟s past events. A further significance of Igbo personal names is that they are steeped in that awareness of community that connects the past with the present, the living and the dead, and even, the gods. As Asiegbu (222) puts it: The naming system of the Igbo is tied up with the culture. Unlike “foreign names”, Igbo names exemplify a system of naming that ensures a link between the world of the living and the dead. 5.3.1.1 Translated personal and Place Names TFA is replete with Igbo personal names. The circumstance that led to the giving of the names are not usually described in all cases but such names like Okonkwo and Okoye or Nwoye (TFA 3, 4 and 10), and Mgbafo (TFA 62) clearly show male names and a female name (in the case of Mgbafo) given to three of the four Igbo market days of Nkwo, Oye (or Orie), and Afo. The name of the remaining market day is Eke. It is also 24 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY worth noting that the four Igbo market days are names of supernatural or spiritual essences that are part of Igbo belief system. The existence of these days as beings is seen in the ritual song of the priest of Ulu in Arrow of God (AOG 71-72) that reenacted the first coming of Ulu, the communal deity, and its encounter with the four market days. The substance of this elaborate song is that these spiritual essences inhabiting each of the four market days have to be appeased for the communal deity to stay in the community. This means that the naming of a child (male or female) after Eke, Orie, Afo or Nkwo is not only to identify the day the child was born but also implicit in the name, at least in traditional belief, is a recognition of the spiritual essence that inhabits and, presumably, controls that particular day. These names are, therefore, culturally significant. A name like „Ikemefuna‟ (TFA 11) meaning “may my strength (or labour) not be in vain” bears the stamp of its own story without telling it and shows, in the context of TFA narrative, the violence that fate can do to expectations; for the prayer and hope contained in that name were disappointed in the pathetic slaughter or sacrifice of Ikemefuna for a crime for which he was innocent. The name, in the context of the narrative, shows the belief in fate within the culture; for the name is a prayer expressing a hope for something positive but implying a fear in the possibility of disappointment. In TFA (54-56), the significance of personal names in carrying personal experiences and expectations is exemplified in the personal circumstance of Ekwefi, the second wife of Okonkwo. Ekwefi had given birth to ten children and nine of them died at infancy. All the ten children were believed to be a single „Ogbanje child‟ who dies at infancy and comes back to be born to the same woman in cyclical rebirths. This experience and its reflection in personal names are shown in these lines on Ekwefi: The birth of her children, which should be a woman‟s crowning glory, became for Ekwefi mere physical agony devoid of promise … Her deepening despair found expression in the names she gave her children. One of them was a pathetic cry, Onwumbiko – „Death I implore you! But death took no notice; Onwumbiko died in his fifteenth month. The next child was a girl, Ozoemena – „May it not happen again‟ She died in her eleventh month, and two others after her. Ekwefi then became defiant and called her next child Onwuma – „Death may please himself‟! And he did. (TFA 54) 24 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY These names are not only the reenactments of the personal sufferings of Ekwefi, they are part of the aggregation of her own personality; for each of the names is a historic event that is firmly rooted in memory and forms part of her responses to life afterwards. Moreover, these names are, in this circumstance or context, also the reality of the Igbo cultural belief in the cyclical rebirth of the same child through its naming and renaming. Renaming in translation is, however, an activity in transformation, i.e. the process of creating changes to a name that could be significant to its context and to its understanding. Apostolova brings an insight to renaming that is relevant to name translating in this study. We quote him elaborately: The transformation of names in the process of translating is as important as choosing names for real people. … Names‟ transformations are related to the mechanism of functioning of autobiographies and biographies: … the biography approaches the person from the outside while the autobiography explicates the innermost connections of the individual and the specific attitudes with their individual emotive meanings. The name adopted by the bearer is the focus of the autobiography – the self-expression, while the name given by the translator is the subject who has arisen from its otherness. Thus it bears additional information – it is the name used by the „others‟ in the extreme functioning of their „otherness‟ in the quality of foreignness. (par. 24- 25) The introduction of changes to names in translation can be a way of modulating or domesticating the foreignness of the source name and by extension the source culture. Personal names in TFA have been transferred or borrowed into the target text however, with instances of mistranslation: Ezeudu is misspelt as Ezeudo (trans. 40), Okonkwo misspelt as Onkonkwo (trans. 41), Nwayieke misspelt as Nwayakieke (trans. 41), Nnadi misspelt as Nnadie (trans. 44) and Umunso misspelt as Umunsu (trans. 84). These misspellings are presumably the result of oversight in the proofreading of the translation. This is because until and after the misspelling of Okonkwo, the name is correctly spelt and the name of Ezeudu is also correctly spelt after its misspelling. Each of Nwayieke and Nnadi occurs only once in the narrative, however. Nevertheless, these 24 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY misspellings qualify as transformations to the source text and culture names and have implications to the cultural plot and to the cohesion of the narrative. Except for Okonkwo, whose name as the protagonist of the plot, is spread across the text, the target readers may not be able to become aware of the misspellings of the names. The misspelt names still retain their foreign identities, though the last vowel in Nnadi, „i‟, is inadvertently converted into the dipthong „ie‟ creating a „die‟ that is the German female and plural definite grammatical article and thus giving that name the false appearance of a transliteration. Ezeudu, as a character in the narrative, appeared only in three contexts and each time in relation to Okonkwo and in his status as the „oldest man‟ in Okonkwo‟s village and one of the oldest men in Umuofia clan. His first appearance is in connection with Okonkwo‟s breach of the week of peace. His link to the ancestors by his age situates him as one of the guardians of the mores and morality of the clan as he explains from its history the law of the week of peace and hinting on the fact that if it were in the days of old, Okonkwo would have gotten a severer punishment (TFA 22-3; trans. 40)). The second context is when, as the emissary of the ancestors, he warns Okonkwo not to take part in the killing of Ikemefuna, the boy that calls him (Okonkwo) father (TFA. 40; trans. 66-7). The third and final context is at his death and burial. When the „ekwe‟ announced his death, a cold shiver ran through Okonkwo as he remembers Ezeudu‟s warning to him about Ikemefuna and, of course, his defiance of that warning (TFA 84-5; trans. 136-7). Okonkwo‟s relation with Ezeudu shows Okonkwo‟s relationship and standing with the ancestors in the greater part of the narrative. His disobedience to them became his disconnection with them. Okonkwo committed the crime that led to his exile as he joined to celebrate Ezeudu‟s burial. This points to the utter displeasure of the ancestors with him. Ezeudu‟s name is misspelt in the first two contexts, giving him a different identity that disconnects him from the continuity in the cultural connections that he brings to the plot of Okonkwo‟s tragedy. By this disconnection, the target reader would only observe that Okonkwo was exiled for accidentally killing the son of the late Ezeudu thereby committing an offence against the earth goddess, but he would not see the cultural subtext and connection between Okonkwo‟s accidental killing of the late Ezeudu‟s son 24 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY and his disobedience to the ancestors in his killing of Ikemefuna; such that the two killings make Okonkwo stand in disfavour to both the ancestors and the earth-goddess. Through Ezeudu, the narrative could practically illustrate the relationship of Okonkwo to the ancestors as a reference to the complex nature of the relationship between the individual and the ancestors in the culture. This cultural insight and knowledge are lost through the misspellings of Ezeudu‟s name. The cultural narrative runs parallel, in this case, with the textual narrative. The identity of the other two misspelt names – Nnadi and Nwayieke – are completely lost having been replaced by names that though non-German, are, in the context, neither Igbo nor meaningful. Also the source text narrative does not know the replacement names. The misspellings thus become a transformation that reduces the cultural meaning of the source text and distorts its cultural identity. However, as we have earlier pointed out, personal names in TFA have been transferred or borrowed into the target text. This technique of transference gives local colour, makes the presence of the source text and culture visible in the target text and thus creating cultural accommodation. The communicative approach and the modulation (misspelling) technique to the translation of personal/proper names are in our study inadequate to intercultural postcolonial communication. 5.3.1.2 Umuofia. Semantic: Borrowing Umuofia is a place name. It means “sons of the forest”. It is the name of the prototype traditional Igbo community on which the TFA narrative is based. It not only shows that this community is located in the forest hinterlands as against riverine dwellers but also symbolically explains a culture living in its unique civilisation without contact with Western civilisation. The name, therefore, contains the cultural landscape of the narration and so makes understandable the conflict that ensued between the community and the encroaching Western culture and religion. The name has been adequately and correctly transferred in all cases though without mention anywhere to its significance. 24 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 5.3.2 Kinship or Familial Names/Terms and Honorifics. Familial or Kinship Names are names related to the family system and kinship and to the „communal‟ nature of relations in the source culture while honorifics are names or expressions that convey esteem of respect when used in addressing or referring to a person. A kinship name may sometimes have the dual effect of not only showing kinship but also serving as a honorific. Example I. „Nna Ayi‟ (TFA 14; trans.26 and TFA 64; trans.102- 3).Communicative: Borrowing and Explicitation: „Nna ayi‟, i.e. „Our father‟, is a literal translation from the Igbo. In its first use in TFA, the translators first transferred it into the target text, and then they “explicitated” it by internal note as “vererhrte Vater”, i.e. “revered father”, supposedly through a pragmatic inference from the immediate narrative context. The elaboration omitted “our” and transposed it with “verehrt”. “Verehrt” is an attempt to bring out the „essence‟ or the intention of “our”. “Verehrt” is an adjective in German used for address and greeting in formal speech to express respect, esteem, admiration and reverence. For instance, “(sehr) verehrte Anwesende” is “Ladies and Gentlemen” and in letter “(sehr) verehrte gnädige Frau” is “Dear Madam” (Terrel, et al. ). It is thus an honorific speech particle. In the context, Okonkwo has come with a pot of palm-wine and a cock to Nwakibie, the wealthy kinsman in Okonkwo‟s village, to request yam seedlings from him for share- cropping. Nwakibie has three huge barns, nine wives and thirty children and he is a nobleman who has taken all but one of the four titles in the clan (TFA 13, 86). Okonkwo addressed him as “Nna ayi”. The „explicitation‟ of the translators omitted the “our” component of the address. The translation of “Nna ayi” as “revered or dear father” creates an ambiguity. On the one hand, given the meaning and usage of „verehrte‟ in the target language, it could be understood to be an honorific and impersonal address that simply acknowledges Nwakibie‟s age and family standing as a wealthy noble father to a large and numerous 24 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY family. A status that is acknowledged, admired and commended in the entire clan as great. On the other hand, taken “father” to refer to family and personal relationship, it could be understood to be a honorific that explains to what high regard or admiration and personal endearment Okonkwo holds him as his own surrogate father. With regard to this latter possibility, it is worth noting that in the structure of the narrative plot, this story of Okonkwo‟s visit to Nwakibie to request for yam seedlings comes immediately after the story of Okonkwo‟s father, Unoka¸ who lived and died a failure leaving neither a barn nor a title nor even a young wife to Okonkwo to inherit (TFA 13) and so Okonkwo had a very poor and unenviable start in life. Admittedly Nwakibie must have been the model of a father Okonkwo regrets not having and to which he aspires to be and even to possibly surpass in view of his great passion to become one of “the lords of the clan”(TFA 92), a status possible only by the rare feat of taking the fourth title (TFA 86). Nwakibie contrasts Okonkwo‟s real father of whom Okonwo is pathologically ashamed. Each of the two possible ways of understanding the translation is, however, problematic and misleading. In the former case, the distance carried by the address is not true to the cultural context of the narrative situation. In the latter case, the translation personalises the address too closely within the „supposed‟ father-son relationship between Okonkwo and Nwakibie to the exclusion of the cultural reference to Nwakibie‟s standing in the village represented by “our” in the source text. The village in Igbo culture is an aggregate of blood brothers – a grouping of kindreds which regarded themselves as the children of an ancestor “whose position in the genealogical tree is a little deeper than that of the founder of the kindred” (Afigbo Igbo Enwe Eze 17). Nwakibie is, therefore, a blood relation to Okonkwo; both of them come from the same village of Iguedo. But Nwakibie is not the symbolic “father” of the entire village since he is not the eldest man in the village. Ogbuefi Ezeudu is the oldest man in Okonkwo‟s village (TFA 22, 40, 84) and one of the three oldest men in the entire Umuofia clan (TFA 85). Ezeudu too, like Nwakibie, has accomplished the great feat of taking three of the four titles in the clan. However, Nwakibie must also have been a really elderly person, though younger than ogbuefi Ezeudu; for he has nine wives and thirty 25 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY children and he has grown up children, two of whom could be present in that gathering of elderly persons in Nwakibie‟s Obi when Okonkwo presents his request to him (TFA 14). Nwakibie is „father‟ to younger men, like Okonkwo, who look up to him as a model of achievement and from whom they could find help and encouragement. And Nwakibie is pleased to commit himself to helping these young ones, those he found hardworking and determined (TFA 16). It is not only in age, kinship and family standing but also in his achievement and in the commitment of his wealth to the prosperity of communal life that he is “our father”, especially to the younger struggling men. The omission of “our” from the translation of “Nna ayi” removes significant cultural information and also distorts the cultural plot at that point in the narrative because it is only by that omitted “our” that Okonkwo could logically connect himself, openly and secretly, i.e. in his heart, with Nwakibie as father and by that connection to contrast his own real father. Okonkwo honorifically addressed Nwakibie as “Our father” establishing not only personal family tie with Nwakibie within a “collective kinship” but also his personal, respect and admiration of Nwakibie‟s superior social status. “Verehrt” is grossly inadequate to carry the weight of cultural meaning and information of the source text. Example II. „Nna Ayi‟ (TFA14; trans.26 and TFA64; trans.102-3).Communicative: Amplification In the second use of „Nna Ayi‟ in the narrative, the translators translated it by amplification as “Ehrwürdiger Egwugwu”, i.e. “venerable egwugwu”, again from supposedly a pragmatic inference from the narrative context. The occasion of this address is the marriage dispute between Uzowulu and his in- laws over his wife. The case is before the egwugwu – the masked spirit of the ancestors, and the highest court of the land. „Evil Forest‟, the leading egwugwu addressed himself to Uzowulu in greeting, “Uzowulu‟s body, I salute you”, he said. And Uzowulu bent down and touched the earth with his right hand as a sign of submission and replies “our father, my hand has touched the ground.” (TFA 64). The translators rendered “our father” as 25 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY “Ehrwürdiger Egwugwu”, treating it purely as a honorific, which though it is in this context, but it is much more than that. The egwugwu is the spirit cult by which the ancestors – the dead fathers and patriarchs of the clan physically, as it were, participate in the communal life of the clan. The response of Uzowulu establishes kinship with the ancestors as „fathers‟ and it is on the basis of this kinship, the father-child relationship, and the awesomeness of the immanence of the ancestors as spirits that he is going to accept their pronouncement on the case as final. At the end of the Uzowulu‟s case, an elder asked the other “why such a trifle should come before the egwugwu”, and the reply from another elder was “…Uzowulu will not listen to any other decision” (TFA 66). The translation obscures the insight into culture contained in the name Uzowulu used to address the egwugwu and which a semantic literal technique has the potential of making available in this instance. “our father” is no less honorific an address in the context as the German adjective “Ehrwürdiger” would convey. It is possible that the reluctance, indeed refusal, of the German translators to translate “our father” semantically could be the result of an affirmative attitude towards the Christian faith by which “our father” is a solemn address reserved for God, and not necessarily the result of ignorance of the source culture. A semantic translation complemented with a gloss would have been an adequate option here. The translation is inadequate. Example III: Communicative: Amplification Furthermore, the greeting of the egwugwu to Uzowulu as “Uzowulu‟s body‟ has also been translated by Amplification of context as “Sterbliche Hülle” (trans. 102). Looking separately at the words that make up “Sterbliche Hülle”, it would seem that the translators attempted to make explicit and to use the contextual essence of the name “Uzowulu‟s body‟ found in the cultural context of the narrative situation since the adjective „sterblich‟ can mean „mortal‟ here and the noun „Hülle‟, a superordinate term for „cover‟ including „skin‟ and „shell‟ would seem to mean „body‟ here. The narrator has already given information in the text that the egwugwu is the spirit of the ancestors. The idea of the translation would be that since the „egwugwu‟ is spirit, then spirits should 25 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY address humans as mortals. However, “Sterbliche Hülle” is also a set phrase in the target language that refers to a ‚carcass‟, ‚mortal remains‟ or „corpse‟(Terrel PONS ), such that the choice of “Sterbliche Hülle” for the translation is rather a substitution for the name “Uzowulu‟s body” and a mistranslation. “Uzowulu‟s body” in the source text is a reference to a living person not to a carcass nor a corpse. Also in the first possibility that “Sterbliche Hülle” could be referring to “mortal body”, “Hülle” is a poor choice for „body‟ for none of its connotations precisely refers to the human body. „Skin‟ is the outermost layer of the human body. The possibility that a cross section of the target readers will misunderstand “sterbliche Hülle des Uzowulu” as “the mortal remains” or “the corpse” of Uzowulu certainly exists. The translation would have been adequate to cultural context and to the situation if it were rendered as “sterbliche Leib Uzowulus”, i.e. „mortal body of Uzowulu‟ or even better as „sterbliche Uzowulu‟, i.e. „mortal Uzowulu‟. In the latter alternative, mortality, which is the essence of „body‟ in the context, would transpose body without any loss to context and meaning. “Uzowulu‟s body” is a name used in the ritual of spirits adjudicating in the affairs of the community. It is a ritual name. The translation is inadequate. Example IV: ‘Literalization’, Transposition and Amplification. In the same court session, after both parties to the marriage dispute have been heard, the leading egwugwu, Evil Forest, is to deliver the unanimous judgement of all the egwugwus. He addressed himself to Odukwe, the eldest of the three brothers to Mgbafo, Uzowulu‟s wife: Odukwe‟s body, I greet you … Do you know me? … I am Evil Forest, I am Dry-Meat-that-fills-the-mouth‟ I am Fire-that-burns-without-faggots … “Evil Forest” is a transliteration of the Igbo “Ajofia” (TFA 133), which is the spirit name of the leading egwugwu. All the names are ritual honorifics and metaphors of self- valorization meant to imbue awesomeness to the presence of these spirit ancestors and to 25 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY validate the extraordinary influence and, indeed, power they wield over the clan. The translators render the names as: ich bin “Wald der Dämonen [I am forest of demons] ich bin Trockenes-Fleisch-das-satt-macht [I am dry-meat- that-satisfies] ich bin Feuer-das-ohne-Reisig-brennt [I am Fire-that-burns- without-Faggot] (trans. 106) These honorific metaphors have been translated using the combined techniques of literalization, transposition and amplification. a) Semantic: transposition: “Wald der Dämonen, i.e. forest of demons, is translated by „transposition‟. The agency of evil, i.e. demons, is used to replace evil. The claim to be evil forest is a reference and claim to the potency of the physical place called the evil forest, which is described as a place infested or “alive with sinister forces and powers of darkness”(TFA 105) where rejects of the earth-goddess and clan are exposed to die and rotten away unburied like Okonkwo‟s father, Unoka, who died of limb and stomach swelling considered to be an abomination (TFA 13, cf. TFA 23), and presumably twins (TFA 43, 107) also considered to be an abomination, and potent fetishes of great medicine-men are also dumped there at their death (TFA 105). So when Ajofia (TFA 133), the leading egwugwu of Umuofia, called himself “Evil Forest” and “Dry-Meat-that-fills-the-mouth” (explained below), it was an intimidating and terrifying reminder to mortals that he, like the physical evil forest, is also capable of causing harm or evil at will to the one who ignores him by ignoring or defying his judgement, being the leading presence of the ancestors. The translation is here considered to be adequate. b) Communicative: Amplification: In “Trockenes-Fleisch-das-satt-macht“, i.e. dry-meat-that-satisfies, “fills-the-mouth” is replaced with its “considered” or intended meaning: “that-satisfies”. This amplification technique, however, reduces the depth and correctness of meaning of the metaphoric reference in the culture. The reference of “Dry- Meat-that-fills-the-mouth” in the source culture is to someone who surprisingly is/becomes capable of a great or an unexpected feat than his appearance promises. This is from the comparison to the piece of dry meat that is shrunk and small in size but swells 25 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY up to fill the mouth on being eaten. The emphasis of the metaphor is not in satisfying the hunger for meat or food as the translation emphasizes but in „surprisingly filling the mouth‟ while being eaten. The translation is inadequate. c) Semantic: Literalization: “Fire-that-burns-without-Faggot” is translated literally and refers to the non-corporeal presence of the ancestors and their ability to act without being seen. The literal semantic translation can be said to be adequate in the first instance but could have been complemented with a creative elaboration to bring out the import and impact of these honorific metaphors, which to the target reader would appear very remote. Example V. Semantic: Borrowing: Ogbuefi: Ogbuefi is an honorific address to a man of title or noble rank. The titled-men form an important focus of authority and of substantial influence in the clan. They are to be models of achievement and traditional morality to younger people. The translators transferred the term at every point it occurred. The transference technique is adequate here. Example VI. Semantic: Borrowing and Elaboration: Umunna: The Umunna is an androcentric or male-focused kinship grouping for relating and positioning affairs in Igbo society. It is the extended family in Igbo culture that is “a collection of households belonging to a set of blood brothers” (Afigbo 2001b: 17) and included male and female members. It is a culture-specific address register for a maximal Igbo village, community of Igbo families linked by blood of male brethren, and broadly for the Igbo people. In TFA (77; trans. 125), it is used in connection with the celebration of an aspect of the palm-wine-carrying marriage rites of Obierika‟s daughter. On the day of this celebration, 25 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The suitor would bring palm-wine not only to her [the prospective bride‟s] parents and immediate relatives “but to the wide and extensive group of kinsemen called umunna” (emphasis mine) Achebe has provided an explanation of the context in the body of the narrative and the translators have wisely followed this explanation closely and so translated semantically by transposing the term „Umunna‟ and providing an elaboration to it in the body of the target text thus: …ihr zukünftige Ehemann… große Mengen von Palmwein bringen würde, und zwar nicht nur für ihre Eltern und die nächsten Anverwandten, sondern auch für die große und weitverzweigte Gruppe von Blutsverwandten ihres Vaters, die Umunna. (…her prospective husband would bring large quantity of palm-wine not only for her parents and the closest relatives but also for the large and extended group of blood relatives of her father, the umunna) This is an adequate rendition of the kinship term „Umunna‟, which transference adds local colour and the elaboration adds cultural understanding. The translators reasonably transposed the word „wide‟ in the source text with „large‟ or „huge‟, and provided the additional accurate information that the umunna are related by blood to the father of the bride. This is significant additional information because „umunna‟ is patrilineally defined. Example VII. Communicative: Omission: Umuada: Umuada refers to patrilineal daughters (Elem 1985:80) of the village married outside it. It also refers to the married daughters of the family as it does in TFA. Umuada is glossed in TFA (158) as “a family gathering of daughters for which the female kinsfolk return to their village of origin”. This kinship term is mentioned in TFA in connection with the “isa-ifi” ceremony or the “ceremony of confession”. It is the last ceremony in the marriage rituals by which the wife-to-be confesses to any premarital affair she had (if any) from the day the husband- to-be approached her for marriage. The ceremony is actually a purification ceremony in which sacrifices are offered, and it is a ceremony mediated by the umuada. 25 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The youngest of Uchendu‟s five sons is marrying a new wife. The ritual has to be performed on the prospective wife, and all the daughters, i.e Umuada, of the family, including the daughters of Uchendu‟s brothers, are present. Uchendu is the youngest brother to Okonkwo‟s late mother at Mbanta, where he spends his seven years in exile. TFA narrates: The daughters of the family were all there; … it was a full gathering of umuada, in the same way as they would meet if a death occurred in the family (TFA 92-93) The translators render the passage as: Alle Töchter der Familie waren anwesend ... Alle waren vollzählig erschienen wie bei einem Todesfall in der Familie ... (trans. 148) (All the daughters of the family were present; … all were fully present as they would if there was a death in the family) omitting the kinship term “Umuada” that identifies the daughters of the family. It is significant that the translators probably consider the kingship name to be unimportant to the progress of the narrative. However, the name is not just included to add local colour, i.e. give the narrative the look of the foreign, which it does as well, it is an important feature of the cultural landscape and identity of the source culture. Besides, the fact that “Umuada” occurs only once in TFA, gives it further cultural significance that justifies allowing the name/term by its presence in the target text to retain the potential to arouse the curiosity of the target reader to know further about the source culture. Umuada is not just a name or term that identifies a certain socio-cultural kinship belonging; it is also a purely female gender principle of organisation consisting of married daughters, in some way, a part of the expansive notion of Umunna. Furthermore, it is a „gendered‟ social institution; the most important of the fora designed to present and protect the interest of the women; and a focus of authority that empowers the participation of the women in the socio-cultural, political and the legal life of Igbo society. Most naturally, every Igbo woman is an “ada” of a certain community and remains so throughout her entire life. 25 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The translation by omission is not an adequate technique here to aid intercultural communication and understanding. It rather acts as a check on the potential and possibility of the target reader to inform him/herself further about the source culture; for the source names and terms in TFA narrative are designed to draw attention to the culture by drawing attention to themselves. 5.3.3. Event Names, Ceremonies, Rituals and Cults. In this category are „naming ceremony‟ (TFA 54; trans. 88), „Egwugwu‟ (TFA 62, tran. 100), „wrestling ceremony‟ „new yam feast‟, „bride-price‟ settlement rite, ‚ozo- society‟ (TFA 121; trans. 189), „the week of peace‟ (TFA 21). „The week of peace‟ (TFA 21),„wrestling ceremony‟ (TFA 28), „bride-price‟ settlement rite (TFA 45, 49), and „feast of new yams‟ (TFA 26) are all translated Word- for-Word except for the „feast of new yams‟ (TFA 26) that is modulated through pragmatic inference. The translators render them as: Woche des Friedens (trans. 37), i.e. Week of peace. Braut-preis (trans. 75), i.e. bride prize. Ringkampf (trans. 49), i.e. Wrestling match or competition. Das Fest des Yamsernte (trans 45), i.e. the feast of yam harvest. The translation by the Semantic Approach and by Word-for-Word and transliteration techniques can be considered appropriate because for each of the terms, the narration provided a reasonable description of what it is so that it‟s cultural meaning and significance is clear. However, „the feast of yam harvest‟ as translated slightly but significantly modifies the name and essence of the ceremony. In Igbo culture, the feast is known variously as “Emume Ji Ohuu” or “Emume i ri Ji ohuu”, “Emume i ke Ji ohuu”, i.e „feast of new yams‟ or „new yam feast‟. Admittedly, it is the feast that gives the freedom for the mass harvesting of the yam, the king of crops, but the emphasis in the feast is really on „new‟ because old yams could still exist prior to the feast though shriveled and more of fibre than „flesh‟, which those that have them, 25 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY usually the rich yam farmers, could eat. But no one, especially the titled man, is to taste a new yam from whatever source until the god of yam, Ahiajioku, has been sacrificed to with the new yam and celebrated in a community wide feast that also ushers in the Igbo New Year. The new yam feast marks the end of the Igbo year and the beginning of the new. In the translation of the Igbo „naming ceremony‟, transliterated from the Igbo into English already, the translators showed ambivalence between substituting it with “Taufe”(trans. 88), i.e. baptism or christening; and transliterating it as “feierlichen Namensgebung”(trans. 89), i.e. literally, ceremonial Name-giving (or name-giving ceremony), grammatically transposing „ceremony‟ into an adjective. The context in which „naming ceremony‟ is used in the narrative relates to the recurring child-deaths suffered by Okonkwo‟s second wife, Ekwefi, to whom “the naming ceremony after seven market weeks became an empty ritual”(TFA 54); and when on the instruction of a medicine-man she had to go and live with her old mother in another village on her third pregnancy, she only returned after the birth of the child “three days before the naming ceremony”(TFA 55). Though „christening‟ compares favourably with the Igbo „naming ceremony‟ with regard to the same outcome of giving a „proper name‟ to a child, each of the events exemplify a different culture and religion, one traditional and animist, the other „modern‟ and Christian. Looking at the Igbo naming ceremony from the perspective of the church‟s christening ceremony obstructs the view of the ritual processes and cultural meanings that go into the Igbo naming event. (see p337-8 of thesis: reincarnation & naming ceremony). Although the ritual processes in the Igbo naming ceremony are not provided in the TFA narrative except that the event holds after „seven market weeks‟, the translators may well use the note technique to provide brief cultural information on the Igbo ceremony but most preferably the glossary technique in order not to obstruct the flow of the narrative. This technique would aid cultural communication and intercultural understanding. Furthermore, the subsequent „near literal translation‟ of naming ceremony in the second instance would appear to suggest to the target readers that there exists a difference in the same experience of „name-giving‟ to a child to which the previous translation as 25 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY „christening‟ has successfully connected them, but this is absolutely presumptive; for the same near literal translation as „ceremonial name-giving‟ could as well connect the target reader to „christening‟ as was first translated thus making „ceremonial name giving‟ to be read as a synonym of „baptism or christening‟. These synonym and ambiguity created in the translation of “naming ceremony” makes its translation here to be inadequate. The overall impression that this synonym leaves is that „naming ceremony‟ in the source culture came with the Christian religion: it was not something indegenous to the source culture. The target reader is made to read and understand the source culture solely on the terms of the target culture thereby obscuring the visibility of the sorce culture. The other ceremonies “uri” (TFA 77; trans. 125), “isa-ifi” (TFA 92; trans. 147) are part of the Igbo marriage rituals and have been transferred or borrowed into the target text by the Semantic approach. The “uri” is a palm-wine carrying betrothal rite that comes after the bride-price has been settled. The bride‟s parents and their extended families – the umunna are entertained in an elaborate feast after which the bride paid a long twenty-eight day (TFA 139) visit to the groom‟s family. This ceremony is described in close details in the narrative (chapt. 12). The “isa-ifi” is the last marriage rite before the bride is finally and fully accepted by her husband and into her husband‟s family. It is a purification rite with sacrifice that ascertains the sexual purity of the bride from the day the groom approached her for marriage. The purification is necessary to prevent suffering and even death at childbirth. The ceremony is also described in close details in the narrative. The close description of the ceremonies makes the need for an elaboration in the target text unnecessary and the borrowing technique an adequate technique that provides local colour. The “Egwugwu” (TFA 62, 131; trans. 100, 204) and the “ozo-society” (TFA 121; trans. 189) are socio-cultural cults open to persons who qualify by known criteria and admitted through rites of initiation. The translators have translated the names or terms by transference but further elaborating on the “ozo-society” by translating it as “ozo- Geheimbund”, i.e. “ozo-secret-society”. The Egwugw is a masquerade spirit cult. Membership into it would mean an initiation into the spirit world in which the ancestors live. The spirits ruled along with living men, 26 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY sometimes revealing themselves through oracles, priests and the egwugwu. The egwugwu membership consists of select group of men initiated into the spiritual knowledge of the clan. During festivals and ceremonies, men dressed as egwugwu impersonate the spirits or the ancestors of the clan (TFA 131). The egwugwu does also function as a select group of leaders that impersonate the ancestors to settle weighty tribal disputes (TFA 64, 66, 121). Its translation by Semantic transference and elaboration can be judged to be adequate. The secret nature of the egwugwu cult is clear in the narrative and cultural contexts of the text. The “ozo-society” is a society of men who hold the ozo-title after they have been successfully initiated. The ozo-title is the second in the hierarchy of Umuofia‟s four-title system (TFA 86). The third is the Idemili-title (TFA 5) and the fourth, not named, is rarely ever achieved except by only one or two men in any generation, who become “lords of the land” on achieving it (TFA 86). The ozo-title brings prestige to the holder as well as it accords him specific roles of legal and religious authority. It also goes with moral and and social responsibility and the observance of rules binding on every member of the society. A man takes the title and becomes a member of the society when his wealth and prestige were great enough to warrant that his voice be heard and attended to in communal decision making; and being a member of the society, he can initiate his sons into it (TFA 121). The translation by the transfer technique can be judged to be adequate in the context: it provides local colour and the significance of the titles in the culture are well explained at different points in the narrative. 5.3.4 Material Culture and Artifacts This cultural category refers to the physical or concrete objects and artifacts created by a culture and include among others buildings, structures, monuments, tools, weapons, utensils, food, clothes, furniture, and art. Material culture is the main source of information about a past culture as well as a source of information on an existing culture. We will examine how the translation of these items has provided adequate knowledge of the source culture and aided intercultural understanding. 26 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 5.3.4.1. Semantic-Communicative: ‘Semantic Cushioning’ and Simplification: “Obi” (TFA 10; trans. 21) and “out-houses” (TFA 3; trans. 10). The “obi” is the most important hut or hut-house in the architecture of Igbo family compoud. It is the symbolic center of the compound where the head of the family lives, could keep his personal alter (AOG 24), and entertains his guests (TFA 14, 140). From the “obi”, the head of the family usually has a good view of the approach to the family house such that the “obi” serves a security purpose for the entire compound; moreso as a visitor will heave to pass by or through the “obi” to enter the compound. The hut-houses of the wives, what Achebe called “out-houses”, and their children are situated at strategic corners within the compound to make space for a courtyard for close family functions. The yam barn(s) and family shrine would also be located at chosen corners of the compound. The entire compound is encircled by an earthen boundary wall broken only by an entrance decorated to reflect the wealth and status of its owner. Achebe described this piece of architecture in considerable detail with regard to the large and prosperous household that Okonkwo has noting that: His own hut, or obi, stood immediately behind the only gate in the red walls. Each of his three wives had her own hut … What the translators render as: Sein eigenes, sehr geräumiges Haus, as Sitz des Familienoberhauptes, obi genannt ... jeder seiner drei Frauen hatte ihr eigenes Haus. (His own very spacious house, as the residence of the family head, known as obi …each of his three wives had her own house.) The translators have rendered the passage by the Semantic approach using both literal and semantic cushioning tecchniques. “obi” has been transferred into the target text while also including an elaboration to it as “the spacious residence of the family head”. „Hut‟ has been communicatively simplified by using a superordinate or generic term „house‟, which stands for all types of houses. A concrete and adequate representation of the hut exists in the German language as “Hütte; and this can even still 26 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY be better represented as “Lehmhütte” or “Lehmhaus”, i.e. mudhut or mudhouse respectively. While a mud hut would not compare exactly with the modern concrete houses found in the target culture, it does point out, within the author‟s narrative purpose, that this traditional culture was also able from the properties of its own physical environment to process and construct a building designed to and which successfully serve the same purpose of protecting its occupants from the harsh effects of bare nature. Those huts were not outgrowths from the soil; they were carefully designed and constructed. The people do not live in open weather like animals; they live in houses called huts. The translation of 'hut' is inadequate here. The translation by semantic cushioning, i.e. the combination of transference and elaboration, is adequate to help target text readers know what an “obi” is. However, the use of the superordinate term “house” for “hut” while it may not disrupt the smooth reading and understanding of the narrative, does, however, not fulfil the expectations for cultural knowledge behind the preference for „hut‟ in the source text. Besides, the use of the superordinate term is not really necessary when the German language and culture has the possibility of precisely identifying this piece of material culture of the source culture. Using the superordinate term here is saying less about the source culture. 5.3.4.2 Semantic: Borrowing and Elaboration: “Ekwe”, “udu”, “ogene” (TFA 5; trans. 12) The three are hollow instruments of wood, clay and metal respectively used in music and for the “ekwe” and “ogene”, also used in traditional communication (TFA 7, 84). The three items have been glossed in TFA and respectively explained as: a type of drum made from wood (ekwe), a type of drum made from pottery (udu), and a kind of gong (ogene). The instuments have been translated into the target text by the combined techniques of transference and footnote. The footnote (trans. 12) clarified them as: “Holztrommel” (drum made of wood or wood drum), “Tontrommel” (clay drum), and “Gong aus Eisen” (metal gong). These are adequate renditions of the instruments to the target reader. 26 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 5.3.4.3. Semantic: Transliteration: Seed-yams (TFA 23; trans. 41) These are the yams that are kept as seedlings for planting. The translators have wrongly translated it as “Saatwurzeln”, i.e. seed-roots. Though a root crop, the African yam is a large „tuber‟ with a thick, dark outer skin covering the white „meat‟. It is the tubers of certain sizes or cut to certain sizes that serve as seeds for planting. Besides “seed-roots” as translated would have to apply to every root crop without exception. Alternative options to “Saatwurzeln” would be “Yamssaaten”, i.e. yamseeds, or “Yamsknollesaaten des Yams”, i.e. yam-tuber seeds. The translation by transliteration is not adequate here. The inadequate translation is, however, not due to the technique used but due to the translators‟ insufficient knowledge of the source culture. 5.3.4.4. Communicative: Substitution: Camwood (TFA 27; trans. 47). The camwood is a dye obtained from the red cam wood tree that Igbo women used as cosmetics to decoratively paint their bodies. The translation of camwood by substitution as “Rotholz”, i.e. Red wood, is misleading. Red wood refers to „sequoie‟ – a very large and tall long-living coastal redwood tree of North America. It has no such dye as can be obtained from the camwood, which is a red dyewood that grows in the western coast of Africa. The German name for Camwood is “Afrikanisches Sandelholz”, i.e. Afrcan camwood. An adequate translation for camwood would be Sandelholz” or better “Sandelholzöl” or “Sandelöl”, i.e. camwood or camwood oil respectively. The use of camwood in the narrative context suggests that it is the dye extracted from the camwood sap that is being referred to: The festival [feast of the New Yam] was now only three days away. Okonkwo‟s wives had scrubbled the walls and the huts with red earth until they reflected light. … They then set about painting themselves with camwood and drawing beautiful black patterns on their stomachs and on their backs. (TFA 27) 26 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The “Sandelöl” is an aromatic fragrance oil extracted from the “Sandelholz” and used in skincare. The translation is inadequate. 5.3.4.5. Semantic: ‘Glossification’: Uli and Jigida (TFA 49; trans. 81) Uli and Jigida are still part of the makeup or body decorative items for women in Igbo traditional culture. These items, including camwood, are used in the narrative in relation to the dressing and make-up of Akueke, the daughter of Obierika, who is being married: Camwood was rubbed lightly into her skin, and all over her body were black patterns drawn with uli … on her arms were red and yellow bangles, and on her waist four or five rows of jigida, or waist beads. (TFA 49) Jigida is already explained in the text through lexical-cushioning as waist-beads. Besides, both items are glossed: uli is glossed as “a dye used by women for drawing patterns on the skin” and jigida as “a string of waist beads”. (TFA 157-158). The translators have literally rendered the passage so: …ihre Haut war leicht mit Rotholz eingerieben, und ihr Körper überall dank uli mit schwaryen Ornamenten geschmückt. Dazu trug sie ...sowie rote und gelbe Armreifen und um die Hüften vier bis füunf Reihen Perlenketten, die Jigida. (trans. 81) ... her body was rubbed lightly with redwood, and her body was decorated in black patterns with uli. She wore … red and yellow bangles as well and on her waist four to five strings of pearls. The translation is adequate in describing these cosmetics and jewellery items except for “Rotholz” as already explained. The uli is a black dye. The colour is clear from “black patterns” in the text. 26 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 5.3.4.6. Bean Cakes (TFA 34; trans 58), Yam Foo-Foo and bitter-leaf soup (TFA 67; trans. 108), Yam-pottage (TFA 82; trans 133), Plantain and Coco-yams (TFA 77; trans. 125) The above are few of the numerous food types of the source culture presented in the narrative. The translators render it literally as “Bohnenkuchen”, i.e. beancakes. Beancake is one of the common snacks in Igbo society. It is baked from the paste of the bean. The German bean-cake is, however, a “yeast-rise pastry” (Hefegebäck) made from flour. A complementary footnote or glossary or even an „in-text‟ elaboration is necessary to explain this African snack and help the target reader know and understand this source culture item. Translation by Semantic literalization is inadequate. On the night that Chielo, the priestess of Agbala, visited the Achebe‟s with a prophecy for Ezinma from her god, Okonkwo‟s second wife, Ekwefi, and her daughter, Ezinma have just finished their supper of “yam foo-foo and bitter leaf soup”. The other food types are mentioned during the “Uri” marriage rite of Akueke, daughter of Obierika, Okonkwo‟s bosom friend. The (African) yam is a large tuber with a rather thick, dark outer skin covering white „meat‟. Yams can be boiled, mashed, fried, or roasted like potatoes or plantains. The Foo-foo is dough produced from boiled and then mashed yam. It could also be produced from another tuber, the cassava. The translators transliterated foo-foo into “Fufu” conforming it to target language patterns of pronunciation and spelling and also included an elaboration that explains yam foo-foo as “Yamswurzelbrei”, i.e yam root mash or mashed yam root. The incorrect translation of the yam tuber as “Wurzel”, i.e. root, has already been noted in this thesis(cf: p260). Although the elaboration technique used here is in order to inform the target readers correctly about the foo-foo, the clarification made did not succeed in properly identifying it. Dough of mashed yam would the closest, even if not the most apt, description of the yam foo-foo that would enable the target reader come nearest to understanding the food item. This in German can read as “Yamteig”, i.e. yam dough. The translation of foofoo here is inadequate. “Bitter-leaf soup” is translated by Communicative: functional substitution as “Soße”, die mit Lorbeerblatter gewürzt war” (soup that was seasoned with the bay laurel 26 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY leaf). The problem with using the bay laurel leaf as a functional replacement for the bitter-leaf is that, though it has a slightly bitter taste when fresh and has medicinal value; it is not a vegetable but a spice that is added to meals for its flavour or fragrance rather than for its taste (Wahrig, Springer). It is not considered culinarily acceptable. The leaves are most often used whole and dried and in small quantity and removed before serving. (Rezepte 2009) Though the leaves are not considered poisonous, they are not recommended to be eaten because even after cooking, they remain very stiff and eating them whole may also pose a risk of general injury to the throat (Wikipedia). The leaves have leather-type skin. A translation that shows the Igbo as eaters of the bay laurel leaf is misrepresentational and may have a negative or pejorative impression of the Igbo on the target reader.The translation is inadequate. A more adequate approach would be to translate semantically with the literal and elaboration techniques thus: Ezinma und ihre Mutter hatten gerade ihr Abendessen, bestehend aus Yamsteig – gennannt Fufu – und eine Soße, die mit grün bitter Gemüseblatt gekocht war (Ezinma and her mother had just taken their supper of yam dough – known as Fufu, and a soup that was prepared with green bitter-leaf vegetable.) The translators have correctly used “Soße”, literally sauce, for soup rather than the German “Suppe”, literally soup, which is a boiled liquid preparation often with small pieces of meat and vegetable that is drank usually as appetizer or dessert. The “Soße”, on the other hand, is a boiled and relatively thickened liquid food typically having pieces of meat, fish or vegetable stock as base. The “Soße”, therefore, comes closest to representing soup in the Igbo and African culture; its translation here is adequate. The yam pottage is a thick „stewy‟ food of yam pieces, meat and/or smoked fish, green vegetable and condiment cooked in a pot. The translation by Semantic elaboration of yam pottage as “Yamseintopf mit viel Fleisch” can be judged to be the closest representation in the German culture of the Igbo yam pottage and fulfils adequately the goal of culture knowledge communication. The “Eintopf” refers to a „stewy‟ meal of vegetables or vegetable and meat cooked in a pot. 26 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Plantain and cocoyams have been translated respectively by substitution and transliteration as “Bananen” and “Kokosyam”. Both translations are inadequate representations of these source culture food items. Although “Bananen” is also associated with the plantain in the target culture, it is used in compounds namely “Plantainbananen” or “Kochbananen” to differentiate it from the banana. The use of “Bananen” for plantain gives no precise knowledge and understanding of the plantain to the target reader. Furthermore, “das Kokos” in the target language refers to coconut; such that “Kokosyam” as translated would present the image of a „coconutyam‟ – an inexistent commodity and a complete misrepresentation to the target reader. The narrative context does not suggest such an association. A recommendable technique here would be the combined use of the transference and elaboration (in-text, footnote or glossary) to identify the cocoyam properly as a root crop. 5.3.5. Organisations, Customs, Activities, Procedures, Concepts. In this cultural category are Nso-Ani (TFA 22; trans. 40), Ogbanje (TFA 54; trans. 89), Iyi-Uwa (TFA 56; trans. 92), Ochu (TFA 91; trans. 145), Iba (TFA 53; trans. 87), Akakama “Age-group” (TFA 139; trans. 215), Egwugwu (TFA 4; trans. 11). Nso-ani refers to an offence against traditional morality, especially, of the type sanctioned by the gods and ancestors that is abhorred by all and requires sacrifice to atone for the offence and to appease the gods and spirits. Such was the offence of Okonkwo when he beat his wife in the week of peace (TFA 21). The translators adequately render it by the Semantic Approach using the semantic cushioning technique, i.e. transference complemented by the elaboration technique, as: …nso-ani – dem Vergehen gegen die Erdgöttin - , dessen Okonkwo sich schuldig gemacht hatte. (trans. 40). ...nso-ani – the offence against the earth goddess, which Okonkwo committed. 26 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Ogbanje and Iyi-Uwa: Semantic: transference Ogbanje refers to the spirit child that comes in cyclical rebirths to the same woman. Iyi-uwa is the special stone that connects the ogbanje-child to the spirit world. This stone has to be found to disconnect this link in order that the child can stay and not die to be reborn again. The two concepts are adequately translated by transference; the narration makes very obvious through description the meaning of the concepts. Both concepts are also glossed in the source text. Ochu: Communicative: omission and elaboration Ochu is a criminal offence that involves the death of a kinsman. It is of two types: a male and a female ochu, i.e. murder and manslaughter respectively (TFA 86-87). Female ochu, which Okonkwo committed, is punishable with seven years exile. This traditional legal concept is also glossed in the source text. The translators explained the meaning of the term but avoided its mention. Okonkwo arrives Mbanta to his maternal kindred and narrated his plight to Uchendu, the oldest man and head of his maternal family: The old man listened silently to the end and then said with some relief: “it is a female ochu.‟: And he arranged thr requisite rites and sacrifices. The translation reads: Der alte Mann hörte schweigend zu und sagte dann erleichtert: “Du hast ihn nicht mit Absicht getötet“. Und er traf Vorkehrungen für die traditionell üblichen Riten und Opfer. (The old man listened silently and said with relief: “you killed him unintentionally”. And he made sure to arrange for the necessary traditional rites and sacrifices.) The translators omitted and replaced “female ochu” with the elaboration of what female ochu meant in the culture, i.e. to kill unintentionally. The elaboration of the term is to compensate its omission. The method and techniques adopted here by the female translators raises the questions whether the elaboration is a case of adding more than 26 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY necessary information or the techniques serve an ideological motive to „defeminize‟ the crime in the social context of the target culture.(cf: Mayanja 190-1). Either way, the translators hope to realise a version acceptable to the target reader. Whatever the motive of the translators, the omission technique here denies the readers a clearer understanding of the Okonkwo story from the standpoint of the cultural perspective provided by the legal concept of “female ochu”. The plot of TFA narrative is based considerably on Okonkwo‟s resistance to and denial of the female principle that provides balance to communal life and personality development. He resisted his own emotional and affectionate instincts and does not show them openly because he considers them to be feminine and a sign of cowardice (TFA 20). He joined the team that killed Ikemefuna against the better judgement of his deep affection to a child that calls him father because he does not want to be seen as weak and feminine (TFA 45, 46). It is significant in the Okonkwo narrative that it is a “female ochu” – a symbolic extension of the female principle - which he resists, denies and violates, that forces his descent to tragedy. The omission of „ochu‟ does not just remove local colour from the target text but more significantly, it denies the target reader the knowledge of an important legal concept of the source culture as well as a major aspect of the cultural plot of the TFA narrative. The techniques of transference and elaboration to cushion meaning would have been adequate to communicate cultural knowledge. The translation is, therefore, inadequate to intercultural understanding and communication. Iba (TFA 53; trans. 87) Communicative: omission and simplification Okonkwo is roused in the morming from sleep by a distress call from his second wife, Ekwefi. Ezinma, her only daughter is severely sick. Okonkwo rushed to Ekwefi‟s hut where Ezinma lay shivering. He took a look at Ezinma and proclaimed that she is having “iba”. “Iba” is translated by simplification as “Fieberanfall”, i.e. bout of fever or high temperature. The source cultural term “iba” is dropped. “Iba” is a term from the medical register of the source culture, and it refers to a type of fever, the fever caused by mosquito bites – the malaria fever. The superordinate term “Fieberanfall” used by the translators to simplify the term does not precisely identify the fever type. Although the mosquito is not known as an environmental health factor in the 27 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY target culture environment, the target culture and language is aware of it and the illness or fever it causes and can adequately translate it, at least, by transference and elaboration. The omission of the source culture medical term and incorrect identification of the ilhealth in German renders the translation inadequate to intercultural communication. Age-group (TFA 85, 139; trans. 137, 215) Semantic-Communicative: Omission and Elaboration. The age-group or age-grade is a socio-political and cultural institution for community development and social control. Persons that fall within a certain age bracket belong to an age-group and distinguish themselves from other age-groups through their names. Each age-group is responsible for a specific area of community service and in order to preserve the good name of its group, its members become involved in disciplining and restraining those who tended to cause trouble within the community. In TFA the age-group is mentioned twice and in each case, the translators omit the term, however. At the funeral of Ezeudu in TFA (85) “warriors came and went in their age-groups” from morning till night. Ezudu was a warrior and so he got a warrior‟s funeral. The translators render the text unit elaboratively: …vom frühen morgen bis spät in die Nacht kamen und gingen Krieger ... in der Rangfolge ihres Alters. (trans. 137) (From early morning till late in the night warriors came and went in the order of their age ranks (or in the order of their ranks according to age). The translators misread the cultural context or at least created an ambiguity by inferring seniority in military rankings based on age. “Rangfolge” in the target language is used with regard to warriors to refer to military rankings. Persons in the same age group do not necessarily have to be of the same military rank. Secondly, in TFA (139), Okonkwo and five other leaders of umuofia have been invited by the District Commissioner ostensibly to discuss the misunderstanding between the church and the clan that led to the burning of the church in umuofia by the egwugwu. At the DC‟s office, however, Okonkwo and his group are arrested, imprisoned and manhandled, and fined two hundred bags of cowries to which the court messengers added 27 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY fifty bags for themselves. The news reaches Umuofia and the village crier made his rounds with his ogene summoning every man in Umuofia “from the Akakanma age- group upwards to a meeting in the market place…” The above quoted text unit is translated thus: Er rief jeden Mann von Umuofia von 25 Jahren an aufwärts zu einem Treffen auf dem Marktplatz ... (trans.215) (He called every man of umuofia from 25 years upwards to a meeting in the market place.).. The omission of “Akakanma Age-group” is absolutely unnecessary. The target language and culture is capable of a semantic translation of the culturally significant term without a loss of meaning to the target readers. Secondly, there is no clue in TFA narrative that suggests that the Akakanma Age group comprises persons of 25 years nor that the age-group system of Umuofia begins with age 25 as the word “upwards” in the source text may be misread. The translation techniques used by the translators deny the target readers knowledge of this aspect of the source culture. “Akakanma Age-group” can be adequately rendered by transliteration as “Altersgruppe des Akakanmas” or preferably “Altersgruppe Akakanmas”, i.e. Akakanma‟s age-group. Age-group can also be complemented with a note to provide additional information to the target readers on this institution of the source culture. The translation is inadequate. Ndichie (TFA 9, 11, 62, 132). Semantic: Literalization Ndichie is a cultural address register with double connotations of kinship. First it refers to the “living elders” of the clan (TFA 9, 11 also 37, 62 and 132), and it can refer to the deified ancestors (TFA 13, 103) also referred to as the forefathers or dead [living] fathers (TFA 13, 22, 91, 143). Both the living elders and deified ancestors are bound to the clan in communal kinship. The living elders or Ndichie are privy to the highest spiritual and secular issues affecting the clan; they take decisions on a number of them. For example, Ezeudu, one of the three oldest men in the clan and the oldest man in 27 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Okonkwo‟s village, Iguedo, was first aware before Okonkwo, the warrior, that “Umuofia has decicided to kill him [Ikemefuna], and “the oracle of the hills and the caves has pronounced it [Ikemefuna‟s death]” (TFA 40). They are co-guardians of customs and morality and the purity of the clan with the deified ancestors and the earth goddess. Indeed, the „Ndichie‟ is not only a kinship register in the broad sense, but an institution of religious/spiritual, social and political importance. This kinship register and institution appeared twice in related contexts written with marked but unexplained emphasis. Okonkwo, the proud and imperious emissary of war to Mbaino returned from his mission of presenting the options of war or appeasement to Mbaino, he presented his report to the “elders or Ndichie” (TFA 9). Okonkwo is given custody of Ikemefuna for the clan. He handed Ikemefuna over to his most senior wife, whose enquiry on the duration of stay of Ikemefuna in the household provoked Okonkwo‟s impatience and anger. He rashly retorted with the question “when did you become one of the ndichie of Umuofia?” In both cases, the direct reference is to the elders of the clan and the translators‟ use of the literal technique is in order since the translation from the Igbo language into the source text already gave the meaning: Die Ältesten, ndichie gennant (trans. 20); ndichie, den Ältesten des Stammes (trans. 22). (The elders, known as ndichie; ndichie, the elders of the clan respectively) Umuada. Explained on page 255-6 of this thesis Ozo-society. Explained on page 259-10 of this thesis. 5.4 Body-Text Cultural Signifiers. This subsection examines the translation of culturally significant expressions and text units that do not fall within the cultural categories of expressions and terms already examined. We categorize these expressions and text units under the techniques used to 27 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY translate them and examine how their translations significantly aid knowledge and understanding of the source culture to the target readers. Semantic: Elaboration: This technique as already explained admits extra words to clarify and explain a semantic or lexical unit of text in translation. It is useful especially in contexts where the source and target cultures differ sharply and finding suitable correspondences of meaning and words are difficult. It could, therefore, be an effective technique to aid intercultural knowledge and understanding. The translators of TFA made reasonable use of this technique with measured success. Example I. In TFA (4; trans. 11), the “dancing egwugwu” of Unoka, Okonkwo‟s father‟s band is first rendered by transference as “tanzenden egwugwu”, i.e dancing egwugwu, and then complemented by elaboration as “Maskentänzer”,i.e. Mask dancer. This is an adequate translation that makes it possible for the target reader to understand the „egwugwu‟; for the target culture also has mask- dancing. II. Furthermore, when the narrator pointed out that the fear of failure and weakness that dominated Okonkwo‟s whole life was deeper and more intimate than “the fear … of the forest” (TFA 90), the translators added “… finsteren Wald” (trans. 20) qualifying forest with “dark and sinister” (i.e. finsteren) thus differentiating the „forest‟ of the source culture from the “woods” in the target culture also known as “Wald” that could equally be used for leisure and meditation. “Wald” is a superordinate term for both “forest” and “woods”. The elaboration technique used here brings the target reader closer to the understanding of the source culture and to the understanding of the unique character of Okonkwo that is fundamental to the understanding of the entire TFA narrative. The cultual text unit here is adequately translated. 27 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Communicative: Amplification I. The translation with the intended meaning of the textual speaker or textual statement mostly leads to mistranslation. In TFA (12; trans. 23), the narrator used the occasion of Okonkwo‟s father‟s visit to “Agbala” to describe this god of divination: No one had ever beheld Agbala, except his priestess. But no one who had ever crawled into his awful shrine had come out without the fear of his power. (Emphasis mine) The translators translated the above text unit literally but amplified „power‟ with “Allmacht”, i.e. omnipotence. In the Igbo pantheon of gods, omnipotence is not ascribed to the god of divination, or to any other god except “Chukwu” (TFA 127). The ascription of omnipotence to “Agbala” not only misleads the target reader but also misrepresents the culture. This translation is thus inadequate. II. In TFA (33; trans. 55), the sitting positions of the spectators to the wrestling match at the “Ilo” were described. Behind where the elders sat was the big ancient sacred silk- cotton tree “where spirits of good children lived … „waiting to be born‟ ”. The translators render “waiting to be born” as “waiting to be reborn”: In deren Zweigen der Geist der guten Kinder lebte, die darauf warteten, wiedergeboren zu werden (emphasis mine). (in which branches the spirits of good children lived ... “waiting to be reborn”) This translation can mislead the target reader for it blurs the difference between “the spirits of the good children” and the „ogbanje child‟ one of those “wicked children”, who when they died entered their mothers womb to be “born again” (TFA 54; trans 88-9). The translation of the cyclical rebirth of the ogbanje child as “… um aufs neue geboren zu werden” (trans. 89), i.e. “in order to be born anew”, is in the same meaning used for the “reborn” of the good children in the first translation above. The sharp difference between “good children” and “wicked children” in the case of the ogbanje child does not solve the confusion introduced in the first translation because the good children in contrast to the 27 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY ogbanje children are not reborn, “they come to stay” and the ogbanje child when it repents or gets tired of its cyclical rounds, stays (TFA 56, 34). It is possible for the target reader to be misled into the erroneous view that ogbanje spirit children come in their cyclical rounds from and to the sacred ancient silk-cotton tree or that the good children come and go in cyclical rebirths like the ogbanje child. The translators at this point did not demonstrate sensitivity to both narrative and cultural coherence in their choice of word. The translation here is inadequate. III. In TFA (85; trans. 137), the burial ceremony of Ezeudu included the demonstration of warriors. Ezeudu was given a warrior‟s funeral because he was a warrior, “and from morning till night warriors came and went in their age-groups”, translated: und von frühen morgen bis spät in die Nacht kamen und gingen Krieger, die gemeinsam mit Ezeudu gekämpft hatten, in der Rangfolge ihres Alters. (and from early morning till late in the night warriors, who had fought together with Ezeudu, came and went in their rankings according to age) There are two significant techniques used in the translation here: First is the amplification technique by which the translators qualified the „visiting‟ warriors with the extra information that they were those “who had fought together with Ezeudu”. This inclusion is not quite true to the narrative. At the time Ezeudu died, there were only “three men in the whole clan older than him, and four or five” others in the whole Umuofia clan that were in his own age-group (TFA 85); and he was the oldest man in his own village, Iguedo. There could not have been so much warrior contemporaries of Ezeudu alive, enough to make possible the visit only of this group of warriors from morning till night. Secondly, it is not presumable that there does not exist younger warriors of umuofia who never fought alongside Ezeudu nor ever saw him go to battle but only heard about him as a warrior. The correct cultural information here is that the warrior or “military” institution of the clan is organised in age-groups or age-grades and all the age-groups take part in the burial of a fellow warrior, especially, a warrior of the age and stature of Ezeudu. The extra textual information can be misleading. 27 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY In the second instance, “age-group” is omitted and replaced with its clarification as “the order of their [military or warrior] ranks according to age”. The age-group is a socio- cultural institution in Igbo society and does not correlate with military or warrior ranks. The translators infused a military terminology into the context, perhaps to realise a context-diction or register agreement, but that was at the unnecessary expense of authentic cultural information to the target readers. The translation is inadequate. IV. Furthermore, in TFA (147; trans. 226), the District Commissioner (DC) has been led to the spot where Okonkwo hung himself. The lifeless body dangles from the tree. The DC is informed by Obierika, and the other few men of Umuofia with him, that the custom and tradition of Umuofia prevents them from touching or burying Okonkwo‟s body. His death is an abomination. They requested the DC and his men to bring the body down for a fee. The narrator relays the impression and thoughts of the DC from this encounter with the death of Okonkwo and from his experience in Africa: In the many years in which he had toiled to bring civilisation to different parts of Africa, he had learnt a number of things … The passage is translated by amplifying “to bring civilisation…” into “in einigen Teilen Afrikas die Segnungen der Zivilisation zu verbreiten …”, i.e. to spread the blessings of civilization in some parts of Africa.... (Emphasis mine) Though the narrative unit is presented as a „thinking aloud‟ of the DC that ironically satarizes the self claims and self-praise of Europe to have brought civilization to Africa while in actual fact it destroys or displaces African civilizations, the introduction of the noun phrase „the blessings of …‟ into the target text introduces a subtext. Though the phrase may read like an harmless intensifier of the „satirical fact‟, it subtly supports the ostensible reason and presumption of Europe for the colonisation of Africa: colonisation is a blessing to Africa. This subtle bias could either be to a misreading of context by the translators, a deliberate effort to subvert or muddle-up the view on Western civilisation presented in that unit of the TFA narrative or to soothe the „higher culture or civilisation‟ sensitivity of the target readership. The translation is grossly inadequate and eurocentic. 27 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY V. Two days to the killing of Ikemefuna, the ill-fated child in Okonkwo‟s custody, Ezeudu, the oldest man in Okonkwo‟s village forewarned Okonkwo of the pronouncement of the Oracle of the Hills and the Caves and the clan‟s decision to kill the boy and asked Okonkwo to stay away from it: „That boy calls you father. Do not bear a hand in his death‟. … „Yes, Umuofia has decided to kill him. The oracle of the Hills and the Caves has pronounced it … but I want to have nothing to do with it. He calls you father.‟ The translators translated semantically by the literal technique until the penultimate sentence which they translated by the „amplificatory‟ addition of „you‟: ...Aber ich will nicht, daß du irgend etwas damit zu tun hast...(trans. 67) (…But I want “you” to have nothing to do with it. … ). (Emphasis mine) The addition of „you‟ in the last quoted translated text unit above is unnecessary and is capable of misleading the target reader. It shows a misreading or misunderstanding of the relevant cultural context by the translators. In the first line of the former quote above, Ezeudu tells Okonkwo not to be involved with the killing and in the later part of that same quote, Ezeudu, himself, does not want to have anything to do with the killing. The translators incorrectly inserted Okonkwo with the „you‟ in a reference to himself by Ezeudu. The translators assume Ezeudu‟s “I want to have nothing to do with it” to be wrongly written when he, Ezeudu, is talking to Okonkwo. Ezeudu is the oldest man in Okonkwo‟s village, and one of the oldest men in the clan. He is the human intermediary between the ancestors of the clan and the living and has the responsibility to provide guidance and counsel on the ways of the clan. Besides that, he is the “nna-anyi”, i.e. the symbolic father of the village, and so could rightly assert that he does not want anything to do with the death of Ikemefuna. He does not wish the disater of the gods and spirits and of the ancestors to come upon his village. In the end Ezeudu suffered a personal loss, the death of his sixteen-year old son, due to the disobedience of Okonkwo to this warning. 27 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY VI. Okonkwo is bowed with grief at the fate that befell him in having to be exiled for seven years and be cut-off from his life‟s aspiration in the clan. Uchendu, the eldest surviving member and head of Okonkwo‟s maternal family, consoled and encouraged Okonkwo explaining to him the support and protection available to him in his maternal home in times of crisis, even as it is evident in the name, “Nneka” – Mother is supreme: We all know that a man is the head of the family and his wives do his bidding. A child belongs to its father and his family and not to its mother and her family … But when a father beats its child, it seeks sympathy in its mothers hut. A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland. … And that is why we say that mother is supreme. (Emphasis mine). (TFA 94) The translators translated semantically by the literal technique except for the last line in the quote, which is rendered by amplification as: Und das ist der Grund, warum wir sagen, daß die Mutter das Oberhaupt der Familie ist. (trans. 150) (And that is the reason why we say that the mother is the head of the family). Emphasis mine. The translation of this last line is a falsification and misrepresentation of the source culture. Mother is supreme is an emphasis on the female principle of communal and family existence that provides stability and balance in the culture. That principle is seen in the sympathy and protection a mother affords that balances the strictness, discipline and harshness of the father. While not condoning error, the mother would help the child to have a successful new start. Such contradictory cultural information misleads the target reader into wrong conclusions about the culture. The Umuofia society is patriarchal not matriarchal. The initial rendition of “Nneka – mother is supreme” as “Nneka – Mutter ist das Oberhaupt”, i.e. mother is the head would appear to be adequate to the cultural information; for the place of this relevance of the mother is not just in the family but also in the entire clan and even „interclan‟, wherever is the maternal home of the child. The translation is inadequate. 27 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY VII. The title of the novel “Things Fall Apart” has been „amplificatorily‟ translated in both the former East and West German versions into a single two-part title as “Okonkwo oder Das Alte stürzt”, i.e “Okonkwo or the Old collapses” through a „misreading‟ of the context and the meaning in which the novel is written or by a presumable but failed pursuit of what the author within the context of the novel “could” or “should” be saying. The title of the German versions contrasts that of the English source text which was taken from the the poem of W.B. Yeats‟ “The Second Coming”. The first part of the title “Okonkwo” not only isolates Okonkwo from the cultural community but puts undue emphasis on him as the central focus of the narration rather than the cultural community which cultural identity the author sets forth to present. Ibemesi takes a strong exception to this misrepresentation evident in the German title: Already in the title, Dagmar and Evelin [translators of the West German version; Richards Moering – translator of the East German version] show that they do not appreciate the major thrust of the novel, which is, to exhibit the communal consciousness among the Igbos. One of the themes of the novel is in fact „Communalism‟. If the translators of Things Fall Apart understand that the Igbos of the twenty-first century still attach much importance to communal living as against individualism of most developed countries of the West, then they would not have chosen the first part of the title for the novel as Okonkwo. The translators see the conflict narrated in the novel more as an alienation of the individual (Okonkwo) from his changing society. The singling out of the chief protagonist Okonkwo shows that he is seen as a lone individual struggling in a society turned upside down, thus, the novel is interpreted by some audience who read the novel only in translation as the tragedy of one man – Okonkwo (314). The “or” used in the German title to introduce the second part of the title to be of „equal‟, „similar‟ and „interchangeable‟ value to the first part continues the implicit imposition of individualism on TFA narration, i.e. of the individual being above the collective. It also stereotypes the Igbo by respectively suggesting on the one hand that the fall or fate of Okonkwo is the fall or fate of the cultural community of Umuofia and on the other hand that Okonkwo symbolises the “Old” that collapses, the “Old” being the 28 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY cultural personhood of the Igbo African. In other words Okonkwo is the replica of every Igboman (or woman, as the case may be). Wheras both Okonkwo and the Umuofia community go through the conflict of culture brought about by the encounter with the colonial culture, Okonkwo additonally goes through a personal internal contradiction of self which, in his ignorance of the true nature of this “Himself-in-Conflict”, he believes he could resolve through the continued coherence and stability of the Umuofia culture and community; for he aims to rise in rank in the culture to become one of the lords of the clan. This “becoming” for Okonkwo is an escape from the Self in him that resembles his „lazy‟ and „improvident‟ father, Unoka; and he needs Umuofia culturally intact and whole to succeed in his flight. Indeed, the reverse of the proposition put forward by the “or” in the German title is valid: the fate of Okonkwo, in so far as he sees the way and manner of resolving his contradiction of Selfhood, is dependent on the fate of the community and its culture. The community is above the individual, Okonkwo is subsumed in the community not the other way round. The acquiesance of the communal culture to the intruding colonial culture led Okonkwo to resign himself to the fate he suffered. The Umuofia community continued, though no more clothed in the full regalia of its mores and customs, and Okonkwo failed; “not because „the old collapsed‟ but because he rejected without compromise any synthesis of the two cultures” (Mayanja 189[translated]). The second proposition implied in the “or” namely that Okonkwo is the replica of every Igboman is not valid. The analysis above and the portrayal of Okonkwo in the TFA plot shows that he is a psychologically troubled man, a man on the run from himself, who does not fully understand himself nor does he fully appreciate the deep bonds of communality that holds the community together. While championing the course of cultural preservation of his community, he at the same time set himself against it with his excesses. The second part of the German title “Das Alte stürzt” ignores the various levels of conflict at which the cultural encounter unfolds; for “ „Things‟ by no means refers only to „the Old‟” (Mayanja 189). Again Ibemesi takes a critical exception to this part of the German translation with details: 28 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The second part of the title by the translators as Das Alte Stürzt which translates The Old Crumbles paints the picture of total destruction or collapse of a system. In other words, the African tradition crumbles on coming in contact with another. Achebe tries to portray in this novel series of conflicts in Igbo society at the point of contact with European colonizers. The conflicts are not restricted to institutions of religion and politics. The novel also thematises the conflicts of generations as shown for example in the relationship between Nwoye and his father Okonkwo. Conflict of generations is not a peculiarity of any culture. It is a phenomenon which is present in every culture. The novel is therefore neither a heroic novel in the tradition of a psychological novel nor a presentation of an overthrow of one tradition by another as some foreign interpreters tend to make it. The one major achievement which the author has aimed at, and succeeded is to counter the thesis that Africans have no culture before the coming of the Europeans. Therefore, Achebe cannot be crumbling a system which he tries to protect and to preserve for posterity. (315). The translation of the TFA title is grossly inadequate. Communicative: modulation In TFA (13; trans. 26), the rich Nwakibie is described as having “taken the highest but one title …in the clan”. This the translators wrongly translated by the modulation technique as “den zweithochsten der Titel erworben….”, i.e. the second highest title. (Emphasis mine). The translators misread the text unit. The error in this translation may have been unintended but it wrongly identifies Nwakibie by his title and reduces his importance in the plot because the second highest title is not particularly significant to make him the outstanding model for Okonkwo in the narrative. There are four titles in Umuofia (TFA 86). The first is not specifically identified but it could be from the belonging to the spirit cult – the egwugwu. The second is the Ozo- title (TFA 48). The third is the Idemili-title (TFA. 5). The fourth title is also not identified by name because it is rarely taken and only one or two men ever achieved it in any generation, who became lords of the land when they do (TFA 86). Perhaps the non- 28 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY mention of the name of the fourth title is to reinforce its sublimity. Nwakibie, like Ezeudu, has taken three titles. “The highest but one title” unmistakeably refers to the Idemili-title, the third highest. Apart from the roles played by Nwakibie and Ezeudu in revealing the character of Okonkwo, they both help to reveal the extent of Okonkwo‟s ambition. As wealthy as Nwakibie is, and as great and respected a man and warrior in the clan as Ezeudu is, and as highly titled and respected as both of them are, Okonkwo aims to exceed them both – he aspires to be “a lord of the clan” (TFA 92). Communicative: Simplification: He took a pot of palm-wine and a cock to Nwakibie. Two elderly neighbours were sent for, and Nwakibie‟s two grown-up sons were also present in his obi. He presented a kola nut and an alligator pepper, which was passed around for all to see and then returned to him. (TFA 14) The text is translated as: Er ging mit einem Krug Palmwein und einem Hahn als Gastgeschenk zu Nwakibie‟s, wo er auch dessen zwei bereits erwachsene Söhne antraf. Man ließ nach zwei Älteren aus der Nachbarschaft schicken, und Okonkwo bot zur Begrüßung eine Kolanuß und Alligatorpfeffer an. Beide wurde herumgereicht, damit es sehen konnte, und dann an ihm zurück gegeben. (trans. 26) (He went with a pot of palm-wine and a cock as guest‟s gift to Nwakibie‟s obi where he met two of his already grown up sons. Two elderly neighbours were sent for and Okonkwo offered, as a welcome, a kolanut and alligator pepper. Both were passed round for all to see and then returned to him). In the effort to reduce the lexical and syntactic load of the passage, the translators misread the text and provided wrong cultural information. In Igbo culture, it is the host that offers kolanut to his guest(s) and not the guest to the host as the translation suggests. 28 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Semantic: ‘Literalization’ and Transposition: Okonkwo introduced the purpose of his visit to Nwakibie. He has come to pay his respects and to ask for a favour. But the palmwine has to be drunk first before further details of the favour. The narrator records: Everybody… brought out their drinking horns…. The younger of his [Nwakibie‟s] sons in the group began to pour out the wine. The first cup went to Okonkwo, who must taste his wine before anyone else. (TFA 14) The passage is translated semantically by the literal technique complemented by transposition in the last line of the above quote. …. Den ersten Schluck bekam Okonkwo, der den Wein als erster kosten mußte.(trans. 27) (.... the first sip went to Okonkwo, who had to taste the wine before anyone else.) In the translation, the “first cup” is replaced with the “first sip”, i.e. Schluck, and the possessive pronoun “his wine” is transposed with the German definite accusative article „den‟, i.e. the wine. In the later case, the translators expect the target reader to be able to infer from the context that it is the wine brought by Okonkwo that is being drunk. But there is no necessary reason why the translators could not have used the German accusative possessive pronoun “seinen”, i.e. his, as it is in the source text. That would remove the difficulty of searching the context; for „the wine‟ could as well be „a wine‟ presented to the gathering by the host, Nwakibie. If that inference is possible, as it is, the translators ended up creating the unnecessary possibility that the target reader could also confuse the cultural information and insight being presented in the context: that the palm-wine brought on such occasions or visits by the visitor is to be drank by all in the gathering before the visitor will give the details of the purpose of his visit, and that he must first drink or taste his wine before every other person in the gathering. In the former case, „sip‟ may refer either to the precise delicate type of drinking in which a little is taking at a time or to a little quantity taken to taste the „flavour‟ of the drink. A taste of the wine in the context could be obtained either by „the sip‟ of a little quantity or by „drinking‟ the entire „horncup‟. But Okonkwo was poured a „full cup‟ the 28 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY „first cup‟, and the group can only begin to drink after Okonkwo has tasted the wine. Okonkwo would not have kept his prospective benefactor and the other elders present waiting by indulging in „leisurely sips‟ of the cup of palm-wine poured out to him. He could either have taken the first sip from his cup „to the satisfaction of the group‟, which could begin to drink though he has not finished the entire cup or he could have finished drinking his first full cup „to the satisfaction of the group‟. Furthermore, there appears to be in the use of the lexical choice „sip‟ an implicit comparison to the German dinner culture by which the host would have to taste the dinner wine first by „sipping‟ it before the guests could begin to drink. But in such situation, the „tasting‟ is not in the reversed order as it is in the TFA context under consideration whereby Okonkwo, „the guest‟ has to taste his wine first; it is the host that tastes his wine. This means that the two cultural situations are different and the presumed implicit comparison does not close the cultural gap here between the source and target cultures. In the German dinner culture, the tasting of the wine first by the host is to ascertain the flavour and temperature of the wine. It is part of the amiableness of the host and adds to the fun and pleasure of the dinner. In the Igbo culture, The tasting of the palm-wine first by the one who presents it to the group, a host or guest, as in the case in the source text, is obligatory: it assures those to drink it afterwards that the palm-wine is not only good but, particularly, also „safe‟. The presenter of the palm-wine will „drink‟ the first hornful to the „satisfaction‟ or „conviction‟ of the others in the group before they would join him to drink. The choice of “first sip” as a lexical replacement for “first cup” misreads the cultural situation and reduces the cultural meaning and significance of the ritual of the presenter of the palm-wine drinking first. Not only should the translators have translated semantically, they also should have complemented their translation of the passage with a note. The translation of the cultural text unit here is inadequate. 28 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Chapter Six Analysis and Discussion of AOG This chapter examines the techniques used in the translation of the identified cultural categories and cultural text units in Achebe‟s second novel under study “Arrow of God” (AOG). Significant in the examination of the techniques used are the outcomes of their use to cultural knowledge transfer, identity ascription and intercultural understanding. 6.1 Translation of Proverbs: Techniques used and Analysis. Proverbs have comparatively been more proficiently used in AOG. The translators have also been more meticulous to translate most of the proverbs literally by the semantic approach. This literal technique and norm successfully leave the proverbs in the source culture and so considerably fit them within the cultural and narrative contexts in which they occur. Three illustrations will suffice. Example 1. If the lizard of the homestead should neglect to do the things for which its kind is known, it will be mistaken for the lizard of the farmland (AOG 17) The narrative context of the proverb was the Assembly of titled elders and titled men of Umuaro clan called to decide the course of action in respect to the land dispute between Umuaro and Okperi. Ezeulu had on the authority of oral history from his own late father told the assembly that the farmland in dispute belonged to Okperi and tried to dissuade his clan from contemplating an unjust war with Okperi. Nwaka, the chief antagonist to Ezeulu, successfully countered Ezeulu‟s speech on the strength of another oral history, his own father‟s, which says that the parcel of land in contention does not belong to Okperi. The assembly finally decided to send an emissary to Okperi to present them with the option of war or peace for settling the dispute. The belligerent Akukalia was chosen to lead a team to Okperi. The oldest man in the gathering, Ogbuefi Egonwanne, spoke and advised Akukalia on the errand he was being sent. He used the 28 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY proverb to justify the obligation that age places on him as an old man to advise and emphasize caution even if the emissary already knows what his mission fully implies, and he doubts that Akukalia does. The proverb is processed from the observed differences in the culture between the „lizard of the homestead‟ and „the lizard of the farmland‟ and it points out the moral obligation and responsibility that communal expectation places on the aged; for as Ezeulu reminded Ogbuefi Egonwanne later, taking exception to his advice to Akukalia, “when an adult is in the house, the she-goat is not left to suffer the pains of parturition on its tether” (AOG 18) thus pointing out that Ogbuefi Egonwanne‟s position in support of a possible war and his advice to Akukalia on how to be an emissary of war and peace at the same time negate that communal expectation on him to at all times give wise counsel and steer the community away from disaster and humiliation. The proverb is rendered literally: Wenn die Hauseidechse nicht tut, wöfür ihre Art bekannt ist, wird man sie für die Eidechse des Ackerlandes halten (trans. 27) If the lizard of the homestead fails to do that for which its kind is known, it will be mistaken for the lizard of the farmland. Example 2. In the narrative context to the proverb: The man who has no gift of speaking says his kinsmen have said all there is to say (AOG 63) Ezeulu‟s son-in-law, Ibe of Umuogwugwu and husband to Akueke, Ezeulu‟s daughter by her late wife, Okuata, visited Ezeulu accompanied by his kinsmen to resolve the conflict between him and his wife and to appease his father-inlaw. His wife could return to him after that. Akueke had gone back to his father‟s house for about a year on account of wife battering by Ibe. In the gathering was Ezeulu‟s younger brother who had remained mostly silent in the reconciliatory talks but felt, at a certain point, that his elder brother, Ezeulu, was yielding too readily to his in-laws. He used the proverb to explain his seeming silence and also as a rhetorical device to his speech. The proverb is translated literally: 28 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY der Mann, der nicht die Gabe des Sprechers hat, gern behauptet, seine Verwandten hätten alles gesagt (trans. 80) (The man who has no gift of speaking says his kinsmen have said all there is to say) Example 3. When we see an old woman stop in her dance to point again and again in the same direction, we can be sure that somewhere there something happened long ago which touched the roots of her life (AOG 100) The anecdotic proverb is also literally rendered as: Wenn wir eine alte Frau in ihrem Tanz innenhalten sehen, um wieder und wieder nach einer Richtung zu zeigen, dann können wir sicher sein, daß dort vor langer Zeit etwas geschah, das die Wurzel ihres Lebens berührt (trans. 123-4) (When we see an old woman pause in her dance in order to point again and again in a direction, we can be certain that something happened there long ago which touched the roots of her life) In the narrative context to the proverb, Akuebue visits his bossom friend, Ezeulu, at the time when the news about Obika, Ezeulu son‟s whipping by the white man makes the round in the clan. Obika and his friend, Ofoedu were late to join their age-group who was working on the new road being built by the white man. Ezeulu was bitterly and visibly opposed to Obika‟s friendship with Ofoedu. Present during Akuebue´s visit is Edogo, Ezeulu´s first son. The discussion at a point during the visit steered to Ezeulu and his sons. Akuebue uses the proverb to strongly disapprove of Obika for not heeding the several pleas of his father to end his friendship with Ofoedu. Ezeulu as a father with more knowledge and experience of life must have seen the futility of Obika´s friendship with Ofoedu to forewarn him (Obika) several times. In the above literal translations, the translators have not only preserved the source culture imagery of the proverbs but also have sought to keep most closely to the structure and flavour of oral expression in the source culture. These literal translations can be taken to be successful and adequate to interculturao postcolonial communication in so far as 28 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY their contexts of use, preserved as well in the examples cited above, adequately make clear the wisdom they contain and in so far as they do not contain images and references that point to wider understanding of the source culture outside the immediate narrative context and use of the proverbs. This is not the case with some proverbs that were also translated literally by the semantic approach. We provide examples: Example 1. Semantic: 'Literalization' and gloss Ogbuefi Amalu is dead and buried. His second burial takes place. He is a titled man and a man of substance. His second burial is to be honoured with the rite of the Ogbazulobodo – the flight of the “night spirit” round the entire clan announcing or signifying the passage of the departed spirit to join the deified ancestors. Obika, Ezeulu‟s second son, runs the Ogbazulobodo for the Amalu‟s. He is clothed in the regalia of the night spirit and „transmuted‟ into the spirit. In the flight of the „night spirit‟, he pronounces potent words or incantations in proverbs. One of these proverbs is: It is ofo that gives rain-water power to cut dry earth (AOG 226) The proverb is literally translated as: Ofo gibt dem Regenwasser Kraft, die trockene Erde aufzuschneiden (trans. 269) Ofo gives the rain-water the power to cut through the dry earth. „Ofo‟ is here an extra-narrative-context cultural information in the proverb. In the translation it is further glossed. In the glossary, the „ofo‟ is explained as: Stab des Sprechers in Versammlung. Auch wörtliche Bekräftigung, etwa: laßt euch gesagt sein (trans. 279) Staff of the speaker in an assembly (or in a gathering). Also literal reaffirmation, something like: you have been told). Brown (75-6) remarks that the series of proverbs uttered by the Ogbazulobodo, many of which specific meanings are expectedly obscure to, at least, the non-Igbo, are 28 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY not meant to add effect to the narrative through their meanings but by the understanding they bring that “it is part of the character of the night spirit to speak in proverbs”; “for it is not unusual for proverbs to be at least a little obscure”. However, the potential of proverbs, as cultural metaphors, to mean, at least to the non Igbo, does not lie only in the idea or thought contained in the proverbs but also in the various possible allusions or references to the specifics of the cultural environment. The „ofo‟ is one of such a reference to the specifics of the cultural environment of the source culture. In AOG, the ofo has been used in various significations. It is first identified as one of the ritual objects in Ezeulu‟s household shrine, his “short personal staff”. During prayers to his god and the ancestors, he “holds one end of the short staff in his right hand and with the other hit the earth to punctuate his prayers”(AOG 6). As Brown (78) points out, though, the annotation “ofo or personal staff” does not say much, for “personal staff is a handle not an explanation”. However, the inclusion of ofo as a ritual item in a shrine associates it with a spiritual overtone. In the festival of the pumpkin leaves where the chief priest of Ulu atones for the sins of Umuaro, the chief priest, Ezeulu, carries the “nne-ofo”, the mother of all staffs of authority in Umuaro as part of his priestly regalia. (AOG 70). Furthermore, in the first use of ofo in dialogue, the otakagu age-group, one of the age-groups chosen by the elders to provide unpaid labour to the white man‟s new road from Umuaro to Okperi, meets to decide whether to seek payment or not from the white man for working on the new road. One of the young men, Nweke Ukpaka, recites a list of colonial offences. He notes that Umuaro has done no wrong to the white man and yet “he has come to make trouble for us”. Nweke Ukpaka continues: All we know is that our ofo is held high between us and him. The stranger will not kill his host with his visit; when he goes may he not go with a swollen back. I know that the white man does not wish umuaro well. That is why we must hold our ofo by him and give him no cause to say that we did this or failed to do that. (AOG 85) In this context of use, the ofo still conveys the image of a concrete object but not a personal staff rather an object symbol of some force or power that can, somehow, protect the clan of Umuaro from the white man. 29 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The next use of ofo is at the bedside of the very seriously sick Ogbuefi Amalu. The diviner-herbalist takes the ofo of the sick man, opens the man‟s right hand and places the staff there: “Hold it”, he commanded, pressing the dry fingers round the staff. “Grasp it, and say no to them! Do you hear me? Say no!”(AOG 114-115) The ofo is here once more a personal staff that is associated with spiritual powers, not that of a priest though. Its great importance to its owner is seen with the sick man‟s inability to hold on to it, and the gathering in the room takes this failure to be an ominous indication that the man will not survive the sickness. A fifth reference to ofo before its final use in the proverb by the night spirit relates to Ezeulu‟s detention in Okperi at the headquarters of the colonial administration. He was detained on the orders of the District officer, Capt. T.K. Winterbottom, who, however, took ill the same day Ezeulu arrived at Government Hill or the colonial headquarters with his son, Obika and the District officer was rushed to the hospital. On the fourth day of his detention, Ezeulu is summoned before the assistant District Officer, Mr. Tony Clarke, who makes to him the offer of the warrant chief of Umuaro. Ezeulu rejects the offer, an act that infuriated Mr. Carke, and he ordered that Ezeulu be remanded in detention. The news of Ezeulu‟s unprecedented refusal to accept the colonial government‟s offer of the warrant chief of Umuaro not only shore up his reputation but won him sympathy moreso with the rumours that Capt. Winterbottom has become insane and later paralysed. The African staff and natives believe that Ezeulu “has done no harm” to the white man and so could justifiably “hold up his ofo against him; and whatever Ezeulu does in retaliation was not only justified but was also bound by its merit to have potency” (AOG 178). In the last use of ofo in the narrative, i.e. in the proverb of the night spirit, it is not preceded by a determiner like “our” or “his” making it less concrete an object, but strengthening its abstract meaning as a force or power or even authority. The narrative strategy of distributing the cultural meaning of the ofo concept by using it in different though related contexts or scenes shows that as a concrete object 29 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY there are the personal ofo, the ofo of the family , and the ofo of the clan. Each one of these three symbolizes the same abstract spiritual power or force that may only come to the aid of the one who is innocent and appeals to it. This meaning of the ofo is true to its cultural significance and usage and the target reader is able to get to that meaning on close reading. A fuller meaning of the ofo concept in Igbo cosmology would require more elaboration. The author has, however, provided a meaning to the ofo concept sufficient and suitable to a literary narration and that is capable of awakening and guiding the curiosity of the target reader into the source culture. The ofo is the sacred symbol for the Igbo religious cum spiritual value of justice (Kalu 35). It is the embodiment of the spirit of the ancestors (Ilogu 131) and the spiritual potency or force of justice. The ofo is physically represented by the ofo staff. The ofo value and force of justice operates in duality with ogu – the spiritual value or force of innocence. Ogu, like the ofo, is an abstraction or a concept that is inhabited by the potency of action in favour of the innocent. It realizes itself by that potency as deity or spiritual force such that it is physically represented or symbolized by the ogu staff - “a special stick or bundle of such sticks symbolizing one‟s innocence” (Ilogu 131) and can be invoked by the innocent. Nwoga notes: When somebody is innocent of the matter of conflict, he says that he has ogu. If somebody wishes to achieve revenge over some offence which he has received from an opponent, he is supposed to establish that he has not committed a primary offence that provoked his opponent to the present action over which he seeks revenge. If ogu Is not on his side, nothing he does in revenge, even if he has medicine from the strongest medicine-man, will have an effect in his favour. Ogu therefore is an active agent in the affairs of the Igbo. (NKA na NZERE 21). it also emphasizes that aspect of ofo in which it is the guardian of the moral code (Green 1964) The ofo staff is usually the same for the ogu because “the power of justice in its nature is believed to invoke transparent honesty, innocence and fairplay” (Ilogu 131). The ofo na ogu or simply the ofo as part of the ritualized objects in the family alter or shrine is the staff of family headship carried by the Okpara or Diokpala as head of the senior 29 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY lineage. The ofo staff marks the „sacredotal‟ nature of his position and office; for the staff confers ritual and judicial powers on its holder (cf Orji 123): In the family, the Diokpala (head of the lineage) as well as the paterfamilias (head of the household) become quasi priest, who holds the ofo na ogu, and pours libation to the “living-dead” ancestors. Through their priestly functions, they preserve the family (nuclear and extended), dispense justice, serve the lineage shrine and keep the memory of the ancestors alive. (Kalu 39) This importance of the ofo to the function of the family head is well illustrated in the prayers of Ezeulu with the ofo staff for his household (AOG 6). The ofo (na ogu) is used in proverbs and speeches in contexts where the declaration of innocence and the invocation of justice are imperative. These declarations and invocations are based on the belief that ofo na ogu will vindicate anyone that is wrongly accused of and/or persecuted for a crime as long as “his hands are clean”, i.e. to be innocent. It is only the one on the side of ofo na ogu that can call its name in prayer. Otherwise such a person will face the wrath of Amadioha or Kamalu (the god of rain, thunder and lightening – Chukwu‟s minister of justice); for the ofo which can be invoked and which staff could be used to swear an oath is a two-edged sword with deadly consequence for the offender: it restrained the judge from willful miscarriage of justice, and the defendants from perjuring themselves. It could bring the wrath of the gods and the ancestors on anybody on either side that is guilty (Kalu 44-5, Orji 118). Ilogu further observes: It [the ofo] is spoken in proverbs as the means by which the community is ever reminded that “ndu” [i.e. life], the supreme value, requires justice so as to even this „ndu‟ out to all members of the community… (131) In the meeting of the Otakagu age-group and in the detention of Ezeulu in Okperi, the expressions are respectively used “…our ofo is held high between us and him”, and “[to] hold up his ofo against him”. “To hold up the ofo” (cf also AOG 85 trans. 106), is 29 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY an invocation on the ancestors and the gods to redress or avenge an injustice done to the innocent one who holds up the ofo. Though the use of the literal technique to translate the proverb complemented with an entry in a glossary to explain a significant semantic cultural element, the ofo, can be judged to be appropriate, the entry in the glossary on ofo did not carry adequate and authentic information to the target readers on what the ofo is in the source culture. The entry that ofo is a staff is correct only to the extent that the staff symbolizes the ofo; but it is not the staff of the speaker in an assembly or gathering that empowers or reaffirms him as the translator clarifies. Indeed, the glossary entry can have the effect of relaxing the target reader in the false meaning of what the ofo means or refers to, dull his curiosity to inquire further into the source culture concerning the ofo; for being ignorant of the source culture, the target reader takes the glossary entry as authentic and definitive. In other words, the entry rather than aid intercultural understanding obstructs it. It would be more appropriate to refer to the ofo in the glossary by its basic usage as a „staff‟ of prayer and of invocation for justice by persons who are wrongly victimized. It remains to assume that the entry in the glossary is informed by the staff held by Ezeulu at the feast of the pumpkin leaves. In the feast, the six villages are purified by the chief priest before they plant their crops. The staff is identified as „Nne Ofo‟ and described as „the mother of all staffs of authority in Umuaro‟ (AOG 70). The significance of the „Nne Ofo‟ would have to be understood in the immediate narrative and cultural context it is used. The „Nne Ofo‟ is one of the potent ritual items Ezeulu has to carry on himself as part of his consecration as chief priest to purify the sins of the entire clan of umuaro. The ritual of purification as it is performed by the chief priest is an act of atonement – the satisfaction of justice. The priest runs round the market place. As he passes each section, the people hurl bunches of pumpkin leaves, representing their sins, at him. A representative number of the leaves are collected at random by the attendants of the chief priest in their race with the chief priest to the shrine. In the shrine, the chief priest buries the pumpkin leaves – he buries the sins of the clan; the land is cleansed, innocence re-established, justice is satisfied, the ancestors and the gods and goddesses of the clan are appeased and the land can boldly expect bumper harvest from the gods. 29 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY It is only logical that the symbol of justice and innocence for the whole clan – the „nne Ofo‟ should be present in such purification ritual. In that gathering for the feast, there were no speeches made, and there was no other ofo staff in the gathering. If the translators took the clue for their entry on ofo from this ceremony, they wrongly drew their conclusions. The proverb “It is ofo that gives rain-water power to cut dry earth” (AOG 226) is a metaphoric expression to the fact that though justice may seem weak and slow (rain water falls in small, tiny drops), it has the potency to triumph at long last like the proverbial rain water that would finally dissolve the dry earth. It is a potent declaration that justice will ultimately prevail, and the innocent vindicated. The translation is inadequate. Example 2. No matter how many spirits plotted a man‟s death, it would come to nothing unless his personal god took a hand in the deliberation (AOG 136) translated as: Wieviele Geister es auch immer sein mögen, die beschließen, daß ein Mensch sterben soll, sie haben keinen Erfolg, wenn sein eigener Gott nicht bei der Sache mitspielt (trans. 166) However many spirits decide that a man must die, they will not succeed if his own god did not take part in the plan. (Emphasis mine) In the context to this proverb, Akuebue visits his friend, Ezeulu, to discuss the issue of Oduche, Ezeulu‟s third son, who he sent to attend the white man‟s school and church to the surprise of the clan. In the discussion, Ezeulu strongly rejected the thinking reported to be making the round in the clan that Ezeulu‟s witness against his clan, Umuaro, in the land dispute between Umuaro and Okperi is a betrayal of his clan just as the sending of his son to the white man‟s school and religion is not only another betrayal but also a desecration of the land. Ezeulu argues that the indiscretion of Umuaro to go to war with Okperi, their blood brothers, over a piece of land that does not belong to 29 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Umuaro was what brought the white man to step in-between brothers, and that it is not possible for the white man to overrun the entire Igbo clans except he is helped by an Igbo man. Both men have just finished their deliberation when the court messenger of the white man and an escort, both of them apparently strangers, approached Ezeulu‟s house. The escort turned out to be the son of Nwodika of Umunneora village in Umuaro. He was asked by the white man to accompany the chief messenger, who is a stranger to Umuaro, and show him to Ezeulu‟s house. Ezeulu gave a meaningful glance at Akubue and used the proverb to reaffirm his earlier point in the discussion. The proverb is translated literally and adequately captures the context and thought of the proverb. The imagery of spirits deliberating and the reference to personal god reveals the religious belief of the culture which are cultural information different from the idea of the proverb relevant to the immediate narrative context. The literal translation of this cultural imagery looks adequate. However, the use of “his own god” to replace “his personal god” in the proverb subtly modulates the cultural information and point of view. “Personal god” refers to the Igbo spiritual and religious concept and reality of chi. “Sein eigener Gott” introduces a strong concept of private ownership likeable to the ownership of a property and so reduces the complexity of „personhood‟ that inhabits or is associated with this spiritual reality in Igbo worldview. The „chi‟ as we have already pointed out is “a spark” of the divine that is separate from and is simultaneously a part of the individual, “a personal divine essence” (Iwe 1988:3). Seen within the complementary duality of existence that fundamentally characterise Igbo worldview, “chi is the deistic counterpart of the physical self‟ (Nwoga NKA na NZERE 22). Nwoga explains further: The Igbo see things in complementary dualities. This is evident in the perception of society as made up of Oha na Eze, Ikwu na Ibe, Nwoke na Nwanyi, and so on. It extends to the perception of each person as having the ordinary personal existence and also the accompanying chi the same way that all beings with agency have their physical existence and their deistic counterpart. 29 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY “Chi” is neither created nor acquired nor appropriated by the individual. There is therefore no idea of „absoluteness of ownership‟ by the individual as the translation wrongly implies. Both the idea of „his own god‟ and „personal god‟ retains the wisdom of the proverb in the narrative context; however, from different perspectives. „His own god‟ is a god created or acquired or appropriated by the individual but it is completely separate from the individual, and it may separately „plot‟, as it were, against the individual. „The personal god‟ is “partly” a part, indeed one half, of the personhood of the individual such that when it plots against the individual, it is the individual plotting against himself. That is why in Igbo belief, such an individual cannot escape the (his) plot; and by extension when an individual fights his “chi”, it is the same thing as attempting or committing suicide. This modulation of perspective by the translators imposes wrong information about the „chi‟ in Igbo cultural and religious belief. Apparently the translators seem to have some scruples with the use of the descriptive “personal” in “personal god”. In the anecdotic proverb: … like the little bird nza, who ate and drank and challenged his personal god to a single combat (AOG 14). The translators render it as: … wie der kleine Vogel nza, der aß und trank und seinen Gott zu einem Zweikampf herausforderte (trans. 24) … like the little bird nza, who ate and drank and challenged his god to a single combat. Thus completely omitting the qualifier perhaps considering the descriptive not relevant or meaningful enough for the effort of comprehension required for the target readers. As has been shown above the qualifier carries instructive cultural information. Its deletion in the translation is ill-judged. The translation is on the whole inadequate. Example 3. The proverbs … a man does not talk when a masked spirit speaks (AOG129) 29 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY and When a masked spirit visits you, you have to appease its footprints with presents (AOG 154) Both contain reference to the cultural metaphor of “masked spirits” but in different contexts. Both have been rendered literally as: … daß ein Mensch nicht zu reden hat, wenn maskierte Geister sprechen (trans. 158) ... that a man does not talk when masked spirits speak And Wenn ein maskierte Geist euch besucht, müßtet ihr seine Fußspuren mit Geschenk wegwischen (trans.187) When a masked spirit visits you, you have to wipe off its footprints with presents In the narrative context to the first proverb, Oduche, the first son of Ezeulu‟s third wife, Ugoye, had beaten up Ojiugo, daughter of Matefi, Ezeulu‟s second wife, on their way to the stream in the company of the new wife in Ezeulu‟s household, Okuata, Obika‟s wife. Nwafo, Ugoye‟s second son, was also in the company. Ojiugo had sought to disparage Oduche by telling Okuata in the hearing of others that devotees of the new cult, i.e the Christian church/religion, to which Oduche belongs, kill and eat the royal python. This had annoyed Oduche. Ojiugo returned from the stream sobbing as a result of which her mother raised a loud protest that attracted Ezeulu‟s presence. Ezeulu sternly rebuked the two jealous mothers, Ugoye and Matefi, whose shouts reverberate in the neighbourhood, and asked Oduche, who Matefi had accused in her protest, what the matter was. Oduche‟s response that Ezeulu should ask Ojiugo and her mother infuriated Ezeulu. Ezeulu used the proverb to dare anyone to speak a word again and face the ugly consequence. In the second narrative context, Capt. Winterbottom had sent his court messenger with an escort to Umuaro to summon Ezeulu to the colonial District Headquaters at Okperi. Ezeulu declined the summons and the messengers left. After consultations with the assembly of titled elders, however, Ezeulu left very early the next day with his son, Obika, for Okperi to answer to the summons. Meanwhile, Capt. Winterbottom, who was enraged with the reply of Ezeulu, sent colonial policemen to arrest Ezeulu. The two policemen met Edogo and Akuebue, 29 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Ezeulu‟s first son and bossom friend respectively, when they arrived Ezeulu‟s compound. After they were convinced that Ezeulu had left for Okperi with his son to answer the summons of the white man, one of the policemen, Corporal Matthew Nweke, used the proverb to justify getting a present from the family of Ezeulu. They were not only entertained with a sumptuous meal of yam pottage and chicken and palmwine, they also received two life cocks and two shillings. In the entire narration of AOG, unlike in TFA, there is only one event in which a “masked spirit” is explicitly introduced but with a related term. That is during the celebration of “Akwu Nro”, the minor feast with less ritual that Ezeulu‟s village, Umuachara, celebrates towards the end of the wet season and before the big festival of the year, the new yam. In the feast widows bring “memorial offerings” to their departed husbands. In this year‟s feast, Obika‟s age group, the Otakagu, presents a new “ancestral mask” (AOG 194). The arrangements for the presentation of the ancestral mask were made secretly in keeping with the mystery of “ancestral spirits”. The minimal presentation of “masked spirits” and also the minimal use of the term in the narration make the occurrence of the term in two proverbs significant and deserving of the „explicitation‟ of its cultural reference and importance. To do that would require a complementary technique, the best appropriate here would be to gloss the term „mask spirit‟. In Igbo culture, the „masked spirits‟ who often grace human rituals and ceremonies with their presence are representative visitors from the underworld – the world of the ancestors. They are the spirits of deified living-dead ancestors personified. The knowledge that they are symbolic ancestors does not in any way diminish the validity and awesomeness of their presence and the immense power “attributed” to them. It is in this cultural significance and meaning that “masked spirit” is used in the two proverbs under consideration. In the first proverb, the metaphoric meaning on which the potency of Ezeulu‟s statement stands is from the fact that mortal man must humble himself or tremble in the presence of spirit not only and if not out of reverence but also out of fear; for spirits are more powerful than mortals and can inflict pain at will. Ezeulu as head of the household, a revered status, and stronger than any of his audience in the narrative context, can take 29 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY decision or issue a threat and execute it at will. He compares to the masked spirit. Moreso he is additionally the chief priest of Ulu. In the second narrative context, the speaker of the proverb draws on the metaphor of the living-dead ancestors personified by the masked spirits as deified, which is the status of „gods‟. Indeed the living-dead ancestors can be consulted in shrines and oracles (AOG 217) just as deities. As a deified presence, the visit of a „masked spirit‟ has to be „appeased‟. Apparently the choice of word of the translator for „appease‟, i.e. „wegwischen‟ (wipe-off), is in the least ambiguous and does not capture fully the metaphor of sacrifice that goes with the word „appease‟ in its cultural context in relation to deities or divinities. Furthermore, the use of this proverb by the colonial policemen to compare the white man to a masked spirit and the acceptance of Akuebue, a titled elder, that the colonial policemen were right in their comparison shows the shifting landscape of cultural consciousness enforced by the confrontation with the white man whereby the reverence and awe accorded deified spirits and the ancestors are being equally ascribed to the intruder white man.The inability of the translation to bring out the cultural significance and importance of 'masked spirits' in the context makes it inadequate to intercultural postcolonial communication. Example 4. In the Proverb: “When an adult is in the house, the she-goat is not left to suffer the pains of parturition on its tether” (AOG 18) translated into German as: wenn ein Mann zu Hause ist, läßt er die Geiß nicht in Schmerzen an die Kette gebären (trans. 28) (when a man is in the house, he does not allow the she-goat to suffer the pains of parturition on its tether) the translation from the pespective of the literal technique may be considered an adequate transposition of the proverb into German, if the readership reads the „man‟ as a bisexual gender reference. The modulation of “an adult” with “a man” is gender insensitive; for in 30 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the source cultural context of that proverb, an adult includes both male and female adult. The translation is consequenly inadequate. Example 5. The proverb “the man who carries a deity is not the King” (AOG 27) translated literally as “Ein Mann, der einer Gottheit dient, ist kein König” (trans. 39), i.e “a man who serves a deity is not a king could have been better rendered in the narrative context as “Der Priester einer Gottheit ist nicht der König”, i.e the priest of a deity is not the king. While the translation preserves the flow and understanding of the textual plot, it wrongly assumes that in the source culture, the man “who carries” and the man “who serves” a deity are the same. The man “who carries” a deity is chosen by communal consent and consecrated through ordained rituals. He functions in the office of a priest to a deity and for the community. The man who “serves” a deity is a worshipper. The re-enactment of the first coming of Ulu by Ezeulu during the festival of the pumpkin leaves (AOG 70) correctly describes what “carrying a deity” mean in the cultural context: At that time, when lizards were still in ones and twos, the whole people assembled and chose me to carry their new deity. I said to them: “who am I to carry this fire on my bare head? A man who knows that his anus is small does not swallow an udala seed”. They said to me: “fear not. The man who sends a child to catch a shrew will also give him water to wash his hands” … The translation is inadequate. 30 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 6.2 Translation of Cultural Idioms and Expressions Example 1. Communicative: Explicitation In AOG 7, Ezeulu sits in his obi at about twilight observing the approach to his compound. He answers to the salutations of his wives returning late from the stream. He asked why they were late from the stream and was told that they had to go to the far stream, Nwangene, rather than the nearby Ota. Ezeulu remembered that ota has to be avoided because the oracle has pronounced that the enormous boulder resting in two other rocks at the source of the stream was about to fall and would take “a softer pillow” for its head, until the alusi (deity) that owns the stream is placated. The idiomatic phrase “a softer pillow” in the context has been “explicitatively” translated as “ein menschliches Polster” i.e. a human pillow (trans 16) The translation of the idiomatic phrase will be considered to be adequate not only to the understanding of the story, but also the cultural reference in the narrative context. “Softer pillow” could not have referred to animals, for the stream is visited by humans to fetch water. The story of this deity and its stream in the narration exemplifies the complex nature of “community” and the depth of the religious or the spiritual in the culture. Such nature deities as stream goddesses belong to the community and are part of the daily or ordinary life of the people. The translation is on the whole considered to be adequate in the context, though “a softer human pillow”, i.e. “ein sanfter menschliches Polster” is preferable. Example 2. Semantic: Literalization, Transference, and Glossification In AOG 14-25, the clan of Umuaro resolved to send an emissary to the clan of Okperi to present to them the options of peace and war over a piece of land both clans lay ownership claims. The fiery tempered Akukalia, whose mother hails from Okperi, with two accomplices, was the emissary. Unfortunately, Akukalia and the two young men accompanying him came to Okperi on Okperi‟s market day – the Eke Okperi, in which the elders of Okperi could not be summoned to receive the very important and urgent message from Umuaro. Udueze, Otikpo and Ebo were three men Akukalia and his 30 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY companions met in Okperi. In the bid to force a summons of the elders of Okperi by Akukalia, an argument ensued that led to a bitter fight between Akukalia and Ebo. Akukalia rushed into Ebo‟s Obi, took his Ikenga from the family shrine, rushed out and split Ebo‟s Ikenga into two. Ebo was aghast at the sight of his split Ikenga. In anguish, and desperation, Ebo reached for his gun, loaded it and shot Akukalia to death. Everyone in Umuaro was at first shocked on seeing Akukalia‟s dead body being brought home and at the unprecedented killing of an Umuaro emissary abroad. However, on second consideration, people say Akukalia did an unforgivable thing: „ [to make a] man a corpse before his own eyes”. (AOG 25) “To make a man a corpse before his own eyes” in the narrative context is the same thing as splitting a man‟s Ikenga into two before his own eyes. The understanding of the idiomatic expression is only possible with an understanding of the cultural meaning and significance of the Ikenga in the source culture. The translators render the idiomatic expression literally as “… des Mannes, den er vor seinen eigenen Augen vernichtet” (trans, 36) (…of the man that he exterminated before his own eyes). Ikenga is translated by transference and then glossed as “Tabernakel” (trans. 278), i.e. tabernacle. Although, the translation technique of “literalisation”, transference and “glossification” are appropriate for the text unit, the entry in the glossary for Ikenga is far off the correct cultural information that it bears in the context and which it is to communicate. The Tabernacle is associated with the Judaist and the Christian faith as the sanctuary and dwelling place of God (Exodus 25:8-9, Rev. 21:3). It is also known as Temple (11Cor.5:16). It is not comparable to the Igbo spiritual cum traditional religious symbol known as Ikenga except in the sense of the sacredness of both Tabernacle and Ikenga. Ikenga means the place of strength. It is the cult of the strength of the right hand – “Aka Ikenga” in Igbo traditional religious belief system, and it is essentially a male cult or shrine. The Ikenga icon is a wooden carved image with striking formal features most notably the (ram) horn. The Ikenga image is consecrated through ritual and incantations and symbolises ancestral and spiritual powers or forces that constitutes a man‟s focus to accomplish his aims and make his way in the world – a man‟s thrust force. The Ikenga is kept on alters or in shrines where it receives prayers, offerings and liberations. In his 30 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY treatment of the „Mutability of Reality‟ in Igbo ontology, Nwoga (NKA na NZERE 23-24) makes this noteworthy point on the Ikenga. We quote him elaborately: Another form of mutation of reality is involved in the activation iwake of icons. When one buys an Ikenga or receives his commissioned art piece, what he has is yet a piece of carved wood. But when one has brought the right people to say the right form of words over the carving, Awake Ikenga, the carving takes on the reality of the owner‟s thrust force with which he confronts the world to struggle out his fate in it. The owner offers periodic sacrifice to his Ikenga, reinforcing it so that his endeavours are more successful. And anybody who, for any reason, defiles or destroys that object, is seen as destroying the thrust force of the owner and whatever the owner does to him will be considered as fully provoked. Okere (Ikenga in Traditional Igbo society) not only confirms Achebe‟s explanation of the importance of the Ikenga (AOG 37), she gives further insight into the understanding of the Ikenga when she points out that the Ikenga “serves as a link between the dead and the living” and “comprises someone‟s personal chi”. Furthermore: An Ikenga may be discarded, buried or split into two at the owner‟s death, since the owner is no longer alive to make personal sacrifices to his personal chi (god) or commune with it. Though, often times, the Ikenga of a deceased man could be kept in the family heir loom as a reminder of their former owner (par. 3). The translatiors show in their entry a total ignorance of or inattentiveness to this aspect of Igbo culture, even when Achebe explained the significance of Ikenga in AOG 37. They also have fully misinformed the target readers about this very important reality of Igbo religious culture. The translation is inadequate. Example 3. Semantic: ‘Literalization’ Ezeulu is detained at Okperi; headquarters of the colonial district government. At first, for four days for defying the summons of the District officer to Okperi and for another twenty eight days for refusing the offer of the warrant chief of Okperi made to 30 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY him by the District colonial government. In all the days of his detention, the district colonial officer, Capt. T. K Winterbottom was ill and on admission in the colonial hospital. At the end of the thirty two days, Ezeulu was suddenly released by Winterbottom‟s next in rank, Mr. Tony Clarke. Ezeulu would not be excited at his release seeing it as the first victory in a two-front combat. He would now go home and challenge those who have been “poking their fingers into his face” to a combat and whoever throws the other will “strip him of his anklet” (AOG 179). The quoted idiomatic expressions above have been translated by a combination of the literalisation and explicitation techniques as: … die ihre Finger in mein Gesicht gebohrt haben (trans. 216). (... who have bored/drilled their finger into my face). and … wer den andern wirft, der wird ihm seine Fußringe abstreifen (trans. 216). (...whoever throws the other will strip him of his anklet). The first idiomatic expression in the quote „who have been poking their fingers into his face” refers in the source culture to making repeated thrust gestures with the fingers at (not touching) the face as a threat, spite or challenge. Such gesture is considered highly impolite most so if it comes from a younger to an older person. In the narration, Nwaka has on several occasions publicly (and privately) insinuated or expressed his disapproval to the homage and privileged status that each of Ulu, the god that unifies and safeguards the six villages of Umuaro, his chief priest, Ezeulu, and the smallest village, Umuachala, Ezeulu‟s village enjoys over the nature and personal deity of his village, Idemili of Umunneora village, which is also the eldest of the six villages, and over the chief priest of Idemili, Ezidemili (AOG 15-17, 27-28, 38-42). Though the priests of the other nature deities, Ogwugwu and Eru and Udo (AOG 40) also have the same disapproval of Ulu and Ezeulu, it is the priest of idemili and Nwaka that openly challenge Ulu and his chief priest, Ezeulu by spitefully contradicting Ezeulu and antagonizing him in the assembly of titled elders and in doing so, demeans the value of Ulu‟s instructions. Ezidemili and Nwaka and their supporters are those Ezeulu directly refers to when he used that idiomatic expression. The rendition of the expression by the German translators as: 30 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY … die ihre Finger in mein Gesicht gebohrt haben (... who have bored/drilled their finger into my face). is instructive because the expression “to bore or drill the finger into the face” is neither an existing idiomatic expression in German nor is it part of every day German language use. Therefore, it could appear strange or odd to “the average German reader”. It may be reasoned, though, that the translators have used the privilege of “literary or poetic license” to create a new “idiomatic expression” in German in order to help the target reader to visualize an „abstracted‟ scene or atmosphere of extreme provocation as a foreshadow or prelude to Ezeulu‟s own retaliatory measures. In creating such a new expression, the German language could be said to have gained further, in this instance, by its contact with this African culture. A first major problem to this presumed innovation, however, is that it deviated from the simple style of Achebe that aims to make the narrative and the source culture accessible to his readers. The new expression, experimental and removed from every day experience and usage, can put a strain of understanding on the “average target reader”, who may not be familiar with literary language. Secondly, and more importantly, it is not very likely that such innovative expression used by the translators would help the target readers to easily understand the aspect of the source culture in question as the idiomatic expression in the source text presents it. This is because the „new‟ expression is midway off reference to the actual behaviour or relationship meant in the source culture by the source text; and it does not connect the average target reader with an experience or imagery in his own culture with which he could access or understand the aspect of behaviour or relationship referred to in the source culture. In other words the metaphor chosen by the translators misleads the target reader, rather than help him to understand the relevant cultural information of the source text unit. The „new‟ German expression created by the translators draws from the metaphor of the drill, i.e. the technical activity of using the drill to bore a hole through a hard surface; and it is only in this sense that the German verb „bohren‟ (to drill) used in the translation may be used as a synonym for the English word „to poke‟. In the imagery of this use, there is necessarily a contact between the drill and the surface. 30 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Presumably the translators compare the drill to the fingers, and the hard surface to be bored into to the face. The contact between the finger and the face, drawing from the metaphor of the drill, would necessarily include the piercing of, the forceful twists and tears on the surface so as to bore a hole through. However, the contact of finger and face, the twists and turns and tears suggested in the metaphoric comparison by the translators are literally absent in the unfriendly sociocultural relationship between adults being referred to in the source culture and reflected in the source text by the expression “poking their fingers into my face”. The same features or actions are absent in similar unfriendly sociocultural relationship between adults in the target culture such that the basis of using the drill metaphor to explain the source text gesture does not exist in both cultures. In the source culture, there is only “a repeated pointing to or wagging at (towards) the face (without physical contact) with the finger” (cf. AOG 82), a gesture that in itself, in the context of hostile relationships, is provocative and carries the meaning of spite, threat or challenge or all three. There are, however, possible expressions in German: a) mit dem Finger nach jemandem stoßen, i.e. to poke at someone with the finger (cf. Terrell, et al. 512), and b) mit dem Finger auf jemanden zeigen, i.e. to point to somebody with the finger. that excludes physical contact and are considered impolite in unfriendly relations and contexts. The use of semantic cushioning technique with any of these expressions can adequately serve the purpose of intercultural communication. For example: …. die ihre Finger wiederholt nach meinem Gesicht stoßen und mich bedrohen und ärgern (... who repeatedly poke their fingers at my face to threaten and spite me) or …. die ihre Finger wiederholt auf mein Gesicht zeigen und mich bedrohen und ärgern… (...who repeatedly point their fingers at my face to spite and threaten me) The translation of the cultural text unit is inadequate to intercultural postcolonial communication. 30 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Example 4. Semantic:‘Literalization’ In the second idiomatic expression quoted above, i.e. “...whoever throws the other will strip him of his anklet”; the anklet bespeaks the dignity of a noble man in the source culture. It is rarely mentioned in the entire narrative. It is alluded to with respect to Nwaka, antagonist to Ezeulu, in his address to the assembly of elders and adult male members of the clan at the meeting in which the elders decided to send an emissary of peace and war to Okperi. In the middle of his speech, the narrator pauses to describe his gaits: Nwaka walked forward and back as he spoke; the eagle feather in his red cap and bronze band on his ankle marked him out as one of the lords of the land – a man favoured by Eru, the god of riches (AOG 16). (Emphasis mine) Nwaka is a wealthy nobleman with five wives. In all the six villages of Umuaro, he was one of the three people who had taken the highest title in the land, Eru, named after the lord of wealth himself. Apart from its mention in the idiomatic expression, the anklet is directly mentioned again during the feast of the pumpkin leaves when the five wives of Nwaka in a rare appearance to flaunt the wealth, social status and pride of their husband rather than wear anklets each one of them wore instead two enormous rollers of ivory reaching from the ankle almost to the knee (AOG 68). The very minimal mention of the anklet in the entire narration suggests the need to explain its idiomatic usage and cultural significance. In TFA, we see the possibility and process by which a nobleman – a titled man could “cut the anklet of his title and cast it away” (123), i.e. denoble himself. The anklet is the insignia of his nobility. The reference in TFA is to Ogbuefi Ugonna, a “worthy man”, whose word is heeded in the assembly of the people; who, however, was misled into joining the church. Joining the church is seen as an act of “self-denobling”, for he literally as it were, turned his back on the gods, the ancestors, the customs and mores – the culture, the basis upon which he was ennobled. This possibility and process of “self- denobling” through joining another religion is previously unknown in the culture, it is created by the intruding colonial presence. In the source culture, a noble or titled man 30 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY demeans or looses the dignity of his status if he does not abide by the code of conduct that governs the noble status (TFA 48, 51). In AOG (179), we see yet another possibility and process known to the culture by which a titled or noble man can be denobled or rather can denoble himself: when he accepts or submits himself to a challenge to which he has to stake his anklet, i.e. the insignia or dignity of his nobility. He is denobled by his defeat. His defeat brings him to such public humiliation that he looses the worth of his noble status – He cannot hold his head in the assembly of his people, his voice is no more highly regarded; it practically does not count anymore. His challenger or the one he challenged strips him of his ankle by the humiliating defeat. „Stripping of the anklet‟ is an implicit idiomatic reference to the fact in the source culture that the dignity of a titled or noble status is earned and maintained on merit. It can also be lost. The translators could further gloss the anklet or provide elaboration by „internal note‟. For example: …der wird ihm seine Fußringe abstreifen und seinem adlige Würde wegnehmen. (... will strip him of his anklet and take away from him his noble worth.) Though the semantic approach is appropriate to the translation, the literal technique alone does not bring out fully the cultural communicative meaning. The translation is judged to be adequate on the whole. Example 5. Semantic: ‘Literalization’ “… when lizards were still few and far between...” (AOG 14) refers to that timelessness in which myths, legends and tales are set in unknown and unknowable pasts. The translators correctly render it literally as “… als die Eidechsen noch selten und sehr vereinzelt waren….” (trans 24), ie “… when lizards were still few and isolated...” In view of the difference in cultural imagery to the introduction of folks or fairy tales in both cultures (a folks or fairy tale in German begins with “es war einmal”, i.e. “once upon a time”), the translators' could have glossed the source cultural expression with its German equivalence. This will give a more accessible translation. However, the translators may 30 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY be seen to have adopted a respectable treatment of the target readers, regarding them to be intelligent readers that can connect the meaning of the cultural text unit to its German equivalent since the context of its use of the cultural clearly suggests or shows a fabulous story. The idiomatic expression is used in the context of the story of how Ulu became the preeminent deity of Umuaro above the other nature deities and how as a result Ezeulu, the chief priest of Ulu, became the first among chief priests. On the whole the translation can be judged to be adequate. Example 6. Semantic: ‘Literalization’ In AOG (25), Umuaro was stunned at the sight of the dead body of Akukalia, Umuaro‟s emissary of peace and war to Okperi, when it was brought home. Umuaro would have dropped the matter of both his death and the land dispute with Okperi. They acknowledged that the man who killed Akukalia must have been sorely provoked; besides Akukalia is not only a son of Umuaro but also the son of the daughter of Okperi, therefore, the son of Okperi; his killing in and by Okperi is likened to “he-goat‟s head dropping into he-goat‟s bag”. However Umuaro resents the absence of diplomatic explanation by Okperi on the circumstance of death of Akukalia. The empasised idiomatic expression is drawn from the logic that a he-goat‟s head dropping into a he-goat‟s bag is still in the possession of the he-goat. The appropriateness of the idiom to the context of the narrative is the fact that the killing of Akukalia by the Okperi‟s means that they killed their own son; for Akukalia is also the son of Okperi. The idiom is adequately translated by the literal technique as: … dem Kopf des Ziegenbocks, der in den Beutel den Ziegenbocks fällt (trans. 36) (…the he-goat‟s head dropping into he-goat‟s bag) because the narrative context clearly describes the accurate cultural context of the idiom. The translation is adequate. 31 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Example 7. Semantic: ‘Literalization’ Obika and Ofoedu arrived late to join their age group, the Otakagu age group, at work on the white man‟s new road. The white man, Mr. Wright flogged Obika for being late and rude. A meeting of the Otakagu age group was held after the work in order to find appropriate response to the whiteman; firstly for his not paying the age group for its labour as it is usual with such work by natives, and secondly for the mistreatment of the age group members exemplified by the flogging of Obika. The age group had to decide whether to admit Moses Unachukwu, the white man‟s interpreter and a member of a different age group, the Akakanma, into the meeting. Ofoedu, in his contribution, said Moses Unachukwu may stay but only to clarify two points and then leave: to explain his role in the flogging of Obika and to explain what he told the Whiteman about Obika‟s family. The rest of Obika‟s speech contains sneer remarks on Moses Unachukwu that created a tumult in the meeting. Many in the meeting described Ofoedu‟s sneer remarks to be typical of his manner of talking “to let out words alive without giving them as much as a bite with his teeth” (AOG 83-4). The above emphasized idiom, transliterated from the Igbo oral speech, is drawn from the metaphor that words like flesh and bones can be discriminated from one another. The idiom refers in the context to indescrition and tactlessness in speech. “live words” are words that have not been thought through before they were spoken. The literal translation by the translators goes thus: … und seine Worte lebendig herausspazieren zu lassen, ohne sie vorher auch nur einmal durchgekaut zu haben (trans 104). (...and to let out his words alive without as much to have chewed them through before hand.) The cultural setting in the narrative in which the statement is made would make the meaning of the idiom clear such that the literal technique can be considered to be adequate here to covey meaning and understanding.This is an adequate translation. 31 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Example 8. Semantic: ‘Literalization’ Ezeulu strongly resents the friendship between Obika, his son, and Ofoedu, who in Ezeulu‟s view trails his son „like a vulture after a corpse“(AOG 89); translated literally as: … der seinem Sohn folgt wie ein Geier dem Aas (trans. 110). (...that follows his son like a vulture after a corpse) The idiom is processed from the observed habit of a bird of prey, the vulture. The vulture feeds on carcasses. In Ezeulu‟s view, Ofoedu‟s friendship with Obika will only bring harm to Obika. Once again the context of use of the idiom makes its meaning obvious and the literal technique may be judged to be adequate to convey appropriate cultural information. Besides, the vulture, as a bird of prey that feeds on the remains of dead creatures, is so known in the target culture. The similarity in the animal/cultural images makes translation to be adequate Example 9. Semantic: Borrowing. In the discussion of the Otakagu age group, a suggestion raised by someone that the age group should tell the elders that it was no longer going to work on the white man‟s new road was dropped after due consideration of its implications. Moses Unachukwu particularly points out that his travels in “olu and Igbo” (AOG 84) tells him that there is no escape from the white man. Nweke Ukpaka who spoke next wanted Moses Unachukwu to ask the white man why members of the age group were not being paid for their labour on the road; for as he (Nweke) has heard “through out Olu and Igbo, wherever people do this kind of work, the white man pays them” (AOG 86). In AOG 112, during Ezeulu‟s visit to his friend Akuebue, their discussion at a point turned to Ogbuefi Amalu who was very sick of aru-mmo. Akuebue tries to remember the name of a medicine-man from Aninta who could have been most appropriate and effective to treat Ogbuefi Amalu‟s condition rather than Nwodika from Umuofia, who the family of Amalu invited. Ezeulu helps Akuebue out by stating the medicine-man‟s name to be Aghadike known by the name Anyanafummo. Ezeulu claims to know many people throughout Olu and Igbo. 31 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Earlier in AOG 19, as Akukalia, the peace and war emissary of Umuaro to Okperi, and his companions passed groups of market women heading to Okperi market, they talked about the great Eke market of Okperi to which folk from every part of Olu and Igbo went. The narrator gives us the literal reference to Olu and Igbo in the story when he tells of the thoughts in the clan generally associated with the outstanding handsomeness and comeliness of Obika, Ezeulu‟s son: People said of him [Obika] … that he was not born for these parts among the Igbo people of the forest; that in his previous life he must have sojourned among the riverine folk whom the Igbo called Olu (AOG 11). (Emphasis mine). These non-Igbo riverine folk are not identified in any closer detail in the narrative. Perhaps they refer to “all the dialects from Oru to old Calabar” identified by Baikie (in Afigbo, Ropes of Sand 8) otherwise to “the non-Igbo people who live between the middle and upper Cross-River” (Afigbo, Ropes of Sand 22), who are immediate neighbours to the Igbo. Perhaps it is deliberate that the Olu folk are not identified in any further detail in the narrative for their importance is in constituting on one hand the collective identity by which the Igbo as a people define and differentiate themselves and on the other hand constituting a spatial duality that is integral to the Igbo cultural experience: land/forest and water/sea. Olu and Igbo, so severally used, therefore, connotes a deeper level idiomatic reference to the Igbo cultural self and experience that constitutes part of the cultural background or setting to the AOG narrative. Olu and Igbo have been translated at every instance by transference or borrowing (trans. 20, 29, 105, 107, and 139). The transfer technique may be regarded as acceptable in view of the literal explanation to Olu and Igbo early in the narrative (AOG 11; trans. 20). However, it is an explanation that leaves out the full cultural significance and meaning but seems to force or allow the translator to treat his target reader with respect by regarding him to be intelligent enough to infer the true cultural significance and meaning of Olu and Igbo in the narrative. The translation by transference is adequate. 31 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Example 10. Communicative: ‘Literal-Modulation’ Ogbuefi Akuebue, bossom friend to Ezeulu, visits Ezeulu. They exchanged pleasantries, broke kolanut and ate. Edogo, Ezeulu‟s first son, joined the two men later, presenting them with a calabash of palm wine. Ezeulu brought out his snuff box and tipped a little from it with his left palm, whereupon Akuebue requested a little of the snuff to which Ezeulu replied: „Come and get it … you do not expect me to provide the snuff and also the walking around, to give you a wife and find you a mat to sleep on‟. (AOG 96) (Emphasis mine). The underlined cultural idiom is translated by “literal modulation” as: …um dir eine Frau zu suchen, und dann noch eine Matte, um darauf zu schlafen. (trans. 119) (...to find you a wife and then a mat on which to sleep) The translation follows a literal technique of translation but introduces modification to the point of view through the change of word. The literal or textual meaning of the idiom is clear from the narrative context. The idiom is however, processed from the marriage or family life relationship of the source culture; and in the cultural significance of the idiom, the verbal phrase „to find‟ used in the translation instead of „to give‟ in the source text constitutes a modification to Igbo cultural point of view The idiom refers to the complete responsibility that a young married man must accept to provide for his family. He is not to depend on his parents from either side (his parents or parents- in-law) for the upkeep of his family though it was both parents and families who negotiated the marriage contract between him and his wife. In the source cultural context where a father‟s approval and negotiation is absolutely necessary to seal the marriage of his son, the father can lay claim to the infinitive phrase „to give you a wife‟. Indeed, it is the father, physically present or represented by an elder(s) in the family, who pays the bride price of his son‟s wife. When a young man finds a young woman he wishes to marry, he informs his father who then sends emissaries to look into the background of the lady. This screening would look into cases such as hereditary illness, insanity, lineage (blood relations cannot marry), social 31 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY standing (i.e. whether a free-born or not), character, home training, etc. when the father is satisfied on the issues, he gives approval and indeed initiates the marriage rites. It is only in exceptional cases where a father may arbitrarily decide the choice of who his son marries that such a father can lay claim to the phrase „to find you a wife‟. Such cases occurr in child marriages where a male child and a female child born at about the same period are pledged to marriage by their parents usually in order to seal the bond of friendship between both families. The children grow to eventually become married to each other. Other cases of child marriages occurred where a girl of non-marriageable age may, for various reasons, be betrothed to a man old enough to be her father. Child marriage was abolished in Igbo society in 1956 (Awe in Onyeozili par. 6). The literal technique, though suitable for translating the source text unit, did not, as used, bring out the cultural reference of the idiom. This not only leads to loss of cultural knowledge, but even to a falsification of cultural knowledge; for the infinitive phrase „to find you a wife‟ subtly introduced the wrong fact that parents, precisely, fathers necessarily finds or chooses wives for their sons. This means that young men are not free to choose who they marry in the culture. The translation is inadequate. Example 11. Semantic: ‘Literalization’ Obika‟s bride, Okuata, has been finally escorted to Obika to become his wife. The „sacrifice at the crossroads‟ would have to be performed on Okuata before Obika would finally take her into his personal compound. On their way to the place of the sacrifice – a team comprising Obika, Okuata, Obika‟s elder half-brother, Edogo, Obika‟s mother, and Aniegboka, medicine-man and diviner – Obika‟s mind roamed on the thought, if he would „find her [the wife] at home‟, when he took her home after the sacrifice (AOG 118); translated literally as: “zu Hause finden” (trans. 145) (to find at home). To find a new bride at home is a cultural reference to finding her a virgin. It is the pride both of the new husband and of the parents of the bride that his wife and their daughter is a virgin and respectively a source of humiliation and shame to husband and parents if she was found not to be. 31 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The literal technique is considered adequate to accurate cultural knowledge transfer because the context of narration contains clear explanation as to the cultural significance and meaning of the idiomatic expression „to be found at home‟. This aspect of the source culture may appear odd to a target readership that has been sexually liberated, as it were. Example 12. Communicative: ‘Literal-Modulation On the morning of the day after that in which Ezeulu was imprisoned at Okperi, he sent his son, Obika to Umuaro to inform his household and his friend Akuebue about the situation of things and to bring his youngest wife Ugoye to take care of him. Akuebue would, however, not accept that the wife of John Nwodika, a man of Umunneora – the enemy village to Ezeulu and Umuachala, should give food to Ezeulu. Akuebue followed Obika and Ugoye to Okperi. They arrived Okperi late at night as Ezeulu was having his night meal. Ezeulu was surprised at the haste with which they came the same day Obika went to Umuaro and he asked Akuebue why they would not wait till tomorrow before coming. Akuebue replied that they did not know if he, Ezeulu, would be setting out for home in the morning to which Ezeulu replied “Home?‟ and laughed. „It was the laughter of those who do not cry‟ (AOG 167), observes the narrator. “The laughter of those who do not cry” translated by literal-modulation as: Das Lachen eines Menschen, der nicht weinen will (trans. 201). (The laugh of a person who does not wish to cry) Ezeulu is the chief priest of the unifying and guardian deity of Umuaro, Ulu. Ordinarily, he is not supposed to leave the vicinity of his deity (AOG 139, 144) according to custom. He exemplifies the dignity and authority of his god and even that of the clan. He has been taken prisoner, separated from both his deity and family, and from the clan he must safeguard. He is, however, painfully helpless and cannot fight back. He does not know how long he is to be in Okperi. When in a further response to Akuebue he said: 31 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY …who talks of home? I have not seen the white man who sent for me. They say he is in the mouth of death. Perhaps he wants a chief priest to be sacrificed at his funeral (AOG 167), it was in painful and helpless resignation to an unknown fate. He, however, laughed in the pain because he cannot cry. He belongs to those who do not cry. “Those who do not cry” is a cultural subtext that refers in the culture to the strict adherence of social behaviour and attidudes to gendered roles. A man must be manly; he should be inflexible, stoic and brave. This is even more so for the chief priest of Ulu, who “should go ahead and confront danger before it reached his people” (AOG 189). In the messianic burden he must bear for the clan, he must not betray emotion, he must not cry. He laughed; the cry is in the laughter: “The laughter of those who do not cry” The translation with “…who does not wish to…” deletes or, at best, obscures the implicit cultural connotation of a gendered attitude forced upon Ezeulu by the culture and by the cultural position of the chief priest of Ulu he occupies.The translation is inadequate, therefore. Example 13. Communicative: ‘Literal-explicitation’ Ezeulu‟s imprisonment/detention in Okperi by the Whiteman made it impossible for him to eat at the right time, two out of the thirteen sacred tubers of yam (AOG 202) with which he reckons the season, especially the yam harvest season and the New Year for the clan; and Ulu, the deity of the clan was angry. Ten men and elders of high title in the clan met with Ezeulu in his house and all agreed that Ezeulu should go back to Ulu to divine its requirements for an appeasement sacrifice to it. Ezeulu‟s consultation with Ulu was fruitless. The clan would therefore, not be able to harvest their yams and farms until the next two months are past and the two sacred yams have been eaten. But the harvest would all perish in the field before then. The clan was alarmed. Ezeulu and his family became public enemies. They were regarded as the cause of the food crisis and hunger in the clan. Ezeulu‟s wife, Matefi, had gone to the market to buy food stuffs. She was insulted by Ojinika from whom she was going to buy a small basket of prepared cassava. Matefi responded in kind. The narrator observes: 31 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Matefi was not the kind of person another woman could tie into the lappa and carry away. She gave Ojinika more than she got – told her the bide-price they paid for her mother (AOG 211). (Emphasis mine) Translated by „literal explicitation‟ as Martefi war nicht die Frau, die sich von einer anderen in die schürze wickeln und wegtragen ließ. Sie gab Ojinika mit reichlich Zinsen zurück – sie verriet ihr den Brautpreis, der fir ihre Mutter bezahlt worden war (tran. 253). (Matefi was not the woman that another could wrap in an apron and carry away. She gave it back to Ojinika with enough interest – she divulged to her the bride-price that was paid for her mother) In the first part of the text unit, „lappa‟ in the descriptive or adjectival idiomatic clause “the kind of person another woman could tie into lappa and carry away” is a pidginization of the English word “wrapper” adapted by the Igbo language. The wrapper from its English origin usually refers to something (paper, waterproof, etc) in which an article is wrapped. Another nominal form of the word is “wrap” which is an article of clothing that may be wrapped around a person, but its usual reference in this usage is to the shawl, in German “der Schal”, a decorative square, oblong or triangular piece of fabric that is worn (mostly by women) to cover the head or shoulders. Without fully discarding its English reference, the source culture adapted “wrapper/wrap” to its own surrounding and redefined it to additionally and perhaps more significantly refer to the extended and widespread piece of textile material which the woman wraps round her body from the waist down to the ankle as a primary or major part of her dressing. The translators render the “lappa” as “die Schürze”, i.e apron. The German “Schürze” is certainly not a suitable equivalent for the “lappa” [wrapper] which is part of the material culture of the source culture and is absent in the target culture. In the source culture, the apron in both English and German – an outer garment tied round the body and covering the frontal part of the body from the chest to the knees used to protect 31 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY clothing from dirt and stain – may be worn to cover part of the wrapper up to the knees. The apron is worn usually while cooking or serving. The translators may be judged to have “reasonably” translated functionally. In other words, trying to find an equivalent word in the target culture that would serve the function of “wapping and carrying away” in the source text unit. However, it is, firstly, arguable if the apron of a smaller dimension to the wrapper can “functionally” be used to wrap a woman and carry her away. Secondly, the functional approach to the translation overlooks the meaning and cultural information that the word lappa [wapper] contains. The pidginization or creolization of wrapper to “lappa” in the source literary text (in AOG) shows the adaptive capacity of the source culture to (re) define itself in the other, and in doing that it draws immediate attention to itself. The replacement of “lappa” [wrapper] with “die Schürze” (apron) may be seen as an attempt at explicitation - to explain wrapper in its context in the narrative by using a word that functionally/closely relates to it in the target language. However, without leaving the word “lappa” to appear in the translation the explanation by comparison is lost, because the target reader cannot see which words are being compared. A closer option in German would be “das Wickeltuch”, i.e. a Wrap-around cloth. In view, that lappa [wrapper] in its meaning and usage both in the narrative text and in the source culture does not exist in the target culture, a literal translation plus the glossary would have been adequate translation technique. As an idiomatic expression, “to tie into the lappa and carry away” means to (publicly) deride and humiliate. An incident in the narrative that closely compares to the literal reference of the idiom and explains its meaning is that which concerns Akueke, the second daughter of Ezeulu by his late first wife Okuata. Akueke is married to Ibe of Umuogwugwu, who often batters his wife. One early morning, Akueke came home to her father‟s house with a swollen face. Obika, her half brother was infuriated, and without waiting to hear the rest of Akueke‟s story, he set out for Umuogwugwu with his friend, Ofoedu. At Umuogwgwu, he beat Ibe to a state of stupor, tied him to a bed, half dead, and with the help of his friend, they carried him on their heads to Ezeulu‟s compound and set him down under the big ukwa tree with threatening ripe fruits as big as water pots to fall on him. (AOG11) 31 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Ibe could still have been taught the lesson of the culture‟s disdain for wife battering, and the need for him to stop such behaviour if for nothing, at least for the fact that Akueke, his wife, has brothers in her father‟s house that can ask after her and act for her welfare, even at her husband‟s house. His manly pride and self esteem could still have been whittled down with just the severe beating in his own house; but to tie him to a bed and carry him away was the height of ridicule and public humiliation not just to him but to his family also. When after three markets, Ibe‟s kinsmen came to seek satisfaction from Ezeulu, they agreed that Ibe had gone beyond limits by beating his wife and that Obika could not be blamed for fighting for his sister: What we do not understand, however [they said] is why a man with a penis between his legs should be carried away from his house and village. It is as if to say: you are nothing and your kinsmen can do nothing (AOG 12). The translation is inadequate. Example 14. Communicative: Amplification In the second part of the text unit, the idiomatic expression „[she] told her the bride- price they paid for her mother‟ points to significant cultural information at the literal level. On the one hand, the amount paid as a woman‟s bride-price in the source culture is not so much a closely guarded secret as it is perhaps the most intimate and personal information about the woman‟s marriage. Those who are privy to the information first- hand are the bride‟s father and father-in-law, her husband, the middle-man to the marriage, and the few adult male elderly and close relations from both families, who were present at the occasion and were part of the bride-price settlement rites. In other words, it is a rite performed and overseen by elders (cf. Ogbalu, Omenala Igbo 11). Women are absolutely not allowed to be present in the bride-price settlement rites: A woman is not allowed to know the amount paid as bride-price on another woman. The amount is an information that usually is no common place or public issue and for which no one really talks about except there was a divorce and so it is no part of 32 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY public memory as such; and in the oral culture it could easily fade away even from the memory of some of those who were present at the bride-price settlement rites. Should there be a divorce, it is also the fathers and elders from both families, and the middleman to the marriage that settle the question of the bride-price and the dissolution of the marriage. Furthermore, the amount of a woman‟s bride-price is no routine subject of discussion even within her immediate family; her children may never know of it. And because the bride-price is the seal of the blood and lineage relationship legitimately and validly entered into by two families through marriage, it assumes a form of sacredness not only as an object, but also as a piece of information. To disclose the amount paid as a woman‟s bride-price in a context that does not legitimately call for such disclosure and which is uncomplimentary and by a person inappropriate to make such disclosure is close to violating a sacred object. The indignation that such a disclosure would arouse would be the more intense when such disclosure is by a fellow woman and with regard to one‟s mother‟s bride-price. This is because of the high esteem and sacred position that parents especially mothers occupy in the source culture. Achebe has already led us into one of the most profound insights obtainable in the notably patriarchal culture of the Igbo found in the name and statement “Nneka – mother is supreme” (TFA 94). The commonness of this name points to the universal acceptance of its meaning in the Igbo world. This insight shows the most significant value contextually placed on the mother in the culture, while Okere goes further to show the sacredness of especially one‟s mother, the father also, in the Igbo culture: Father and mother, Nne na Nna (the Igbo reverse the order) are the sacred source of one‟s existence. An insult to one‟s parents is an insult that touches one to the depths of one‟s being. The ultimate curse among young people and which inevitably starts a fight is nne gi nwuokwa, may your mother die! Conversely, when one wants to touch someone with a solemn appeal or prayer, he virtually disarms him with Kaa biko nne gi anwuna, please may your mother not die … and goes on to make the request. Parents are an integral part of personal wholeness. Igbo folklore is replete with the evil and misfortune that is the orphan‟s lot (Okere 159) 32 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY On the other hand, and in a rather ironic usage, to tell somebody the bride-price paid on her mother can mean to tell the person that no bride-price was paid on her mother, which means that her mother was/is not married, and (he or) she is an out-of- wedlock or illegitimate child – a bastard. Without the bride-price paid, there is no validly and legitimately contracted marriage in the source culture even if the man and woman have lived for years and have children between them (cf Onyeozili par. 4). In some Igbo clans like Ozuitem in Eastern Igboland, such disclosure of the bride-price by a woman is not usual and if it ever occurs, it is punishable by “the native law of women”. The meaning of the idiomatic expression „[she] told her the bride-price they paid for her mother‟ in the narrative context draws immensely from the connotations of its literal reference to and usage in the source culture. When Matefi performed the speech act contained in the idiom it means that she insulted and publicly humiliated Ojinika with a most intimate and uncomplimentary anecdote of or information about her (Ojinika‟s) life. She gave Ojinika more than she (Matefi) got from Ojinka. She said the most insulting and uncomplimentary things beyond the immediate cause of conflict and far more insulting and uncomplimentary than the remarks of Ojinka to her. The translation stopped with connecting the thoughts or logic of the narrative contexts ignoring the source cultural subtext to which the idiom refers and draws its true meaning. The target reader would, perhaps, be able to know that Matefi replied Ojinka with unequal insult and malice, but will not get to the cultural knowledge and the depth of insult and malice encoded in the idiom which is important for intercultural understanding. The cultural information attached to the idiom may only be summarized with the use of the glossary. The translation is inadequate. Example 15 Communicative: Substitution Ezeulu‟s six assistants from the six villages came on an evening to meet him. They had waited after what should be the last new moon to the new yam feast, but Ezeulu had not called them to announce the day of the feast. Soon as Nwosisi ended introducing the purpose of their coming to Ezeulu, and without waiting for Ezeulu to respond, Obiesili, th added that by the reckoning of the six assistants, the moon they had seen was the 12 since the last feast. It was a statement that implied that the six assistants and not Ezeulu, 32 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY reckon the year for Umuaro. The narrator comments that Obiesili is a tactless speaker; no one asked him „to put his mouth into such a delicate matter‟ (AOG 203). The idiomatic phrase „to put his mouth‟ into… i.e. to meddle in, is substituted with a target culture idiom of the same meaning but different imagery: „seine Nase in eine so heikle Angelegenheit zu stecken‟ (trans. 244), i.e. to poke his nose into such a delicate matter. The translation recovers the thought or meaning implicit in the narrative context but obscures the difference in cultures present in the different images and rational process both cultures use to express the same idea. The translation is by this obscuring of cultural difference inadequate. Example 16. Communicative: Substitution Mr. Wright is in charge of constructing the new road that connects Okperi, headquarters of the colonial administration, with Umuaro, using unpaid native labour of the Otakagu age-group, to which Obika belongs. This age-group works on the new road on the day after the festival of the pumpkin leaves. Obika and his friend Ofoedu overslept from the hangover of the „strong‟ palm wine they drank the previous day and arrive late to join their age-grade. Mr Wright carries a whip while supervising the work, though he rarely uses it. This day he used it and whipped Obika. The narrator notes that this morning he must have „got out of bed from the left side‟ (AOG 81), an idiom that means ‟to wake up in bad mood‟ or simply „to be in bad temper‟. The translators translated the idiomatic expression with a substitute German idiomatic expression: Aber diese morgen mußte er „mit dem linken Fuß zuerst aufgestanden sein‟ (trans.102) (but this morning he must have woken up on the left foot). (emphasis mine}) „To wake up on the left foot‟ is the same in meaning as „to get out on the wrong side of the bed‟ and also with the Igbo expression used in the narrative „to get out from the left side of the bed‟. All refer to a moody or angry temper that forebodes or reflects a day gone wrong and predisposes one to cheerless and negative responses. The translation by substitution obscures the Igbo idiomatic phrasing of the moody experience. It is noteworthy though that both the German and Igbo culture idiomatically 32 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY associate waking up on the left sides of the body with negative moods and responses to the day. However, with different parts of the body. The translation is mostly inadequate. Example 17. Semantic: ‘Literalization’ The mission of Akukalia to Okperi ended on a tragic note: his death. The next day, an assembly of elders and title men met to review the circumstances of his death and the land dispute with Okperi. Every speaker acknowledged that Akukalia did a great wrong to split the Ikenga of Ebo. The older men would want Umuaro not to pursue the matter further; but there were some others who think Akukalia‟s death must be revenged. Ezeulu spoke last, He pointed out that Akukalia‟s death was unnecessary and could have been avoided if the clan had heeded his warning from Ulu not to dispute the land with Okperi. He advised the clan not to avenge the death of a man „who passed shit on the head of his mother‟s father‟ (AOG 17) because Ulu will not support it. The idiomatic expression „who passed shit on the head of his mother‟s father‟ is literally translated as „… der scheiße auf das Haupt des vaters seiner mutter gehäuft hat‟. (trans.38) (who heaped shit on the head of his mother‟s father). A combined reading of TFA and AOG shows the exceptional emphasis, though from opposite but yet complementary perspectives in the novels, that the source culture gives to „Ndinne‟ or „Ikwunne‟ (one‟s maternal/mother‟s home and kindred) as compared with „Ndinna‟ or Ikwunna‟ (one‟s paternal home/kindred). One‟s mother‟s home and kindred family compares to the biblical „cities of refuge where the „manslayer‟, who killed his neighbour unawares might flee into and live (Numbers 35:6, Deuteronomy 4:41-42. KJV). In the source culture, it is where a person who commits a grievous crime, even an abomination sometimes, may flee and lives until he may return to his „Ndinna or Ummunna‟. Okonkwo fled his clan, Umuofia, to his motherland, Mbanta when he accidentally killed the sixteen-year-old son of Ezeudu (TFA 86-87). He returned to Umuofia after seven years of exile and the requisite rites and sacrifice were performed (TFA 91,115,121). When Oduche, Ezeulu‟s son, committed the „very serious outrage‟ of imprisoning the „royal python‟ in a box to suffocate (AOG 43- 44, 59), an act that would equal the murder of a kinsman if the python had died (AOG 32 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 48), his mother, Ugoye, sent him away to ‟her kinsmen‟ to flee the fury of Ezeulu (AOG 45). „To pass shit on the head of his mother‟s father‟ is literally unimaginable and impossible except idiomatically within the source cultural understanding of the significance and weight of Akukalia‟s action. Akukalia‟s splitting of Ebo‟s Ikenga into two is an abomination, a sacriligeous act (AOG. 24-5). It is symbolic murder, what in Umuaro was rightly understood as making a man a corpse before his own eyes (AOG 25). But the act is even more alarming that he committed it in his mothers‟s place of birth; for it is like a man destroying or blocking the safe passage to his city of refuge, disconnecting himself from his Ndinne or Ikwunne and regarding his maternal home as worthless and unprofitable. Ebeogu (176) gives us a clearer insight. We quote him elaborately: In Arrow of God, Akukalia‟s rash act of destroying Ebo‟s Ikenga – Igbo symbol of progress and dynamism – assumes a more heinous dimension when it is considered that he commits it in his mother‟s maiden home. It is true that in Igboland a man can take a good number of liberties in his Ikwunne he dares not contemplate taking in his own patrilineage, but the same social system which allows many liberties in his matrilineal home also demands from the man a large measure of reverence for his mother‟s people. Akukalia lacks the common sense to realize this, and behaves like the man in the proverb who is not content to shake the hand offered him but must also grip the elbow for a pull. Akukalia did court his own death, a point Ezeulu was to make later in the novel. The translation with the literal technique alone does not capture fully the weight of cultural connotation of the reference to „the head of his mother‟s father‟. It leaves the understanding of the entire idiomatic expression at the level of the narrative context. The target reader may be able to see the „crime‟ of Akukalia, i.e. „to pass shit‟ as despicable and „bloody awful‟ which is what the vulgar term „Scheiße‟ figuratively connotes in German, but may not be able to connect this crime to the full cultural implication it carries in relation to „... the head of his mother‟s father‟, i.e. the place the crime was committed. However, the literal translation does leave the idiomatic expression with a 32 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY potential to mean culturally, though it is doubtful if the target reader can get to this cultural knowledge without help.On the whole, the translation is inadequate. Example 18. Semantic:‘Literalization’ Oduche was moved by a new found zeal in his new Christian religion to imprison the royal python, the sacred beast of the nature god, Idemili, of Umunneora, in a box in the hope the creature would die of its own by suffocation. The action of Oduche constituted a very serious outrage when it was discovered, though fortunately, the python was freed. Oduche had to be sent away by her mother to her kinsmen to avoid the wrath of Ezeulu. (AOG 43-45). Two days after, Oduche returned „looking like a fowl soaked in the rain‟ (AOG 60). The above idiomatic expression translated literally as: „…wie regendurch weichtes Huhn‟ (trans, 77). (… like a rain soaked fowl) is drawn from the „tropical agrarian‟ environment of the source culture and is a powerful imagery that combines the intense emotions of shame, guilt/remorse and fear. The target reader may from the context of narration associate these emotions to the imagery of „a rain drenched fowl‟ but may not understand the intensity of these emotions if he/she literally has no cultural experience of or reference to the imagery used for them. It is most unlikely that in the temperate climate of the target reader and the highly modernised method of poultry farming in his/her culture today, the sight of a fowl soaked in the rain would be common. A translation method that „explicitates‟ these emotions, associating them with the imagery would improve the understanding and participation of the target reader in the source cultural emotion expressed in the imagery.The translation is mostly adequate. Example 19. Communicative: Modulation The delay by, indeed refusal of, Ezeulu (AOG 205) to call the New Yam feast that will usher in the harvest season threatened the harvest and alarmed the clan. The leaders of Umuaro, ten men of high title and elders came to see Ezeulu. Ezeulu explained that custom forbids him to call the new yam feast when he has more than one of the sacred yams of Ulu to eat; he still has three yams. That means two more months before he could 32 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY call for the harvest. Ogbuefi Nnanyelugo restates the dilemma of the situation before putting forward the proposed solution by the leaders of Umuaro gathered: Ezeulu has three more sacred yams left, he cannot call the new yam feast but the harvest is ripe in the soil and must be gathered now or it will be eaten by the sun and weevils; „how do you carry a man with a broken waist?‟ (AOG 207) he asked rhetorically. The rhetorical question and idiomatic expression is translated by modulation as: Wie kann man mit gebrochenem Rückgrat einen Mann trugen? (trans 248). (How can one with a broken spine carry a man?) Though both the idiomatic expression and the translation refers to the same difficulty of dealing with such dilemma as both Ezeulu and the clan faces, the reference of the translation, however, is through a different process of interpretation or perspective by which the idiomatic imagery is reversed. The source text expression emphasized the situation (carrying „a man with a broken waist‟); the translation emphasized the agency by which the situation is managed. The perspective of the translation is not only faulty to the context of narration by placing emphasis on the agency, but also by distorting the phrasing of the expression as well as obscuring the observations of experience from which both the imagery and thought are expressed in the culture. The translation is inadequate. Example 20. Communicative: Substitution: As Akukalia and his companions make their way to Okperi to present the options of war or peace to Okperi and passed the land in dispute, they wondered how Okperi could lay claim to the land only now that the Whiteman has come. One of the companions proposed that the elders of Okperi should be asked why it took the Whiteman to remind them that the land was theirs when |Umuaro has farmed it over generations. Akukalia reminded his companions that they have only one question from Umuaro to ask the people of Okperi and that he is the one to do the talking when they get to Opkeri, they (his companions) „should hold your [their] tongues in your[their] hand…‟ (AOG 20). 32 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The emphasized idiomatic expression is translated with a German figurative expression of the same meaning: … eure Zungen im Zaum zu halten ... (trans. 31) (You should bridle your tongues…) Both idioms mean that the two companions should be extremely careful with what they say, if ever they have to say anything at all. Although the substitution makes for an acceptable and idiomatic reading to the target reader, it is really unnecessary because the context of usage of the Igbo cultural imagery clearly brings out its meanig. The target reader can learn a different way another culture says what he (the target reader) already knows in his own culture. The obscuring of difference in cultural ways of expression makes the translation inadequate, though the common idea is clearly stated. Example 21.Semantic: Literalization. The idiom “like a grain of maize [lost] in an empty goatskin bag” (AOG 80) translated as “… wie ein verlorenes Maiskorn in einem leeren Zeigenledersack” (trans. 100), culturally alludes to the goatskin bag, usually deep, which is an item of material culture carried by men and elders while visiting or meetig in an assembly. They keep essential items in it. The idiomatic expression is used in the context to designate the feeling of defencelessness or vulnerabilty that Obika and his friend, Ofoedu felt when they stepped from the forest path into the wide and open space that is the new road of the Whiteman under construction. A single maize seed in a goatskin bag can be easily located and picked up. The literal translation is adequate. The goatskin bag has been mentioned and well described in earlier parts of the the narration (E.g. AOG 21, 96-97). Example 22. Semantic:Literalization. “To have the yam and the knife” (AOG 96) is used by Akuebue during one of his visits to Ezeulu. In between their discussion, Ezeulu makes to take some snuff whereupon Akuebue requested for some. Ezeulu asked him to come over and take it himself. Akuebue used the idiom to express that he must do what Ezeulu said if he must get the 32 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY snuff. The one who has the yam and the knife is the one that has the absolute say on a matter. The literal translation of the idiom as “Du hast den Yam und du hast das Messer” (trans. 119), i.e. “You have the yam and the knife”, is considered adequate to intercultural understanding because the narrative context makes the cultural meaning of the idiom very clear. Example 23. Semantic: Literalization. Akuebue, together with Ezeulu‟s son, Obika, and Ezeulu‟s younger wife, Ugoye, arrived Okperi to visit Ezeulu, who is being detained by the Whiteman and is being cared for by John Nwodika and his wife. The main aim of Akuebue‟s coming is to tie a blood- knot between John Nwodika and Obika as a safeguard against ezeulu coming to harm in the hands of Nwodika. John Nwodika comes from the enemy village to Ezeulu‟s, Umunneora. Akuebue has to make up his mind on how to open up discussion on such a sensitive issue. Akuebue finally “split it open with one blow of the matchet” (AOG 168), in other words, he introduced the issue bluntly and straight to the fact. The literal translation of the idiom as “er schneidet das Thema mit einem Machetenhieb an”(trans 203), ie. „he split the topic open with a blow of the matchet“, is judged adequate here, once more because the narrative context makes the cultural meaning very clear. 6.3 The translation of Culture-Specific Terms and Concepts (CSTCs) 6.3.1 Translation of Personal, Place and Object Names. Achebe does not seem to have placed deliberate emphasis in AOG (as well as in TFA) on the meaning of the names of his Igbo characters to realize his plots as it is important to him that the names by being Igbo should realize the source cultural environment and indicate to which culture the characters belong. However, such names as “Ezeulu” and “Ezidemili” which are prefixed with “Eze” (meaning „king‟) followed by the names of deities, „Ulu‟ and “Idemili” are not the real Igbo names of the characters 32 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY rather the names they inherited when they succeeded to the chief priesthood of these deities (AOG 130). In the context of the conflict between these two priests and deities, the names set the tone of the clash of power that drove the plot of the narrative from the beginning to the end. The novel makes clear that the chief antagonist to Ezeulu, Nwaka of Umunneora, acted the script of Ezidemili (AOG 40-42, 188). A combined reading of TFA and AOG would also show that the meanings of names in the culture can be expected to have spiritual potency on the character and fate of the bearers of the names such as the effort of Ekwefi, the wife of Okonkwo, to use the meaning of the names she gives the Ogbanje child to break its cyclical returns (TFA 54, Johnson, Folklore in Achebe‟s Novels 96) The integrity of a name, its potency to identify and impact on its bearer and to drive the plot in narratives depends on its proper spelling at every instance in written texts and narratives and on its accurate pronunciation in oral speech and narratives. The Igbo personal and place names in AOG have been transferred into the target text. The transference technique leaves the names to function as cultural markers indicating, as they were intended to, to which culture the characters belong, making the target text exotic and as a result, making cultural difference and the presence of the Other particularly manifest. However, the several misspellings of personal names, a few of them consistently misspelt throughout the entire text, though presumably inadvertently made, are deficits to the adequacy of translation and to the communication or transfer of cultural knowledge. Representative examples of the misspellings include: rd Ugoye, the 3 wife of Ezeulu, is consistently misspelt as Ogoye (AOG 2 trans.10) Anosi, Ezeulu‟s neighbour, omitted once (AOG 44, trans.58) Nwaka, misspelt Nkawa (AOG 68, trans 86) Obika, misspelt Okiba (AOG 100, trans. 124) Nwanyieke, misspelt Nwanyeke (AOG 152, trans. 185) Umuagu misspelt Umuago (AOG 5, 47, 68, trans. 13, 61, 86-7) Akakanma age group misspelt Akanmas (AOG 83 trans. 104) Ilo Agbasioso, misspelt Iloagbasiuso (AOG 195, trans.235) Catechist misspelt Katechetan (AOG 47, trans. 62) Ijele-mask, misspelt Ijelomask (AOG 68, trans. 86) Etc. 33 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Mistranslated names like Ogoye, Nkawa, Okiba, Nwanyeke, Akanmas, Ijelo cease to be Igbo names in their contexts within the narrative and, uncharacteristic of Igbo names, they are meaningless; they do not have their own stories to tell. They function only as labels. These misspellings create unstable personal identities that disrupt not only the flow of the narrative, but the cultural plot as well. In a literary work deeply permeated by culture, like AOG, names are not mere tags that set one fictional character apart from another, they are cultural personages whose oral speech performance and action drive the plot and realize the themes of both narrative and culture in their meanings. They can be used to express experience, ethos, teleology, values, ideology and cultural attitudes of varying shades. (cf: Wamitila 35). Furthermore, characters in a literary work are analyzed based on or rather starting from their names mostly. The consistency of a name throughout the entire literary text would enable a meaningful and appropriate character analysis and lead to an understanding of the total contribution of a character to plot and thematic development and to the entire text. These misspellings of names are, therefore, considered to be inadequate translations. 6.3.2 Familial or Kinship Names, Terms and Honorifics. Example 1. Communicative: Substitution Akukalia, chief emissary of war and peace to Okperi, and his two companions arrived Okperi early morning at about the end of breakfast. They went straight to the compound of Uduezue, the nearest living relation to Akukalia‟s mother, to whom Akukalia announced that they have an urgent message, but that was after Uduezue has forced an exchange of pleasantries from the three unsmiling faces. Uduezue acknowledged the announcement of Akukalia: „True?‟ asked Uduezue. „I was saying to myself: what could bring my son and his people all this way so early?‟ (AOG 21) (Emphasis mine) 33 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The reply of Uduezue is translated literally thus: „Wirklich?‟ fragte Uduezue. Ich sprach zu mir selbst: Was bringt meinen Neffen und sein leute so zeitig hierher, da der Weg doch weit ist? (trans, 31) True? Asked Uduezue. I was even saying to myself: what could bring my nephew and his people this far so early, for the way is indeed far? (Emphasis mine) The translation replaces „my son‟ with my nephew‟. Uduezue is the nearest living relation to Akukalia‟s mother; Akukalia is the son of Uduezue‟s sister so the correct family or kinship designation by European, especially German, cultural terminology is nephew. This designation shows the comparative tendency of European, more closely German, kinship terms to be precise, individualistic and to that extent „distancing‟. It contrasts the Igbo African system of family and kin terms that reflect the communality of the culture and emphasizes generational and seniority distinctions as well as basic descent lines (cf. Schwimmer par. 1). The basic kinship terms within the Igbo family, i.e. the extended family comprising the nuclear family, are “Nna/Nne Ochie” (great grandfather/mother), “Nnanna/Nnenne” (grandfather/mother), “Nna/Nne” (father/mother), “Ada/Okpala” (daughter/son), “Nwanne/Nwanna” (female and male relatives from the mother side / female and male relatives from the father side). Brother, sister, uncle and aunt may be created by descriptive nominal groupings like “Nwanne Nwoke” (brother), “Nwanne Nwanyi” (sister), “Nwanne ochie” (elder brother/sister), “Nwa nwanne m nwanyi” (cousin), among others. Some Igbo communities have developed terms like “Deede/dada” (uncle/Aunt). The terms Deede/Daada may vary in different Igbo dialects or cultural groupings. These descriptive nominal groupings and variations are understandable by the fact that these terms were actually non-existent in Igbo kinship language register. As Nzegwu (23) rightly observes: 33 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Linguistically, the terms “sister”, “brother”, “aunt”, “uncle”, “niece”, “nephew”, and “cousin” as well as the relational family seperations they defined did not exist in Igbo language and society. Structurally, there were first two kinds of kinship categories: sons (okpala) and daughters (ada). These categories created a fraternal and sorral form of family administration in which sorral members weighed in on matters that affected the family. This form of administration was necessary because daughters, like sons, were considered integral members of the family. In this kinship and family system, every relation of the same generation is in the same category and referred to with equivalent kin term. For example, every person in one‟s parents generation: one‟s father, one‟s father‟s brother, one‟s mother‟s brother is referred to as Nna, i.e. father. In the same way one‟s mother, one‟s mother sister, one‟s father‟s sister is referred to as Nne, i.e. mother. Persons‟ in the generation of one‟s father‟s father, and one‟s mother‟s mother are referred to as Nnanna and Nnenne, i.e. grandfather and grandmother respectively. Persons, male and female, who are older in age to oneself from either one‟s patrilineage or matrilineage, are respectively “Deede” and “Daada”. There are other groups or collective kinship terms like Umunna, Umunne, Umuada, etc. It follows therefore, for example, that father is not just one‟s own biological full- blooded father but includes one‟s step father and every male member of one‟s extended family and the community at large who belongs to the same generation and age bracket of one‟s biological father. An Uncle or an Aunt is not just one‟s biological senior or older brother or sister of the nuclear family. They include every older male or female member of the extended family and the community. The same thing goes for one‟s sister or brother. They are not just female/male members of ones biological nuclear family but include any female/male member of one‟s extended family and the community. Uduezue is described as „the nearest living relation to Akukalia‟s mother‟. By inverse translation or paraphrase, Uduezue is the nearest relation to Akukalia‟s mother that is still alive. Uduezue has a compound, presumably he has wives and children, and there are presumably other relations within Akukalia‟s matrilineage who are not near in relation to Akukalia‟s mother as Uduezue. Uduezue is an elder and a titled man (AOG 33 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 22). He is presumably, the head of Akukalia‟s maternal family in Okperi. Besides, he is brother to Akukalia‟s mother presumably of the same generation to her for Uduezue is older than Akukalia. By Igbo kinship term, the right name Uduezue has to call Akukalia is „son‟ and not nephew. This is moreso because as the presumed head of the family in Akukalia‟s maternal family, an extended family in which Akukalia is a member and a son, he is the father to every son and daughter in that family. This last fact makes further obvious the difference in the family systems between the German/European and the Igbo/Africa as Ushie (27) very clearly states it: “Father” is the head of the family in the Western nuclear family sense while “grandfather” is the head of the family in the African extended family sense. The Western nuclear family is the smallest unit of Western society, which places emphasis on individualism, while the African extended family is the smallest unit of African society, which places emphasis on communalism. This also explains why the meanings and application of kinship terms in Africa appear infinitely elastic. The replacement of „son‟ with nephew misses the facts of the structure, working and values of the Igbo family and is a misrepresentation of the source culture. The translation is inadequate. Example 2. Semantic: ‘Literalization’ In the discussion that took place between the three Okperi elders and titled men, i.e. Uduezue, Otikpo and Ebo and Akukalia and his two companions, Otikpo referred to Akukalia as „son of our daughter‟ (in Igbo the kinship term is „Nwada or Nwaada), while Akukalia called him „father of my mother‟ (in Igbo the kinship term is „Nnannem‟ or the more or less bisexual term „Nnanna m‟) (AOG 23). These kinship terms are strong and powerful expressions of endearment and fondness hinged on the bloodline, the basis upon which no one does the other any harm. They are also terms that pay homage to the daughter/mother as the channel for this blood tie and the security it provides. These kinship terms are integral parts of and are of strategic significance to the cultural subplot of the narrative. They would later provide the basis 33 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY upon which the intensity of Akukalia‟s „sacrilage‟ in splitting the Ikenga of Ebo into two may be understood. (cf: p.320-1 of thesis). This „sacrilage‟ is more heinous by the fact that the virtual murder of Ebo, constituting the spilling of blood, as it were, is a violation of the sanctity of motherhood/daughter which provided the blood-tie that unifies Akukalia‟s matrilineage and patrilineage into one family. The literal translation of both terms as „Sohn unserer Tochter‟ (son of our daughter) and „Vater meiner Mutter (father of my mother) (trans.32, 34} can be judged appropriate to cultural context. Though the literal technique alone would not bring out the full cultural meaning of the terms, it does at least leave the terms with the potential to mean culturally and to possibly stir up curiosity for further enquiring by the target reader. Example 3 About a year that Akueke, Ezeulu‟s daughter returned to her father‟s household due to wife-battering by her husband, Ibe of Umuogwugwu, a kinsman to Akueke‟s husband, Onwuzuligbo visited Ezeulu to inform him of the reconciliatory visit intended by his in- laws from Umuogwugwu. During the visit, he asked after Akueke with the expression „is our wife well?‟ (AOG 61), translated as „ist unsere Frau bei gutter Gesundheit‟ (trans. 78), i.e. is our wife in good health? I) Communicative: Amplification The use of the „precision‟ prepositional phrase „in good health‟ by the translators as the implied or intended reference to or meaning of „well‟ in the source text question ignores the cultural context of the immediate narrative situation , though it captures what could be the basic substance in the question, i.e. health. Onwuzuligbo could not have asked directly on any particular aspect of Akueke‟s welfare, more so as there was no news, i.e. he had no news, that Akueke was sick. Doing so could sound like an unjustifiable and provocative inquisition into whether Ezeulu is discharging „the obligation‟ of taking care of „their (the in-laws‟) wife‟ for them and insinuating, therefore, that he (Onwuzuligbo) came to find out if any aspect of Akueke‟s well-being is being neglected in her father‟s house. Akueke has stayed almost a year in her father‟s household (AOG 62), a time period considered to be too long in the situation 33 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY for a husband to go for his wife‟s return(AOG 74), and none from her husband‟s family has before now asked after her. The only time her husbands‟ people came to Ezeulu‟s house was to seek satisfaction on the retaliatory beating of Ibe, Akueke‟s husband, by Obika who was infuriated by yet another battering of his elder half sister by her husband, this time she wore a swollen face (AOG 11-12). The return of Akueke to her father‟s house due to wife-battering by her husband is a source of shamefacedness to Ezeulu‟s in- laws including Onwuzuligbo (AOG 63) and their having waited for as long as about a year to come to ask for her suggests the need to be tactful in negotiating reconciliation with Ezeulu. Onwuzuligbo could only ask, as he did, modestly and politely about Akueke‟s „general‟ welfare. Although health is central a subject to ask about a person in such „exchange of pleasantries‟, Ezeulu‟s response: Your wife? She is well. Nothing troubles her except hunger (AOG 61) shows that Onwuzuligbo‟s question about Akueke is understood well beyond her health in that context. Furthermore, in the structure of the discourse, Onwuzuligbo‟s question on Akueke‟s welfare coming well after the initial exchange of pleasantries between him and Ezeulu, the presentation of nzu, the breaking and eating of kolanut (contrast Akuebue‟s visit to Ezeulu in AOG 93-94, Ezeulu‟s visit to Akuebue in AOG 109-111) and the rhetorical gesture of clearing the throat preparatory to speaking by Onwuzuligbo serve as an introduction of Akueke as the issue for which he came. The pause of Ezeulu with the question „your wife? …‟ is noticeable. It brings to the fore the memory and experience of the wife-batterings of Akueke and raises the implicit question to Onwuzuligbo if he has the moral boldness to call Akueke “our wife” with these wife-batterings and one year of neglecting Akueke in her father‟s house. It must be noted that Onwuzuligbo‟s visit is a prelude and part of the discussion that would take place when the husband of Akueke with his kinsmen will arrive for reconciliation with their in-laws, Ezeulu and his own family. Although Ezeulu was very anxious for his daughter, Akueke, to return to her husband (AOG 62), he and his family and kinsmen would have to receive assurance that the mistreatment of their daughter 33 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY must stop before he could let her return to her husband and his family. Tactless speech by Ezeulu‟s in-laws can jeopardize the reconciliation. The point being made here is that the translators did not understand the “cultural situation and meanings” that go into the use of the word “well” in the question “is our wife well?” by Onwuzuligbo. Translating the question into “is our wife in good health?” ignores the weight of cultural discourse and meaning in the narrative context. The translation is inadequate. II) Semantic: ‘Literalization’ The first part of Onwuzuligbo‟s question “is our wife …?” literally translated as “ist unsere Frau …?” refers to an Igbo marriage culture that contrasts that of the target reader. Marriage in Igbo culture is a family affair. It is a contract between two families as opposed to two individuals as it is the case in European German culture. The consent of the two families is a primary requirement for a valid and legitimate marriage to take place. The bride, therefore, is married to the family of the man and not only to the man. When Onwuzuligbo used the kinship term “our wife” (in Igbo “Nwunye anyi”), he validates this sense of marriage in Igbo culture. The literal translation of the term carries the weight of cultural difference and presents knowledge of the source culture to the target reader. The technique is judged to be adequate here. Example 4 The ritual runnings in the feast of the pumpkin leaves have ended and the crowd breaks up into small groups of friends and relatives. Akueke sought out her elder sister, Adaeze. While they exchange pleasantries, Ugoye, Ezeulu‟s third and last wife, joins them. She embraces Adaeze whom she calls “mother of my husband” (AOG 73). Further into the discussion between the three women, Adaeze light-heartedly accused Matefi and Ugoye, wives of Ezeulu, of half-hearted commitment to Ezeulu‟s welfare, for which offence she (Adaeze) would exact „a fine or two‟ from the women. To this accusation, Ugoye cried to Adaeze in mock fear, “please husband, I implore you” (AOG 74). (Emphasis mine). 33 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY (I) Semantic:‘Literalization’ The kinship term “mother of my husband”, in Igbo “Nnedim”, is not only used in the context as an honorific address of endearment but reflects also the reality of symbolic family relationships and authority in the source culture. The term has been translated literally as: “Mutter meines Ehemanns” (trans. 92), i.e. mother of my husband. Two formally institutionalized positions of unusual importance and significance in the Igbo domestic family are that of the first son (Okpara/Opara) and the first daughter (Ada). The first son is the head of the family and of the patrilineage and holds the family heirlooms like ofo, Chi and Obi; he holds the symbol of the family judicial and ritual authority. The first daughter is the head of the matrilineage. In the fraternal form and structure of family administration, both of them can weigh in with unique presence and assertiveness on matters affecting the family. Agbasiere (45) elaborates on the symbolic importance of the first daughter: More important, a woman in her capacity as first daughter, isi-ada, of a domestic family may inherit the matrilineal cult emblem (Ihu arala oma). This emblem could be regarded as the female counterpart of the patrilineal cult emblem (ofo), which is usually inherited by the first son. The ritual and symbolic importance of the first son and daughter are further seen in the Igbo belief in the reincarnation of the ancestors to rejoin the living again. By this belief, a son or a daughter born into the family could be a reincarnated progenitor. The naming ceremony takes place on a sacred mode as the welcoming of an ancestor. The first son and the first daughter are mostly associated with specific progenitors: the grandfather and the grandmother respectively. According to Kalu (14): The sacralization of the familial agents of socialization led inevitably to the sacrilization of the rites of passage as well in the first place, the naming ceremony in most of Igboland is not a casual matter; diviners are consulted to identify which progenitor has reincarnated and this will guide the choice of a name. The ceremony, therefore, takes the form of a welcoming reception. In certain culture areas, a first son takes the name of his paternal grandfather, while a first daughter takes the name of her paternal grandmother. Thus, 33 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY naming ceremonies are means of preserving the memory of progenitors by clothing the ritual with religious garb and awe. It is this symbolic status of the first daughter as the ritualized presence of the paternal grandmother and head of the matrilineage that attracts the endearment and reverence she enjoys in the family and establishes the authority she wields in the affairs of the family. Adaeze is the first daughter in Ezeulu‟s household. When Ugoye, the third and last wife of Ezeulu, called her “mother of my husband” (Nnedim), it is in recognition of this status and role and authority of Adaeze in the family. The kinship and honorific term “mother of my husband” (Nnedim), though left with its potential to mean, i.e. to stir up curiosity in and enquiry by the target reader by its literal translation, still leaves the target reader in a poor position to get to the depth of cultural knowledge and meaning that marks its presence and importance in the narrative context. Indeed, its occurrence early in the context is important to understanding the attitude and language of discourse between Ugoye and Adaeze, to the understanding of relations within Ezeulu‟s household, and, therefore, to the understanding of the narrative and the source culture. A complementary technique of elaboration by glossification could help the target reader to gain knowledge of the culture and understand better the narrative.The translation on the whole is regarded to be inadequate. (II) Communicative: Modulation In the second part of the selected cultural text unit, Adeze asserts the right to judge in her father‟s house, though now married in another village, a right that Ugoye acknowledges with the expression “please”. The basis of this assertion is found in Adeze‟s status as First daughter. Ugoye calls Adeze “husband” creating an ambiquity with that term for the target reader: how could Adeze, a woman and first daughter to Ezeulu, husband to Ugoye, be ascribed to be husband to his father‟s wife? The expression of Ugoye here has been translated by modulation as: “Bitte, Herrin, ich flehe dich an!” (trans. 93), i.e. Please Mistress, I beseech you. The translator may be said to be observing double „caution‟ here: to find a functional replacement for “please, husband‟ that removes the possibility of ascribing lesbianic 33 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY practices to the Igbo culture by the target reader and to maintan the nature of authority between husband and wife in the source culture. Although the idea of „a superior‟ is maintained in the replacement of the masculine term „husband‟ with the feminine term „mistress‟, mistress does not assume the conviviality that is possible in a husband-wife relationship. Above all, the replacement of „husband‟ with„ mistress ignores the deep gendered cultural meaning associated with „husband‟ as used in the context. This meaning can only be found in the source culture, not in the narrative text alone. Among the most important sociocultural female-focused familial and kinship groupings that are institutionalized in the Igbo culture are the “Umuada” and the “Umu- Iyom” or “Iyemdi” (cf. Onyeozili par. 10). “Umuada” refers narrowly to the “first daughters” of the family or kindred. However, as a sociocultural institution, it refers broadly to all the patrilineal daughters of the family, kindred, village or community as the case may be. An „Nwada‟ may be married, unmarried, divorced or widowed but she belongs to the family or kindred by birth. The Umuadas‟ usually come back to their father‟s family or community whenever the need arises. The “Umu-Iyom” or “Iyemdi” are women who belong to the family or kindred by marriage. Traditional roles place more value on the Umuada and give them more powers. An area in which the Umuada has strong mediatory and adjucatory roles is in the marital relationships within the family and the enforcement of traditional rites of widowhood on the Iyemdi. They can call an Iyemdi to order who conducts herself improperly to her husband. An Iyemdi whose conduct has been judged to be severely detrimental or threatening to the well-being and, sometimes, even to the life of the husband, and, therefore, to the patrilineage, and who has ignored or resisted previous admonitions to change, may be sent packing from her matrimonial home by the Umuada. The Umuada can also call a husband to order who maltreats his wife. It means, therefore, that in intractable marital crisis the Umuada can play mediatory roles in their family of birth. Either the man or his wife can report the other to the family Umuada and invite them to intervene in the strained relationship or the Umuada may take the initiative to mend a strained marital relationship in the paternal family or kindred. The Umuada also have a strong voice and participation in non-marital matters affecting the peace, progress and development of the patrilineage. 34 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY When Adeze says that she would exact a fine from Ugoye and Matefi for half- hearted devotion to the welfare of her father, their husband, she asserts her culturally legitimized role and authority as „Nwada‟, who ensures that a stable and culturally sanctioned marital relationship and peace subsists in the homestead. When Ugoye calls Adeze “husband”, in Igbo „Di‟, it is an acknowledgement and recognition of “maleness” or “male essence” inherent in the power of the Umuada or Nwada over the Iyemdi as an implicit extension of the power and principle, broadly speaking, of the patriarchal society and more closely of the husband. Onyeozili helps us to understand the meaning extensions of the concept of “Di” (husband) beyond marital relations in the Igbo culture. According to her: In Igbo linguistic framework, the concept of “di” (husband) is not limited within the marital sphere. Di (husband) is widely used in Igbo language to describe a range of relationships, which goes beyond marital relations … Di in Igbo language represents power, strength, maturity and other positive attributes associated with maleness in Igbo culture. … Di is also a neutral gender shared by both male and female in Igbo power relationships. For instance, a daughter is “husband” to women married into her extended family and all “Umuadas” are husbands to “Iyemdis” married into their kindred. Accordingly, it is mandatory in traditional Igbo culture for “Iyemdis” to fear and respect the “Umuadas” as their extended husbands (par. 14). The mock fear of Ugoye is culturally real. The modulation of “husband” with “mistress” in the translation either to conform the text unit to the point of view of the target culture and to the cultural sensitivity of the target readership or to honestly correct a presumed mistake by the author amounts to a mistranslation and a misrepresentation of source cultural perspective and knowledge. The translators demonstrate a superficial knowledge of the source culture. Besides, this rush to rescue the source culture, instead of researching it and sensitizing the target reader to this aspect of its peculiarity, bespeaks an attitude of self valorization that sees the source culture to be both inferior and reprehensible. A literal semantic translation complemented with creative elaboration or a 34 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY gloss would be more appropriate to render the text unit. The translation is, therefore, inadequate to intercultural postcolonial communication. 6.3.3 The translation of Medical Terms, Rituals and Cults, Events Names and Ceremonies. . 1. Translation of Medical Terms: Communicative: Substitution, derivation, Semantic simplification. Examples: 1. Medicine-men: a. (AOG 15; trans. 24) b. (AOG 112; trans. 139) c. (AOG 148; trans.180). 2. Medicine: a. (AOG 15; trans. 25) b. (AOG 112; trans. 139). The terms and concepts of „medicine-men‟ and „medicine‟ and the various contexts in which they are used introduce the target reader to aspects of Igbo medical register and, perhaps much more importantly, to the complex environment of health and healing that is permeated with the communality and spirituality of the source culture. In Example 1a, „Medicine-men‟ is translated as „Heilern‟, i.e. literally „healers‟. In the narrative context, the narrator follows the thought of Ezeulu to describe the circumstances that led to the emergence of Ulu as the preeminent deity in Umuaro. In the face of intense and unceasing raids of Abam warriors, carrying Umuaro men, women and children into slavery, the leaders of Umuaro hired a strong team of „medicine-men‟ to install a common deity for them. The translators substituted „medicine-men‟ with a word derived from the presumed outcome or product of their activities, i.e. „healing‟. In doing so, they created an uncommon noun in German, i.e Heiler, literally „healer‟. The German target reader is expected to approximate correctly the meaning of „Heiler‟ from the verb „heilen‟, i.e. „to heal‟. The Igbo term or word from which Achebe transcribes the term „medicine-men‟ is „dibia‟, literally „doctor‟ and generically „healer‟. However, its generic usage may not be suitable in specific contexts and may lead to a misunderstanding of its cultural significance or reference if not adequately qualified or elaborated upon. „Doctor‟ would be a poor translation of „dibia‟ in all contexts because the reference of „doctor‟ will, 34 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY presumably for the target reader, be limited to Western „biomedics‟ or „orthodox medical practitioners‟ with their „scientific‟ diagnosis and procedures and may not encompass the spiritual, herbal and ritual, and communal dimensions of Igbo traditional medicine to which „dibia‟ refers. The range of traditional “health” practioners covered by the term „medicine-men‟ is shown in the table below: Table 1: Dibias and their specialist domain of care Appellation Domain of care 1. Dibia afa, dibia ogba aja Divination diagnosis 2. Dibia aja, or nchu aja, or anya odo Priest, ritual expert 3. Dibia onye oha Community matters, king making 4. Dibia mgborogwu Root and herb expertise, herbalism 5. Dibia ara insanity 6. Dibia ogbaokpukpo Bone-setting 7. Dibia ogbanje Ogbanje healing, care for spirit children 8. Dibia amusu Witchcraft healing 9. Dibia mmanwu Masquerade guarding 10. Dibia amadioha Rain and thunder matters 11. Dibia omumu Fertility healing and attending 13. Dibia owa ahu or okwochi Surgery related ailments 14. Dibia owu mmiri Mami wota(mermaid) crisis 15. Dibia anya, nti, etc. Cure of eye or ear problems Table taken from Iroegbu ( 83). A healer may combine various specialisations. Most healers address the common afflictions, such as malaria (akom [Iba]), aches and pains (ahu mgbu na ikwukwe), as well as fever (oyi). Most may also deal with infections, such as measles (akpata), HIV/AIDS (oria amuma ahu) in their own right; as well as seious or prolonged diarrhoea (otoro, lit., excessive looseness of the bowels). When the „leaders‟ (these are elders and titled men) of Umuaro adjudged the onslaught of the marauding Abam warriors to have reached the state of unbearable threat and distress to the continued existence of the clan, they hired a strong team of „medicine- men‟ to install a common deity for them. The clan was not sick, it was unsafe and insecure. The needs of the clan were those of defence and security from Abam warriors. 34 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY This strong team of „medicine-men‟ was not made up of „body healers‟, as such; at least, „body-healing‟ was not what they were commissioned to do. The team was composed of „diviners‟, „priests‟, ritual „experts‟ and „herbalists‟. In Igbo medical register they are „dibia afa‟, „dibia aja‟, „dibia Mgborogwu‟ (cf. Iroegbu 82). The deity that the leaders and elders of Umuaro through this team installed for Umuaro is the actual „medicine‟, not drug in this context, but the „spiritual force‟ that would ward off the Abam warriors and restore security and safety to Umuaro. The translation of „medicine-men‟ as „healers‟ ignores the cultural context. „Healer‟ used by the translators has the disadvantage of not helping the target reader to correctly identify the „people‟ that make up this „strong team‟ hired by the leaders and elders of Umuaro and to associate them with the kind of work they were commissioned to carry out. It, therefore, leads to a loss of cultural meaning. „Healers‟ used by the translators, though an innovation in the German language derives from a root word that in current usage is commonly associated with orthodox medicine and medical practitioners, i.e. doctors. The translation would need, at least, a complementary entry in the glossary or creative in-text elaboration to provide the necessary understanding. It is at the same time quite curious that the translators ignored the literal equivalent term in German to medicine-men, i.e. „Medizinmänner‟, which, though partly transliterated from the English, has comparable connotations in German with medicine-men as it is used in AOG. The translation here is inadequate. In Example 1b, „Medicine-man‟ is translated as „Heiler‟, i.e. literally „healer‟. In the narrative context, Akuebue confided in Ezeulu during a friendly visit by the latter about Ogbuefi Amalu, who has fallen critically ill of aru mmuo and that John Nwodika of Umuofia has been hired by the Amalu‟s to make medicine for him (i.e. to treat him). Akuebue, however, thinks that Aghadike, the medicine-man from Aninta also known as Anyanafummuo (eyes that sees the spirits) would have been a better choice to treat Ogbuefi Amalu‟s condition (AOG 112). The preference of Akuebue for Aghadike is because “he [Aghadike] nips off sickness between his thumb and finger” (i.e. he is well experienced and capable in the practice of his medicine and heals effortlessly). Ezeulu supports Akuebue‟s preference for Aghadike but yet for another reason: “he [Aghadike] is a great doctor and diviner”. 34 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Doctor here refers to an herbalist, naturally (AOG 114). Aghadike is, therefore, a diviner- herbalist, at least, i.e. „dibia afa na mgborogwu‟, making him doubly specialized and more qualified to treat “aru mmuo”, “a sickness of the spirits” (AOG 112). Diviners are empowered mediators between the visible and invisible realms of reality. The technique of translating medicine-man here is the same with that described in example 1a above. This technique and choice of equivalence may be judged adequate here to the understanding of both the narrative and cultural contexts. „Heiler‟, i.e. healer, directly reflects a „medical personnel‟ engaged in the effort to restore body health and connotes the use of herbs to heal. However, „Medizinmann‟, a literal translation of „medicine-man‟, would still have been preferable; for it connotes the possible use of healing methods which the „modern‟ target reader would consider unorthodox. This connotation is capable of influencing the attitude of the target reader by making him to be unprejudiced or less prejudiced towards the „unorthodox‟ methods of healing that may be found in the narrative context. In Example 1c, „Medicine-men‟ is translated as „Heilkundigen‟ (trans.180), i.e. literally „healing experts‟ with connotative reference in German to esoteric healers. In the narrative context, the narrator discusses the lusterless relationship between Ezeulu and his younger half-brother, Okeke Onenyi, though both seem to bear no ill-will against one another. Okeke Onenyi‟s lack of ill-will is supported by some people with the facts that he, as one of the medicine-men in Umuaro clan has never been accused by anyone of sealing up his wife‟s womb, and that he has many sons and daughters; for medicine-men who carry out such vile practices, like men who relish human flesh, never prosper with children (AOG 148) The translation of medicine-men by semantic-simplification would seem to be a safe technique for the translators except that the cultural context could be misunderstood and or „mistakenly‟ ignored. Semantic-simplification is the technique by which the semantic or meaning load or connotations of a word are duly considered and the meaning adjudged by the translator to be the most suitable to and explanatory of the narrative context is selected and used in a simplified or accessible rendition of meaning. It is noteworthy that „Heilkundigen‟ which the translators chose for „medicine-men‟ is a synonym to the German word for medical doctor, „Arzt‟ (DUDEN 8. 106). 34 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY This context makes clear that Achebe has used the term medicine-men to cover a wide range of practitioners in the traditional medicine that include malevolent sorcerers and practitioners of witchcraft who could cause such harm and evil like sealing up a woman‟s womb thus preventing her from conceiving a child and who „relish human flesh‟, i.e. bring about the deaths of fellow human beings by diabolic powers or means. Obviously the translators ignored this connotation to the term when they translated „medicine-men‟ as „Heilkundigen‟ (healing experts) and so introduced ambiguity to the understanding of the cultural context: A healing expert is supposed to heal, to bring about a positive state of health and not to cause ill-health, misfortune and death. When, in the target text, „healing experts‟, as translated, is associated with a narrative context that suggests that this same „healing experts‟ cause ill-health, misfortunes and deaths, it raises the question to the target reader, what do doctors do in this culture? In this narrative context, a literal translation of „medicine-men‟ into German as „Medizinmänner‟ with a clarificatory note would be more appropriate in order to accommodate the connotation that could apply to malevolent medicine-men without unduly misrepresenting the source culture. „Medizinmänner‟ is used in German with reference to aboriginal peoples or cultures. It has comparable (not all) range of connotations as Achebe uses „medicine-men‟ in AOG, i.e. it connotes „Zauberer‟ (magician, sorcerer, wizard), „Heilkundiger‟ (healing experts), and „Priester‟ (priest) (Wahrig 873). The translation here is inadequate. In Example 2, there are two translations to the term or word „medicine‟ to reflect the contexts of their use. In 2a „medicine‟ (AOG 15) is translated „Zaubermittel‟ (trans. 25), i.e. magical cure/magical potion. In the narrative usage of the term, the leaders of Umuaro, through the strong team of medicine-men, created the deity, Ulu, for the six villages of Umuaro. Half of the medicine used to make the deity was buried and the other half was thrown into the stream that became Mili Ulu (Ulu‟s River). The translation of medicine here as „Zaubermittel‟ can be regarded to be a description of the ritual products used to create the Ulu deity that is adequate to a meaningful understanding of the cultural context. However, as earlier pointed out, in the context of the insecure environment made possible by the raids of the Abam warriors, the deity, 34 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Ulu, is the „medicine‟, the spirit force that restrains the Abam warriors. The translation here is on the whole adequate. In 2b, „medicine‟ (AOG 112) is translated semantically by the literal technique as „Heilmittel‟ (trans 139), i.e. potent substance or remedy for treating ill-health. Heilmittel is synonym to Medizin, which is of equivalent meaning to the English word, medicine. In the narrative context usage, Akuebue informed his friend, Ezeulu that the family of the critically sick ogbuefi Amalu hired John Nwodika of Umuofia to make medicine for him (AOG 112). In this context, the reference of medicine is not only to the herbal preparations but also the charm fortifications around the ailing man and the shooting of gun at intervals by the medicine-man to ward off offensive spirits (AOG 114). The translation is contextually suitable to the understanding of both narration and the source culture. The translation is judged to be adequate. In the source culture, as the use of the terms and concepts „medicine-men‟ and „medicine‟ in the various contexts shows to some extent, the search for the cause and the cure for a serious health condition goes beyond “the physical body” of the sick person. It extends into the planes of the spiritual, the ancestors and the gods, and the community. Besides that the land of the spirits, humans and the gods form a community (cf. TFA 85), the belief in sorcery, witchcraft and superhuman forces that impinge on health and well- being is a central part of the culture. Pursuantly, consulting forces that see beyond the human surface through „dibias‟ initiated and trained in the mystery and secrets of the spirits and cures, and reaching out for ritual remedies are for the most part a central part of Igbo culture. Serious illness or malady that persists becomes the source of family and even communal concern. Family members, close kin-groups and kindred elders consider it their moral obligation to attempt to find the source of the illness as a prelude to finding a cure. At the background to all these search and cure is a concept of health that is based on relationship and standing with „community‟. We quote Iroegbu elaborately on this relationship: The Igbo concept of good and ill health is eccentrically constituted: health is a sum, first of a person‟s relations with the family and community members, alike with the invisible world of the medicine deity (agwu), the earth deity (ala), the ancestral cults (ofufe ndi ichie). The 34 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY ancestral spirit is the transmitter and guardian of one‟s family and personal genius (chi). One‟s capacity to live a quality of life is achieved primarily with the support of one‟s chi as well as, if needed, through proper ritual treatment in particular by ofo na ogu (key symbols to declare innocence, justify conscience, achieve retribution, and obtain ancestral help). Forces, such as thunder (amadioha) or town and village deities, may be called upon to bring harm to targeted victims. Other extrahuman forces, such as mami wota (mermaid) or ogbanje (ghost or spirit children), may cause suffering and illness. Good or ill health is also the outcome of people‟s invisible and potentially harmful dealings with one another through evil eye, envy or jealousy, witchcraft (ita amusu) or sorcery (nshi na aja), curse (ibu onu) or the calling down of extrahuman wrath (iku ofo na iju ogu). Such aggression may cause physical injury or insanity, as well as the loss of property, a job, one‟s beloved ones, and the like. Offended ancestors and evil spirits (ajo mmuo) may cause debilitating misfortunes, illness and death. There are moreover social misfortunes, such as the inability to find a loving and stable marital partner, win social status and public authority in one‟s community. To sustain health and society, people and their invisible allies join forces and rely on competent healers [dibias]. (Iroegbu 82). Achebe revealed at various contexts in the entire narrative the Igbo health and healing system or environment as part of the argument on a living and fully integrated and rational traditional culture. Central keywords or terms in the narrative relevant to the understanding of this environment include „medicine‟ and medicine-men, among others. These are terms which connotations guide to the various dimensions of this health environment including the spiritual, cultic or ritual, communal and social dimensions, and which translations are very important to understanding, misunderstanding and (mis)representation of the source culture. 34 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 2. Rituals and Cults: Example I. Communicative: Modulation The “covering-up sacrifice” (AOG 147) previously referred to as “the sacrifice at the crossroads”(AOG 117) is translated by modulation of context as “das Opfer bei Obika‟s Hochzeit”(trans. 180), i.e. “the sacrifice at Obika‟s wedding (ceremony)”. In the narrative context, some of those keen on explaining the lusterless relationship between Ezeulu and his junior half-brother, Okeke Onenyi, pointed to the refusal of Ezeulu to ask Okeke Onenyi to coduct the “covering-up sacrifice” for Obika‟s new bride, Okuata, as evidence of Ezeulu‟s jealousy towards his junior half-brother. The “covering-up sacrifice” is well described in AOG (117-120) as “the sacrifice at the crossroads”. It is a sacrifice of absolution by which (the effects of) any evil(s) knowingly or unknowingly committed by the bride in her maidenhood at her father‟s house and any ill-omen that may follow her from her father‟s house are restrained from following her into her matrimonial family: they are covered with a pot and buried at the crossroad – the junction that intersects the road to and from the paternal village of the bride. The bride, though finally escorted to her husband‟s household cannot go into her husband‟s compound until the sacrifice is performed. In this sacrifice, the number four is significant. The sacrifice items are mostly in fours: four small yams, four pieces of white chalk, four leaflets of tender palm leaves, and four groups of cowries. The number 4 is sacred to the Igbos. In Igbo kolanut custom, Kola with four cotleydons or lobes is “Oji udo na ngozi”, i.e. Kola of peace and blessing. Other items for the sacrifice are the flower of the wild lily, a bowl of fired clay, a small pot of water and a hen. These items are buried in a ritual order at twilight. The bride washes her face, hands, arms and legs to the knee with the pot of water. She must not pass through this junction until the morning. The designation “sacrifice at the crossroads” emphasizes the significance of the place of the sacrifice, while “covering-up sacrifice” emphasizes the intent of the sacrifice: to cover up the evils committed by the bride and the evils set against her. The translation ignores this additional clarity that the latter designation brings to the understanding of the sacrifice. 34 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Furthermore, the translation as “the sacrifice at Obika‟s wedding (ceremony)” is a renaming that is incorrect for it suggests that the sacrifice was carried out while the wedding ceremonies was going on as part of the ceremonies. The wedding and its ceremonies have been concluded. The bride has been escorted to her husband and his family, the accompanying celebrations ended and the escorts from the bride‟s village have returned home. In the view of the culture, Okuata and Obika are fully, validly and legitimately married to one another. The sacrifice is a culturally sanctioned ritual to be conducted on the initiative of the bride‟s father in-law, i.e Ezeulu in this instance, and his household in order to safeguard the already concluded marriage from harm. It is conducted from dusk into night on the wedding day as a ritual independent of the wedding ceremonies and not required for the validation of the marriage. The shift in perspective introduced by the translators is not necessary. The translation unit could have been semantically rendered as “Bedeckungsopfer” (covering sacrifice). The translation is thus inadequate. Example II. Semantic: Semantic-Cushioning. “Ichi” (AOG 132) has been transferred into the target text (trans. 162) and explained in the glossary adequately to narrative context as “ins Gesicht tätowierte Schmucknarben” (trans. 278), i.e. “ornamental scars tattooed on the face”. Ezeulu valorizes the boldness and courage and triumph of his father, the late Ezeulu, to insist on the abrogation of the “ichi” custom, though he was opposed by Umuaro. Ezeulu speaks with Akuebue on the latter‟s visit to Ezeulu. The “ichi” is, in traditional Igbo society, scarification marks carved on the faces of titled men (ozo) and on the faces and stomachs of titled women. Further assistance to the target reader to know this aspect of the culture better could have included the additional information in the glossary entry that “igbu ichi” (scarification) is a cultural practice not usually open to everybody in the culture. The translation is adequate. 35 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Example III. Semantic: Borrowing: Alusi (AOG 5), Ikenga, Okposi, Ofo (AOG 6) These are terms and concepts that belong to the religious register and belief of the Igbo. All have been borrowed or transferred into the target language and culture and glossed in the translation. Alusi is rightly glossed as “Gottheit” (trans.277), i.e. deity; though “alusi” specifically refers in the source culture to minor deities usually carved and worshipped. The term is used in AOG (4-5; trans. 13) when Ezeulu confronts his first son, Edogo (a sculptur) with the rumour he (Ezeulu) has heard that Edogo carves deities or gods for people, when he (Ezeulu) had sdvised Edogo against that. Edogo refuted the rumour. „Ikenga‟ and „ofo‟ have already been analysed in the respective pages (301-3) and (288-294) of this thesis. „Okposi‟, also transferred into the target text (trans. 14) has equally been correctly glossed as “holzgeschnitzte Statue” (trans. 280), i.e. statue carved out of wood. However, the glossary entry could have been been more adequate to context and cultural understanding if it has indicated that these statues are those of the ancestors, though this information is clearly carried in the narrative context where the term „okposi‟ occurred (AOG 6; trans. 14). The „okposi‟ is an ancestral statue. The translations are adequate but for 'Ikenga' and 'ofo'. Example IV. Communicative: Amplification The Otakagu age-group prepares to present a new ancestral mask in the year‟s Akwu Nro celebration – the minor feast of Umuachala village before the big new yam feast of the clan. The mask is a mask of high rank, therefore, those of them in the age-group that has leading roles to play in the presentation of the mask must be “hard-boiled” in protective magic to be able to withstand the assaults of malevolent and envious opponents (AOG 193-4). The expectant and excited crowd has gathered at the Ilo (the village playground) where the Otakagu age-group is to present its new ancestral mask. In a corner sat Otakekpeli, a man known throughout Umuaro clan to be a wicked medicine-man. He had more than twice had to take kolanut from the palm of a dead man to swear he had no hand in the death. The crowd disapproves of Otakekpeli‟s presence but none challenges him because it is dangerous to do so, but much more because the crowd equally looks 35 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY forward to the spectacle of two potent forces confronting each other; and members of the Otakagu age-group would have to blame themselves, if they choose to bring out a new mask without first “boiling themselves hard” (AOG 197). Both terms “boiled hard” and “boiling themselves hard” are idiomatic verbal phrases used in the same event to represent the same idea. Achebe has already given some help to understanding the phrases by including “… in protective magic” in the first use of the phrase. Both terms represent the idea and standard practice in the culture in such and similar ceremonies like the presentation of a new high ranking ancestral mask: those who present the mask must fortify or protect themselves sufficiently with potent “medicine” that may include undergoing ritual processes and, perhaps, some sacrifices, magical charms and amulets that could be worn on the body, medicinal potions that could be drank or rubbed in some or all parts of the body, etc. In the first instance, “… hard boiled…” is translated by amplification thus: Diejenige, die bei der Zeremonie wichtige Rollen zu spielen hatten .... mußten, um ihre Abwehrkräfte zu stärken mit einem schützenden Zaubermittel versehen werden (trans. 233). Those who have important roles to play in the ceremony must strengthen their defensive abilities with magical potions in order to perform. “Hard boiled…” is identified as an important semantic element which meaning is implicit in the context. The implicit meaning is elaborated without further mention of the term. The translation technique can be said to be adequate to the understanding of the narration and considerably its cultural context. However, „hard boiled‟ refers directly to the robustness of the magical defences and alludes to the „exerting ritual processes‟ through which this robustness is attained. Semantic-cushioning can be a better technique to translate the term. On the whole the translation is here adequate. In the second instance, the translation, also by amplification, goes thus: Wenn die Otakagu-altersgruppe eine neue Maske herausbrachte, ohne sich zuvor im Kampf erprobt zu haben, so war es ihr Fehler (trans 237) (emphasis mine) 35 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY If the Otakagu age-group chose to bring out a new Mask without having first proven itself in fight, it is its fault. The reference of “…without first boiling themselves hard” in the source text is to the fact that the Otakagu age group ought to first fortify itself with protective magic in expectation of possible confrontation with malevolent and envious opposition before attempting to publicly present the mask. The perspective of the translation that the age- group ought to have proven itself fit, unarguably, in previous fights is a modulation of perspective, though still following the idea that the age-group must be „fit‟ to publicly present its mask. However, such modulation that misses the detail of a cultural knowledge is really unnecessary, more so as the translation unit can still be rendered into the target language without modulating its source cultural perspective. The repetition of the idea of being boiled hard in the second context is to show that the age-group need not „ritually and magically‟ prepare themselves because they think they should; the crowd, i.e. the culture expects them to do so. The outing of the age-group in that context is not just a physical activity, as the translation may be purely understood, but also a „spiritual‟ outing. The translation, in the second instance, is inadequate. 6.3.4 Material Culture and Artifacts Bitter leaf (AOG 5), Soup (AOG 67): Semantic: ‘Literalization’ Bitterleaf is translated semantically and literally as “Bitterblatt” (trans. 15), i.e. Bitterleaf. This is comparatively a more adequate rendition of this source culture medicinal vegetable than the translators in TFA rendered it (cf. Thesis: 69) in view of the fact that the target culture lacks a suitable equivalent for bitterleaf. Soup is translated literally as “Sauce” (trans. 85), which closely compares to the texture of soup in the source culture. However in AOG(116), soup in the compounds “Bitter-leaf soup”, “Egusi soup”, “Utazi soup”(AOG 183) is translated literally as “Suppe”, i.e Soup, namely: “Bitterblattsuppe”, “Egusisuppe”, and “Utazisuppe”(trans. 35 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 220); and in AOG (166) in the compound egusi soup, soup is once more translated as “Sauce”, namely “Egusi-Sauce”(trans. 201), i.e. Egusi sauce, thus creating ambiguity as to the true nature of “soup” in the source culture. „Sauce‟ (or „Soße) is a more accurate representation of soup in the source culture (cf. 69 of Thesis). The ambiguity created in precisely identifying 'soup' makes the translation inadequate. A complementary gloss or internal note can help to solve the ambiguity. Pounded Cassava and bitter leaf soup (AOG 156): Communicative: Transliteration and Omission. Furthermore, in the translation of “pounded Cassava and bitter leaf soup”, Cassava is transliterated as “Kassava” while omitting „pounded‟; and “bitter leaf soup” is translated literally as “Bitterblattsauce” (trans. 190). „Pounded Cassava‟ is dough produced from hard-boiled and mashed pastry or from flour meal that is processed from cassava tubers. The cassava dough as well as the yam dough is eaten as foofoo. The omission of „pounded‟ in the translation is ill-advised for there are other preparations of the cassava for food. „Pounded cassava‟ deserves elaboration. Inadequate translation. Cocoyam Porridge (AOG 10). Semantic: Loaning and ‘Literalization’ Cocoyam Porridge is translated pragmatically by both the loaning and the literal techniques as “Cocoyam-Brei” (trans. 20), i.e. Cocoyam porridge. It is possible for target readers from the word “Brei” to understand the Cocoyam as a tropical food that is like and could be prepared comparable to the potato; in the target culture potato porridge known as “Kartoffelnbrei” is common. The translation is adequate. Calabash (AOG 96), Foofoo (AOG 116), and Raffia Palm (AOG 166). Transliteration The three items of the source culture have been variously transliterated by the semantic approach as “Kalabasse” (trans. 120), “Fufu” (trans.144), and “Raphiapalme” (trans. 201). Transliteration is the phonic (sound) and (graphic) alteration of source cultural words and terms in order to conform them to the patterns of pronunciation and spelling of the target language but without loosing their source cultural origin. These adjustments to the words do not necessarily make them clear to the target reader. 35 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Calabash and Raffia palm may be considered adequate as translated for both have found accommodation in German linguistic register. Foofoo, however, still needs elaboration because it is not clearly described in AOG as it is in TFA, though the target reader knows that it is a type of food. The translators rightly included a glossary entry for „foofoo‟ but curiously as “von der Engländer als Wort für Püree eingeführt” (trans. 278), i.e. “introduced by Englanders as a word for puree”. This means that the translators rendered „foofoo‟ as „Püree‟. The Puree (German: „das Püree‟) is a meal or drink of mostly fruit or vegetable, e.g banana or potato, mashed or pressed to pulp or to a semi-solid state. “Das Püree” is a poor description of or substitute for the source culture food item „foofoo‟, which is cassava or yam tuber or pastry boiled and mashed into solid dough. A fairly adequate description of the nature or texture of the foofoo in German would be „der Teig”, so “Kassavateig”, i.e Cassava dough. The wrong glossary entry for foofoo makes its translation inadequate. Seed-yams (AOG 21, 45, 109). Semantic: ‘Literalization’ Seed-yam is literally translated variously as “Saatyams” (trans. 32), “Yamssaatgut” (trans. 59, 136). Each of “Saatyams” and “Yamssaatgut” means “yam-seedlings”; each is, therefore, an adequate translation of this source culture and tropical seed. Camwood (AOG 86, 112). Communicative: Functional Substitution. Camwood is variously translated as “Rotholzsalbe” (trans. 108, 140), i.e. “redwood ointment” and “Kambalholz” (trans. 139). The camwood is wrongly and inadequately translated as „Rotholzsalbe‟ (cf. p.258 of thesis). Linguistically, „Kambalholz‟ is of Burmese origin and it is equivalent to the English word for camwood, which refers to the dye and furniture wood found in tropical Africa (Enzyklo 2010). Kambalholz is, therefore, an appropriate reference to the red dyewood of Africa from which the camwood medicinal ointment is obtained. However, the translation could read “Kambalholzsalbe”, i.e. camwood ointment, for a more adequate clarification and accessibility to the target reader of both the narrative and cultural contexts. 35 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Uli, Ogalu (AOG 66). Semantic: Loaning or Borrowing. Uli, Ogalu are loaned (trans. 85). These are colour dyes used to draw patterns on the body as cosmetic adornments by women: the Uli is black, while the Ogalu is yellow. In the context, Ugoye, Ezeulu‟s younger wife, examines the respective black and yellow patterns of the Uli and Ugali that Akueke made on her body preparatory to both going for the festival of the first pumpkin leaves. Both uli and ogalu are explained appropriately in the glossary as “saps from fruit trees” (trans. 281). the translation is considered adequate. Omu (AOG 119). Semantic: Loaning or Borrowing. Omu is borrowed (trans. 146) with a complementary entry in the glossary that explains it fairly adequately as “junge Palmblätter” (trans. 280), i.e. literally “young palm leaves”. “zärtlich Palmblätter”, i.e. „tender palm leaves‟ could have been a better reflector of the texture of the palm tendrils. However, the translation does not distort the understanding of the narrative. The translation is still adequate. Ikolo (AOG 23, 69). Semantic: Lexical-Cushioning. The “Ikolo” is loaned untranslated into the target text (trans 34) complemented with an entry in the glossary as “große Tromel” (trans. 278), i.e. big drum; a seemingly adequate entry for the narrative context but which, culturally, is a minimal representation of the Ikolo drum. The Ikolo is given considerable emphasis in, at least, two of the major scenes in the narration that shows its cultural significance. The first scene relates to the errand of Akukalia to Okperi. Akukalia rudely demands to see the elders of Okperi so he could deliver his message “that cannot wait”. He is, however, told that the elders of Okperi cannot be summoned before the following day; today being Okperi‟s market day – the great Eke Okperi. Akukalia haughtily asks his hosts: “if war came suddenly to your town, how do you call your men together, Father of my mother? Do you not beat the Ikolo? Do you wait till tomorrow? (AOG 23). The verb „beat‟ in its African context here makes it clear that the Ikolo refers to a drum or gong and the respective adverb and noun „suddenly‟ and „war‟ show that the Ikolo is beaten only on special occasions like in „war emergency‟. This fact is affirmed a 35 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY few lines later when the villagers tell Akukalia: “it is not our custom to welcome strangers to our market with the Ikolo”. (AOG 23). In the second scene at the festival of the first pumpkin leaves, the Ikolo is most visible in providing the ritual sound background that accompanied the feast and the sacrifices right from the beginning. It began by saluting the six villages of Umuaro and their deities calling them by name in their ancient order, then it calls the names of important people of Umuaro, and it settled down to salute Ulu, the deity of all Umuaro. The narrator, at this point, describes the Ikolo as having been carved from a giant iroko tree on the very spot where it was felled on the order of Ulu, himself, the deity of all Umuaro. The body of the Ikolo is carved with men and pythons and little steps are cut on one side of it with which the drummer could climb to the top to beat it. “when beaten for war, the body of the Ikolo is decorated “with skulls won in past wars. But now it sang of peace” (AOG 69). The second scene elaborates on the Ikolo and affirms what already is deducible from the first scene that the Ikolo is a drum for special occasions: to summon the clan to meet urgent and life threatening emergencies like war; or when the deity of Umuaro reaveals through divination a grievance that must be speedily removed to avoid the anger of the deity fallen on the clan (AOG 141). It is also used for sacrificial festivals as this second scene shows; and in TFA (84) it is used to announce the death of a prominent son of the clan. The second scene also gives a clue to the size of the drum; it is bigger than other drums. The entry in the glossary that the Ikolo is a “große Tromel” (a big drum) is an oversimplification that removes from its cultural meaning and significance. Firstly, the Ikolo is not used or beaten to make music; it is not a drum for entertainment. Basden points out as much when he observes that the Ikolos (slit drums) of the Igbos “are not intended to be instruments of music, rather they are used … at sacrificial festivals” (26 in Lo-Bamijoko 3). The entry leaves open the assumption that the Ikolo is one among Igbo musical instruments. Secondly, the Ikolo is not just „big‟, it is really very big; it is “the king of all drums” (AOG 69) in Igbo culture. Its size, “about 180 cm long” (Agordoh 80) and a height that has to be climbed (AOG 69) is so prohibitive to distort the sound enough to render it (the 35 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY sound) “weird, unearthly, and ghostly” (Jeffereys 27 in Lo-Bamijoko 3) such that each man has to be initiated early into the esoteric language of the Ikolo (TFA 84). The Ikolo is the “talking drum” of the Igbos. The glossary entry should serve to clarify information, terms and contexts in the body of narration and, as it is necessary, add extra information that would help the target reader adequately understand both the narration and the relevant cultural background and message. The glossary, in this instance, did not succeed in doing that. The translation is inadequate. Household shrine (AOG 6), Shrine (AOG 41, 69). Communicative: Modulation and Substitution. Household shrine is translated by modulation as “Hausaltar”, i.e house alter. Household is reduced to house and shrine becomes alter. The translators suppose „household‟ to be unnecessary to the understanding of the narrative. That may be true to the narrative context but the translation leaves out the understanding of the cultural context. In the narrative context, Ezeulu performs the ritual of roasting and eating one of the sacred yam tubers with which he reckons the season for the clan. Then, he moved to the household shrine to offer prayers for his „household‟. The household is made up of several „houses‟ over which the „first born‟, the „Diokpa‟ is head and offers prayer for. The translators reflect the narrative context most closely by restraining the application of „Altar‟ to its basic meaning: the (usually elevated) place where religious prayer and sacrifices are brought to a deity. Ezeulu‟s household shrine is “on a flat board behind the central dwarf wall at the entrance” (AOG 6). In AOG (41; trans. 54) and (69; trans. 88), shrine is variously translated by substitution as “Altarschrein” and “Altar”. The use of two different, though related, terms for the same source text word shows the difficulty the translators seem to have had with the word „shrine‟. They, therefore, seem to have approached the word from its narrative contexts. In the first narrative context, Nwaka and Ezidemili discuss Ezeulu. Ezidemili reveals to Nwaka, in the tone of their collective opposition to Ezeulu, how the first Ezeulu in his envy coveted the ancient and awesome burial ritual accorded to the priests of Idemili for 35 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY himself. By this ritual, the heads of the priests of Idemili are separated from their bodies at death and hung up in their “shrine” (AOG 41). The second narrative context is at the feast of the first pumpkin leaves. The Ikolo began the ceremony with its salutation of the villages and deities, prominent sons of the clan and then Ulu. Then a big ogene sounded three times from “Ulu‟s shrine” (AOG 69). The Ikolo took up from the ogene sound and sustained an endless flow of praises to the deity, Ulu. The difficulty for the translators appears to be that though the word ‚shrine‟ exists in German as ‚Schrein‟, it hardly carries the connotation of a place in which devotion is paid to a deity that the word in English has acquired. “Schrein” in German refers mostly to a reliquary – a lockable and usually decorated container or receptacle in which sacred relics or valuables are kept (cf. Wahrig), while „Altar‟ (Alter) associated, in the German culture, mostly with the judaeo-Christian religion, specifically refers to a usually elevated platform where prayers, worship and sacrifices are brought to a deity (cf. Wahrig, Duden 7 ) „Altarschrein‟ refers to a winged-alterpiece, i.e alter with collapsible lockable sides, in which religious or sacred relics are safeguarded (cf. www.enzyklo.de/schrein). The use of „Altarschrein‟ here is metaphoric based on the functional comparison that just as sacred or religious relics are kept in the alter so are the severed heads of dead Ezidemilis‟ safeguarded in the shrine as religious or sacred relics. Notwithstanding this comparable sense in which both the „Altarschrein‟ and the shrine are secured places for the respective religious or ritual and sacred relics, the „Altarschrein‟ is still a poor representation of the Igbo African shrine in AOG. Furthermore, the translation of „Ulu‟s shrine‟ as “Altar” is also inadequate to help the target reader understand this cultural ritual and religious artifact. The shrine of Ulu is described in considerable details in AOG (209) when Ezeulu has to consult his deity on the requirements for an appeasement sacrifice as requested by the elders of the clan: … He [Ezeulu] entered the bare, outer room and looked round vacantly. Then he placed his back against the door of the inner room which not even his assistants dare enter. The door gave under the pressure of his body and he walked in backwards. He guided himself by running his left hand along one of the side walls. When he got to the end of it he moved a few steps to the right and stood directly in front of 35 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the earth mound which represented Ulu. From the rafters right round the room the skulls of all past chief priests looked down on the mound and on their descendant and successor. Even in the hottest day a damp chill always possessed the shrine because of the giant trees outside which put their heads together to cut off the sun but more especially because of the great, cold, underground river flowing under the earth mound. Even the approaches to the shrine were cold and, all year round, there was always some ntu-nanya-milli dropping tears from the top of the ancient trees What is described here as Ulu‟s shrine is actually a temple in a grove with underground water, an outer room, and an inner room which only the Ezeulu may enter. The translators fail to take note of this detailed description that could have helped them in the search for appropriate equivalence. An adequate contextual equivalence for shrine in German can be “Heiligtum” – a sacred and venerable place for the worship of a deity with particular reference to „heathen‟, i.e. non-christian, religions.The translation here is wholly inadequate. 6.3.5 Organisations, Customs, Activities, Procedures, Concepts. Communicative: Modulation “The assembly of elders and men of title” comprises the leaders of the clan, Umuaro (AOG 15), which takes weighty decisions affecting the collective interest of the clan. In the first general assembly of the clan, the voice of the elders and men of title was decisive to the decision reached to send an emissary of war and peace to the neighbouring clan of Okperi with whom Umuaro has a land dispute (AOG 15-18). The assembly of elders and men of title met next after the ill-fated emissary was killed in Okperi and his corpse brought home to Umuaro with no accompanying explanation. The assembly has to decide on the fate of the land dispute between Okperi and Umuaro and on what to do about the death of Akukalia, the slain emissary (AOG 26-28). In the third instance, Ezeulu summoned the body to inform it of the visit to him of the white man‟s messenger and of 36 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the summons served on him to see the white man the next morning (AOG 140-145). In AOG (140), it is clear that “elders and men of title” refers to “elders and ndichie”(see 268 of thesis for explanation on Ndichie); it thus could mean that this assembly comprise only of elders and each of these elders is a title holder or that this assembly is made up of elders plus men who hold title in the clan; the elders may or may not hold titles. In the structure of the narration, the former is true. The translation of “assembly of elders and men of title” by modulation as “Gruppe der Ältesten und Reichen” (trans. 26), i.e. group of elders and the wealthy/rich” is in the least misleading. The replacement of “men of title” with “the rich or the wealthy” is faulty for it could possibly lead to the erroneous conclusion that the elders are also the wealthy in the clan or that once one is wealthy and rich, one is necessarily admitted into this highest decision making body of the clan or still that wealth automatically qualifies to be an elder because one has become rich. It is a translation that touches on the value system of the culture. Agreed that taking a title involves huge expenses (cf. Ozo-society. Page 259 of thesis), wealth is not the sole, and indeed not the most important criterion for the conferment of noble title in the Igbo culture. A man‟s positive contribution and participation in the life and well being of the clan is a more important consideration. In AOG (69), Obiozo Ezikolo, the old man that drums the Ikolo for the clan, was conferred with the ozo-title many years ago when he was a young man by the six villages of Umuaro because of “his great art which stirred the hearts of his kinsmen so powerfully in times of war”. Besides, the (dignityof the) noble title may still be „lost‟ after one has been conferred with it. Although the Igbo society highly values personal achievement, this achievement is not only, and not necessarily measured by the level of material wealth one has amassed but by how much concrete positive impact one has made on the clan or community. A person can be so wealthy and still be so useless to the community. The semantic literal translation of “elders and men of title” in AOG (140) as “die Ältesten und die Männer von Rang” (trans. 172), i.e. the elders and the men of rank, would comparatively be considered an adequate and acceptable rendition. The translation here is grossly inadequate. 36 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 6.4 Body-Text Cultural Signifiers and Expressions. Example 1. Semantic: ‘Literalization’ The appearance of the new moon is an event of cultural significance in the source culture; from the happy and excited children to the equally happy but also observant adults. In such a scene in AOG (2) there are some native expressions of cultural significance: “Moon … may your face meeting mine bring good fortune” translated: “Mond … möge dein Gesicht mir Glück bringen, wenn es meines bescheint“ (trans. 10) Moon... may your face bring luck to me as it shines on mine. This expression made by both the senior and the younger wives of Ezeulu on their sighting of the new moon exemplifies Igbo oral expression and has been translated semantically by the literal technique with syntax adjusted to suit target language structures. The sighting of the moon can be obstructed by deceptive clouds and even trees; thus the flicker of shining of the moon is described as its face. A flicker of light falling on the face of the beholder or the speaker, in this case, is described as the face of the moon meeting the speaker‟s face. This „face-meeting‟ can bring good or bad fortune to the speaker. The expression of the women, which is a welcome to the moon, is cast in a language common with prayers, incantations, and religious ceremonies. The expression is obviously a prayer asking good fortune from the moon; for the moon can as well bring bad fortune “like the one under which Okuata died” with “its legs up in the air”; it was “an evil moon” (AOG 2). Good and evil moons are thus distinguished by their postures. The translation of “may your face meeting mine” as “wenn es [dein Gesicht] meines bescheint” weakens the flavour of source culture oral expression. However, it still preserves the mystic, ritualistic or religious significance of the statement. The translation is on the whole stll adequate. 36 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Example 2. Semantic:‘Literalization’ “The earth of Umuaro forbid” (AOG 167). Translated literally as: “Das Verhüte die Erde von Umuaro“ (trans. 201) Akuebue arrives Okperi to visit his friend, Ezeulu, who is being detained by the white man. In the exchange of pleasantries, Ezeulu says he does not think of returning home so soon having yet to see the white man who summoned and detained him, but who is said to be severely sick. Ezeulu adds that, perhaps the white man wants a chief priest to be sacrificed at his funeral to which statement Akuebue retorts as quoted above. The plea to “the earth of” Umuaro for protection, in the context of fright and threat to life, is a characteristic expression in the source culture exclaiming strong abhorrence of and distance from the ill-luck spoken of. The expression also has ritualistic depth as a call on the ancestors and deities, especially the earth-goddess of the clan, to protect one of their own from danger or in a precarious situation. It seems that the translators presume their target readers to be imaginative and intelligent enough to correlate the source text expression with a comparable German expression “Gott behute or bewahre”, i.e. “God or heaven forbid” in order to get to the meaning-in-(narrative) context of the expression. However, it is doubtful if the target readers will get to what the “earth of Umuaro” alludes to. It is significant cultural information to the target reader to know to what one pleads in the source culture when one is in such situation as described. The translation is inadequate. Example 3. Semantic: ‘Literalization’ The white man‟s chief messenger and his escort sent to summon Ezeulu to appear before the white man, Capt. Winterbottom, the next morning gives the summons to Ezeulu and tries to play down the trouble it would be for the the elderly Ezeulu to travel the long distance from Umuaro to Okperi on foot with the consolatory remark that the new road makes the walk‟ to Okperi enjoying and quick. He illustrated with the fact that they (himself and his escort) set out this morning “at the first cock-crow” (AOG 139) and had already arrived sooner than they had thought. Ezeulu turned down the summons of the white man to Okperi and, after the chief messenger and his escort had left, he caused 36 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY the Ikolo to be beaten, summoning the elders and men of title to an emergency meeting of the clan. The meeting began “as fowls went to roost” (AOG 141). Both “at the first cock-crow” and “… as fowls went to roost” have been translated semantically by the literal technique as “… fruh beim ersten Hahnenschrei … “(trans. 169), i.e … early with the first cock-crow; and “… als die Hühner auf die Stange steigen (trans 172)”, i.e. … as the fowls climb to the perch” respectively. The expressions “at the first cock-crow” and “… as fowls went to roost” show a culture that is still in harmony with nature and orders its events and activities with the cyclical rhythm of life and nature. While the semantic literal translation helps to bring out this understanding, it is doubtful if the target reader living farther away from “untouched nature” would correctly judge the “linear” time to which “at the first cock-crow” and “… as fowls went to roost” refers, notwithstanding that the translators added the clue “early” in their translation of “at the first cock-crow”. A complementary glossary entry will help the target readers to an adequate understanding of the cultural time reference. The translation is inadequate here. Example 4. Semantic: ‘Literalization’and elaboration AOG (206, 209) is the scene of the meeting in Ezeulu‟s house between Ezeulu and ten men of high title and elders of the clan over the alleged refusal of Ezeulu to name the date of the new yam feast. After the exchange of pleasantries (the drawing of nzu and the breaking of kolanut), Ezekwesili spoke on behalf of the others on the need to find solution to the stalemate that has prevented the naming of the day of the new yam feast. At the end of his speech, Ezeulu began his response by saying: “I welcome you. Your words have entered my ears” (AOG 206). The meeting finally reached the agreement that Ezeulu should consult the clan‟s offended deity, Ulu, to find out what sacrifice of appeasement it demands so that yam and other crops may be harvested and the clan saved from famine. Ezekwesili intervened in a controversy that was to engulf this agreement and brought the meeting to a close. Once again he spoke for the others: We have come to the end of our present mission. Our duty is to watch Ezeulu‟s mouth for a message from Ulu. We 36 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY have planted our yams in the farm of Anaba-nti. (AOG 209). (Emphasis mine). The cultural significance of the emphasized expressions is in the style of their idiomatic and figurative phrasings as concrete reflections of Igbo oral speech with all the emotions suited to the cultural occasion and the context of elders‟ discourse: the terseness of expressions and the tacitness or implicitness of meaning that characterizes the discourse. The idiomatic or native cultural speech is also an identification of culture; the Igbo characters speak Igbo though transliterated in Englsh. “Your words have entered my ears”, i.e I have heard what you said, is phrased in a figurative speech that personifies “words” and “ears” and gives a certain life and impact to the entire expression. “Our duty is to watch Ezeulu‟s mouth”, i.e. we wait for Ezeulu‟s reply, carries the imagery of one sitting patiently and alert at a duty post, focused on the keen observation of the lips of another so as not to miss when this other person moves his lips and makes a statement. This imagery is directly linked to the idiomatic expression “We have planted our yams in the farm of Anaba-nti”, which is drawn from the the cultivation of the yam crop. “Anaba-nti” is a fictional creature derived from the Igbo verb “ina-nti”, i.e. to listen, and refers to the personified condition or state of having to continuously wait and be attentive in expectation of a message often from an emissary. The depth of meaning brought to the closing remarks of Ezekwesili by the idiomatic imagery of “Anaba-nti” is in disclosing how greatly anxious the elders are to see the looming famine averted. This feeling is, however, not obvious in the controlled language of the meeting. The semantic literal translation does capture this expression of cultural identity through oral speech structures. However, the glossal entry explaining “Anaba-nti” fails to connect it to the depth of meaning of the closing statement by Ezekwesili. The entry for “Anaba-nti” reads “Eigenname, etwa: der nicht alles hören muß, wenn er ein Ziel erreichen will“(trans. 277), i.e. “personal name, meaning something like: one who does not need to hear all, if one must realise a goal“. This clarification is totally misleading and does not fit within both the narrative and cultural context of the discourse in the meeting. The translation is inadequate. 36 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Example 5: Communicative: Omission In AOG (6), Ezeulu has just finished roasting and eating one of the twelve sacred yams with which he reckoned the seasons for the clan. He moves to the household shrine and offered prayers to Ulu, the deity of the clan and to the ancestors. The translators omitted portions of this prayer: Ulu, I thank you for making me see another new moon. May I see it again and again. This household may it be healthy and prosperous. As this is the moon of planting may the six villages plant with profit. May we escape danger in the farm – the bite of a snake or the sting of the scorpion, the mighty one of the scrubland. May we not cut our shinbone with the matchet or the hoe. Let our wives bear male children. May we increase in numbers at the next counting of the villages so that we shall sacrifice to you a cow, not a chicken as we did after the last New Yam feast. May children put their fathers into the earth and not fathers their children. May good meet the face of every man and every woman. Let it come to the land of the riverine folk and to the land of the forest peoples (trans. 15) (Emphasis mine) The emphasized portion of the text unit is omitted from the target text. The speech of Ezeulu here is evidently in the language of prayer, incantation and ritual. The details of that prayer outline, among other things, the importance the culture attaches to its gods, the nature of the relationship that adherents of the traditional faith have with their deity and the nature of the expectations that the clan have on their deity. The insights into the source culture that are possible through the prayer are not fully realized through the omission. The translation is inadequate. Example 6: Levels of Language Use. Communicative: Substitution In AOG (182; trans. 103, 105; trans. 130, 153-4; trans. 186-8) and other similar passages, „pidginized‟ English has been substituted with standard German. Pidgin English is part of the outcome of the strain put on the native culture and language by the contact with colonialism or it could also be seen as the outcome of the complex relationship between the native culture and the imperial colonial culture. In substituting pidginized language with standard German, the target reader has no access to this aspect 36 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY of knowledge of the source cultural experience. However, it is a substitution that seemed unavoidable in view of the limitations of the German language in this regard. The substitution of „pidginized‟ English with standard German suggests that the German language does not have an equivalent language source that could carry the African colonial cultural experience. Although the German language has a contact- language variety that may be regarded as „broken‟, or „pidgin‟ German known as “Gastarbeiterdeutsch”, literally “Guestworker German”, this German emerged from the contact of the German language with southern European and Arab cultures. „Gastarbeiterdeutsch‟ describes the pidginized varieties of German spoken by many foreign workers employed in low-paid, less desirable jobs in Germany from the 1950‟s and especially in the 60‟s and 70‟s (Bußmann 157). These migrant workers came to Germany mostly from southern Europe and some from Northern Africa. The contact of the German language and culture with sub-Saharan African cultures must have been so comparatively short-lived that it could not develop a pidginized version that could carry the traditional African cultural and colonial experiences. Though there is a „pidgin version of German in Namibia known as “Küchendeutsch” literally „kitchen German‟, also referred to as „Namibian Black German‟, the translators may have considered it inadequate or insufficient for the purpose of the translation. „Namibian black German‟ spoken in Namibia by about 15,000, mostly elderly, persons originated from kitchen and low-job African employees of the German colonial masters (cf. Mühleisen 41) . Kolb (Language Choice and Language Variation) affirms the above view on the absence of a pidgin variety of German suitable for the translation of African Pidgin English found in African literatures and he gives reasons: The particular problem faced by German translators derives from the fact that the German-speaking countries do not have a colonial history comparable to that of England or France. Germany did not enter the colonial race untill the end of the last century, and the contact situation between the German colonizing power and the colonized has not given rise to a colonial (and by extension postcolonial) version of “world German”. German speakers, therefore, do not share the English or French speakers‟ experiences of postcolonial language use and cultural hybridity, nor has the influx of migrants mainly southern and southern 36 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY European since the 1950‟s led to a comparable linguistic phenomenon in the German speaking countries.(in Adeaga 38). However, the inability to develop a pidginized German that is of sufficient African cultural density for writing or translating African literary expressions and the constraint on the imaginativeness and creativity of German translators in recent times to improvise a pidginized form of the German language are partly accounted for by the felt need of Germans to preserve the purity of the German language. German colonial language policy, unlike those of British and the French that fostered the spread of their language and culture through the schools, promoted the education of Africans in native languages and restricted the teaching of minimal German to an elite class of native colonial employees. According to Bruckner: The main idea [implied in German colonial language policy] was that no decent German could be asked to learn the language of the natives. On the other hand, some basic communication between the colonial master and the subordinate had to be ensured. Therefore, these people there were to learn the colonial German in order to be able to receive orders of the master and to carry out their wishes (in Adeaga 45). A further ground of reluctance to spread the German language in the German colonial circumstance was the fear that the natives might revolt against them if they were taught the German language (cf. Adeaga 45). The same reason to preserve the purity of the German language could have accounted in part to the foreign text preference of German translators observed by Kolb (Language Choice and Language Variation): If we take a closer look at the published German translations of Anglophone African literature produced in African literature, we will see that authors writing in standard British English are more often translated than those writing in a version of locally modified English, especially if this modification is very pronounced. One exception to this is Ken Saro-Wiwa‟s Sozaboy (1985) that came out in German in 1988. Similarly, Carribean writers who make use of creole are less often translaed than those using a version of English that is closer to the British or American standard. 36 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The substitution of pidginized English with standard German is understandable but still inadequate in so far as it leads to obscuration of significant source cultural knowledge and to deviation from the authorial communicative purpose. 36 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Chapter Seven CONCLUSION 7.1. Summary of Analysis, Findings and Implications. The study analysed 287 Cultural Text Units (TFA 132, AOG 155) from eight cultural categories. The analysis of the 132 Cultural Text Units (CTU) from TFA gives the following results in Totals, Frequencies and Percentages: Approach Frequency & % of occurrence Nos. & % of Errors Semantic 78 (59.1%) 18 = 23.1% error of semantic appr. techn. = 13.6% error of total CTU‟s = 27.7% error of total CTU errors Communicative 54 (40.9%) 47 = 87% error of comm. appr. techn. = 35.6% error of total CTU‟s = 72.3% error of total CTU errors. TT. No. of Errors = 65 = 49.2% of TT CTU‟s (See Appendix III for CTU Table of Totals and Frequencies) The frequency (No.) and percentage (%) of adequacy of the semantic translation approach techniques to the total CTU`s translated with the semantic approach are 60 and 76.9% respectively; those of the communicative approach are 7 and 13% respectively. Both constitute altogether 67 and 50.8 in frequency and percentage of adequacy of total CTU respectively. The semantic approach techniques thus constitutes 89.6 percent adequacy of the adequately translated cultural text units while the communicative approach techniques make up for 10.4 percent adequacy. Altogether, the translation of TFA achieved 50.8% adequacy to intercultural postcolonial communication. 37 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The analysis of the 155 Cultural Text Units (CTU) from AOG gives the following results in Totals, Frequencies and Percentages: Approach Frequency & % of occurrence Nos. & % of Errors Semantic 121 (78.1%) 22 = 18.2% error of semantic appr. techn. = 14.2% error of total CTU‟s = 43.1% error of total CTU errors Communicative 34(21.9%) 29 = 85.3% error of comm. appr. techn. = 18.7% error of total CTU‟s = 56.9% error of total CTU errors. TT. No. of Errors = 51 =32.9% of TT CTU‟s (See Appendix IV for CTU Table of Totals and Frequencies) The frequency (No.) and percentage (%) of adequacy of the semantic translation approach techniques to the total CTU`s translated with the semantic approach are 99 and 81.8% respectively; those of the communicative approach are 5 and 14.7% respectively. Both constitute altogether 104 and 67.1 in frequency and percentage of adequacy of total CTU respectively. The semantic approach techniques thus constitutes 95.2 percent adequacy of the adequately translated cultural text units while the communicative approach techniques make up for 4.8 percent adequacy. On the whole, the translation of AOG achieved 67.1% adequacy to intercultural postcolonial communication. The nature of the errors include: unnecessary omission of proverbial and idiomatic allusions to source cultural knowledge, distortion of proverbial and idiomatic source cultural imagery, wrong choice of imagery substitutes, stylistic distortion of the flavour and tone of oral expressions, misspellings of source cultural names, unnecessary use of generic terms for available precise terms that adequately informs of the source culture, ethnocentric rendition of source text units, comparative disparaging of some source culture institutions, e.g. the nobility, use of pejorative equivalents, misreading of the narrative and cultural contexts. 37 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY The nature of the effects or results of the errors include: obliterating identity indicators of source cultural imageries and structure of expressions, distortion and misrepresentation of the beliefs of the source culture, e.g. „chi‟, „ofo, obliteration of cultural identity value of source cultural oral expressions, distortion of the cultural plot and loss of cultural knowledge through misspellings of personal names, imposition of target culture views on or silencing of authorial voice, obliterating or obscuring the rational capacity of the source culture, word equivalents that mocks the source culture, loss of cultural knowledge and depth of meaning, distortion and misrepresentation of cultural values through unsuitable equivalent words and images, e.g., presents the bride- price as the market value of a wife, and the culture as supportive of men beating women, imposition of the beliefs and values of the target culture on the source culture. The analysis of the translation of TFA and AOG above shows an obvious intention by the translators to align the target texts with the authorial communicative purpose of the source texts judging by the dominant use of translating techniques that support the semantic approach. This demonstrated intention (TFA 59.1% and AOG 78.1%) is set back, however, by the total frequency of errors (TFA 49.2% and AOG 32.9%) from both the semantic approach techniques (TFA 13.6% and AOG 14.2%) and communicative approach techniques (TFA 35.6% and AOG 18.7%). The respective 49.2 and 32.9 per cent error occurence in the translation of cultural text units shows the degree of inadequacy of the translation to the communication of cultural knowledge and to identity ascription to the source culture. These errors occur either as cultural knowledge not provided in the translation, partially provided, falsely provided and/or pejoratively or disparagingly provided which impinges on the perception of the source culture society and people. Furthermore, these errors are dispersed across the TFA and AOG texts most times implicitly. The foreign target reader is not aware of them; they do not disturb the smooth flow of the story and plot for him. He absorbs them passively and they form part of his experience and perception of the people of the source culture. The respective 89.6 and 95.2 percent adequacy rate (TFA and AOG) of the semantic approach techniques in the adequately translated CTU‟s and the high rate of inadequacy of the communicative approach techniques in the total inadequately translated CTU‟s (TFA 72.3% and AOG 56.9%) show that the semantic approach techniques are to be 37 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY preferred in the translation of postcolonial African literary texts of the achebean type: texts that are deeply permeated with the assertive presence, individuality and authority of the traditional African source culture, in which form and content merge to carry the source culture as both meaning and message in a dialogic or discursive narrative engagement of the Other in order to refute the denial of the identity and existence of the African culture. However, the 27.7%(TFA) and 43.1%(AOG) error contribution of the semantic approach techniques to the total percentage of error in the wrongly translated CTU‟s (i.e. TFA 49.2% and AOG 32.9%) points to the fact that the mere use of the semantic approach techniques does not necessarily guarantee an error free target text that meets the criteria of adequacy and authenticity for intercultural postcolonial communication. On the other hand, the 13%(TFA) and 14.7%(AOG) contribution of the communicative approach techniques to the adequacy of the adequately translated CTU‟s shows that in spite of their limited success rate, they are not totally dispensable in the translation of the achebean cultural hypertext type. They are, however, to be advisedly and prudently used. Furthermore, the very high percentage error rate TFA (87%) and AOG (85.3%) of the communicative Approach techniques in the total CTU‟s translated with the communicative approach techniques shows that the TFA and AOG texts require a less use of the communicative approach techniques than have been deployed or have been wrongly deployed for an adequate translation of the text to achieve the authorial communicative purpose in the target culture. The translators can, therefore, be said to have unnecessarily overused or rather misused the techniques. On the other hand, they may also be seen to have so used the techniques manipulatorily as a form of achieving control of how some parts of the source text would be read and understood by the target readers; for example, the omission of kingship, the subtle distortion of the source cultural view of the bride-price, the subtle distortion of authorial voice, etc in pages 176-9, 182-4, 271-2 of this thesis respectively. The unique challenge of the achebean literary source texts to translation into German arises from its complexity mostly due to its strong source cultural focus and intertextuality, its stylistic bent by which cultural knowledge and revealers of cultural identity also occur at subtexts of narration in allusions. In both works, the cultural 37 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY narrative runs parallel with the textual narrative but much of the time as a subtext in allusions. Critical details and knowledge of the source culture that did not receive equal visibility in the surface structure of the story/narratives have been implied in specific words and phrases, in transliterated native oral expressions and dialogues, images, scenes and contexts that allude to meanings in the source culture such that these features leave the narrative texts of TFA and AOG with a deep structure of meaning and knowledge and an enduring potential to culturally mean. Furthermore is the correlate of Igbo-English by which known usages of English words and expressions are modified by derived Igbo cultural usages thus creating the problem of finding appropriate equivalence between German and English; the distance of Igbo and German cultures and the consequent absence of common cultural contexts, emotions and situations in certain cases. An additional challenge is the nature of the message. The source culture is the message and this message runs in both the surface and deep structures of the narratives. Both the obvious details and descriptions of the culture as well as its implicit details and portrayals carried in the allusions of literal images and metaphors, specific cultural words, contexts and concepts, native oral structures and expressions belong to meaning and message. Consequently, any difference between meaning as a cultural construct and message as a linguistic construct becomes highly blurred and the supposedly translational task of extracting the message or the „meaning of the message‟ from the source language and culture and clothing it in the garb of the target language and culture (Schulte 11) becomes extremely daunting. At several points, the translators have tried to deal with these challenges through the creative use of more than one translating techniques for a text unit either from the semantic approach techniques or from the communicative approach techniques or from a combination of both the semantic and communicative approach techniques. In more cases than not, the translators have successfully preserved many elements of the Igbo African culture and effectively transferred the aesthetic and expressive values of the the source texts into the target texts/culture. There are also impressive instances in which the translators have, even, improved on the presentation of the source culture by the author, and therefore, improved on the message (see pp, 23, 206, 225-6, 241-2 of the thesis for few of such instances). 37 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY However, the analysis of the 49.2(TFA) and 32.9(AOG) percent error in the translation of the total CTU‟s shows that the most of the errors come from a flawed knowledge, and in some cases a total ignorance of aspects of the source culture and from the misreading of narrative but, most especially, of cultural contexts and cultural plots than from wrong choices of translation techniques and isolated, though significant, instances of bias and ethnocentrism. Notwithstanding, the distortion of the cultural plot and context through the misspellings of personal names reveals an instructive error from poor proof-reading of the translated texts; and the misreading of the cultural plot plus ignorance of the source culture can as well lead to a wrong choice of translating techniques. The German language has coped fairly well in carrying the Igbo African cultural experience. It has been helped by its belonging with English to the Germanic languages where both share same root meaning in a number of words and expressions. The borrowing or loan technique of the semantic approach and the literal level translation of a considerable number of the proverbs, idioms, images and oral expressions and dialogues ensure the accommodation of difference and Otherness in the target text and by the target culture. The same is true of the use of German „idiomatic‟ expressions to translate non- idiomatically phrased aspects of the narration. The translation of Pidgin English into standard German, however, denies a significant aspect of the strain and dislocation and reality that the colonial intrusion brought on the Igbo African culture and society. Nevertheless, the greatest liability on the German language to better translate the achebean text, reflect accurately the Igbo African cultural experience and to fully preserve in the target text the integrity of the African cultural identity is the ignorance of the translators on various aspects of the Igbo culture and their misreading of the source cultural contexts. Consequently, they are not able to fully utilize correctly all the resources of the German language. The glossaries and notes, which in themselves are useful and commendable techniques for cultural knowledge communication and understanding in translating such source texts, however, lost considerably their usefulness due to this source-cultural-knowledge deficit of the translators. This knowledge deficit of the translators significantly reduces the adequacy of the target text to correctly inform 37 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY about the source culture. At several points in the translation of cultural components, the identity of the source culture is distorted and, even falsified. These distortions and misrepresentations of the source culture and the incorrect renditions of the various aspects of source cultural knowledge do not permit a confidently positive answer to the question on whether the postcolonial source texts have been so translated to give the target readership an adequate and authentic knowledge and understanding of the source culture. Though the translators may be said to have considerably permitted the emergence of difference or Otherness, i.e. they have not domesticated the source text, this Otherness has, however, been significantly distorted that it functionally losses its full capacity to correctly and adequately identify the source culture and society in every respect. This distortion of Otherness amounts to a falsification of cultural identity and a clear deficit in the optimal usefulness of the target texts to fully promote intercultural understanding and relations as well as to promote intercultural German scholarship. This is because the target texts are not representative of their source texts in every essentials of source cultural content. In the consideration that one of the complementary approaches to German Studies in Nigeria, and indeed in Africa, can be through the reading and study of African literatures in German translations (Ibemesi 312-313), faulty translated African literary texts that „subtily‟ bring back distorted narratives and images of the African culture and identity discredits such an approach and the usefulness it could serve to intercultural interaction between African and German cultures. Such usefulness can include enabling the acquisition of the German language within the African environment while fully preserving the knowledge of the African culture and the attitude of Self acceptance in the African learners. In other words reading, speaking, writing and hearing the German Language with the African culture, and thereby realising interculturality by appropriating the German language through the German-translated African text. Furthermore, the use of these translated texts in the teaching of African literature and culture in the classroom of German-speaking countries posseses the risk of misinforming the German learners about African cultures, thereby continuing the negative stereotyping of Africa and Africans. 37 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Comparing the two translations, the translation of AOG achieves a more adequacy rate than that of TFA, which translation appears “experimental” and as if translated in haste. The TFA translation lacks sufficient introduction to the translation that could help cushion the expectation and tolerance of the target readership for an „exotic‟ culture and cultivate their interest for the target text. This is unlike the AOG target text that provided a thirteen page postscript on the author, the content of the story, the language of the source text and the translation. AOG also constructed the family chart of Ezeulu on a full page to help the reader cope with the complexity of names and relationships in the African family. TFA lacks glossary to explain difficult Igbo words, though it uses footnote in few places. This thesis reveals that bias and ethnocentrism exist in the German translation of the achebean texts studied. The obvious intention demonstrated by the translators to abide by the authorial communicative purpose or Skopos of the source texts, however, does suggest that the bias and ethnocentrism are not altogether willfully realised by the translators, they rather illustrate a case of the translator, helped by his ignorance of important and critical aspects of the source culture, not being aware of his own ethnocentrism; a case in which the ethnocentric collective subconscious cultural self invades and subverts the focus or concentration of the consciousness of the unobservant translator: it is the ethnocentric collective subconscious cultural self resisting the disruption of the meaning on which its own reality and stability are organised by an intruding meaning or an intruding cultural other. Put more succintly, the German European cultural self resists the total deconstruction of its own perception of the African cultural other, a perception by which it contrasts and defines itself. Consequently, these incorrect and misleading translations and misrepresentations of cultural knowledge and identity, which altogether account for a significant 49.2 %( TFA) and 32.9 %( AOG), become, inversely, counter-narratives of culture and cultural identity to the achebean source texts in the asymmetrical contestation of meanings and identities between the „postcolony‟ and the imperial metropole. This is because these misrepresentations not only obscure the full emergence of difference and otherness and distort and erode in significant respects the view of source cultural identity of the African culture presented by the source texts, they also beginn straightaway a „new‟ type of 37 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY negative imaging of the African source culture to the target reader: An imaging that follows the „immortal dictum‟ of Albertt Schweitzer: “The African is indeed my brother, but my junior brother” (cited in Achebe, Colonialist Criticism 3). It is an imaging that has conceded a culture, and by implication an identity, to the African but an inferior culture and identity of perhaps a “third place” status, coming from a “third world”. This imaging is thus to consolidate the European perception of its self to be still superior to the African self that has strongly asserted itself and forced its presence and recognition on the European stage, in particular, and on the world stage, in general, through African postcolonial narratives. Furthermore, the translation errors, in serving as counter-narratives, reveal a mode of rewriting cultural identity or of cultural identity ascription in postcolonial literary translation by which the claim of the source culture to a differentiated and authentic Self is both considerably conceded and simultaneously subverted or minimalised in order to retain the excolonised cultural identity as a cultural unequal and disadvantaged in relations. The Eurocentric views of the African Self contested in or through the dialogic and discursive narrative of the African postcolonial literature are partially repatriated into the translated African text. By this repatriation, the „ignorant‟ target reader of the translated text accepts the distorted views as the authentic African‟s view of himself. There are, among others, two critical outcomes or implications of this counter- narrative of culture through translation on the target readership and on the source culture. The first is that whatever the significance of conceding a cultural identity to the source culture, this concession is rarely likely going to – it is apparently not meant to – make the German reading public of the European West come closer to or make them feel more identified with the people of the source culture ostensibly being represented. This raises the question of how ethically responsible the translators have been in continuing the alienation of the feeling of common or shared humanity with the people of the source culture which their translation engenders. The second relates to the formation of the African literary canon. Translations can be a means of establishing a canonical status for their originals. The universal merit of the two works of Achebe under study is based on both their thematic concerns (revealing and establishing the authenticity and validity of the African cultural self) and on the aesthetics and language of their production. This 37 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY merit also argues for an African literary canon that is no more based entirely on an imitative relation to the Western literary tradition and canon. A translation that obscures or denies this literary merit either with regard to its thematic concern or its aesthetic value or both erodes the canonical status of the Achebean works and their claim to a differentiated African literary canon. What the German translations did with the errors they generated was to qualify the intergrity of the African cultural self by pointing out or enumerating the comparative defects of that self. Finally, the repartriations of contested and „by-Africa-rejected‟ Eurocentric views and images of Africa into African postcolonial narratives through the communicative medium of translation creates dysfunctional African postcolonial narratives that are no longer capable of carrying and fully representing the African cultural identity beyound their source texts and raises questions not only on the African identity of these translated texts but also on the nature and extent of the responsibility that African authors and intellectuals need to undertake to avoid and/or to void such impairment of the integrity of African cultural identity in translated Africa postcolonial narratives. 7.2. Contributions: The combined use of the Context or meaning theory of Intercultural Communication, Postcolonial literary and cultural theory in Postcolonial Studies, and the Skopos translation theory in translation studies has been beneficial to this research. It has enabled the view of translation as part of a dialogic and discursive textual practice that not only produces or modulates cultural knowledge that is critical to intercultural understanding but it (translation) connects with power and ideology, constructs identities and subjectivities, potentially regulates conduct and defines how cultures are represented, may be thought about and studied. The joint use of the theories has revealed the existence of asymmetry in textual relations between the ST and the TT and the central significance of culture as contested meaning and identity in the translation of African postcolonial literary texts into German. In doing that, it sets forward a theoretical framework for translating and studying African postcolonial literature from a European language and culture into another European language and culture. 37 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY These theories as jointly used and the methodology to this study have enabled the discovery of an underlying motive or goal of translating the achebean texts studied through the examination of the translation approaches and techniques used by the translators. They also contribute to the insight that a demonstrated intention to translate by the authorial communicative purpose, i.e. the source text Skopos, can hide an undeclared and mostly subtle (even if in some cases unintended) practice of cultural knowledge and cultural identity manipulation in the translation of African postcolonial texts. A genuine intention to translate according to the purpose set out for a source text by its author is thus only a first place to begin in translating a postcolonial cultural source text: that goal may finally not be fully achieved or not achieved at all based on factors some of which lie in the translator himself and of which he may or may not be aware of. These factors may include prejudices and ethnocentrism that have compacted in the innermost places of his being that he may not be aware of but which intrudes and overcome his genuine intentions; secondly because of his ignorance of the cultures he is translating out of (and perhaps, into). This ignorance affects his decisions and choices negatively; and thirdly, because of the use of the wrong translating approaches and techniques to translate cultural text units. Each cultural text unit in translation is unique and needs to be attentively treated. Furthermore, this study affirms the fact that cultural identity is indeed not given, moreso, in a world being speedily globalised; it is contested, also in textual practices like translation. Pursuantly, this researh contributes the awareness that keener interest, therefore, needs to be paid to the quality of the translations of African postcolonial literary texts into European languages in order to enhance a truly constructive dialogue (whether in teaching and learning and research or in actual personal and group relations) between excolonial and excolonised cultures that will promote global democratic and progressive changes. The contestation of cultural identity and cultural knowledge and the established importance of both in intracultural self perception and cohesion and in international cultural relations justify that those authors of texts of African cultures that are being translated have to look beyond the euphoria of the number of languages their cultural literary texts have been translated into and the millions of copies their translated texts 38 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY have sold and take a closer look at how the cultural identities they present in their works, have been translated and represented. For example, when authors of postcolonial African literatures grant rights for the translation of their fictional works to translation and publishing houses, such rights can include contractual clauses that guarantee the adequacy and authenticity of the content of these literary works. Besides, bilingual and bicultural authors can undertake to translate their own works into the foreign language or at least to get sufficiently involved in the translating process. The same applies to African translation professionals, intellectuals and scholars who need to be involved in the translation of African narratives into European and other foreign languages and cultures. They also need to critique already translated African (postcolonial) narratives to point out cases of cultural identity misrepresentations and to suggest translation reviews or possibly undertake a retranslation themselves. Finally, this research contributes in the continuing discourse on the basic problems of translation, such as the role of the translator in the translation process and his or her approach to the text from the point of view of comprehension, interpretation or creativity, as well as the impact of text types in the translation process, and suggests the combined application of postcolonial and intercultural hermeneutics in translating and in teaching the translation of selected (i.e. postcolonial) African literary texts from one European language and culture into other European cultures and languages. 7.3. Recommendations The German versions of TFA and AOG are recommended for translation review and/or retranslation. This is to correct identified errors of translation that prevents the presentation of an authentic African cultural identity and to make the texts suitable for intercultural German teaching and learning and research. Considerable and commendable as the effort of the translators of the achebean postcolonial literary source texts studied, TFA and AOG, are, the target texts have not fully provided the target readership with the adequate and authentic cultural knowledge in the source texts to uphold without bias the identity of the Igbo African cultural self. By this deficit, the translators failed to trustworthily and fully realise the authorial communicative purpose, though they apparently intended to realise that in principle. 38 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Furthermore, the translators‟ freedom in translating or transcreating the STs is to be restrained by the necessities not to destroy the Otherness of the source culture. They are to adequately represent the message and meaning of the STs, which is the source culture in this instance and to be a trustworthy voice for the author. They are not to distort the authorial communicative purpose for the texts nor silence the authorial voice. To do any of these amounts to an act in bad faith, a hypocritical manipulation of the source text message, and a betrayal of the ethical responsibility that has to guide the translators in this instance. The authorial communicative purpose, i.e. the Skopos, of the achebean texts under study and the text type to which they belong have been well established in this thesis. Our assumption that the Skopos of the source texts (ST) is the Skopos of the target texts (TTs) holds true in so far as the dominant approach and techniques used in the translation of the texts clearly declare the ST Skopos to be the intended Skopos of the TTs. This also logically implies a „Translat‟ or TT that has to reflect the achebean source text type and fully carry the authorial communicative purpose. Though the mistranslations identified in the body of the analysis apparently bear relations to the fact acknowledged among translation scholars that target texts are no perfect replicas of their source texts because the translating process necessarily admits loses and gains in the relations between source and target texts. Beyond the question of perfection, however, is the question of adequacy and authenticity to communicative purpose, i.e. the Skopos, and to text type which suggests the limits of the translators‟ freedom and the nature of loses and gains admissible in the target texts. Thirdly, losses to be admitted in the translation of such African postcolonial texts as the achebean texts studied are to be such that come from extreme irresolvable untranslatability due to the difference and distance of culture and language between the source and target texts and the consequent creative improvisations forced upon the translators to deal with the untranslatability. This means, in essence, that the target language and culture lack the corresponding and relevant shared experience that makes a direct equivalence possible between aspects of the source and target texts. While the translators improvise language to minimise or remove misunderstanding by making the otherness of the source culture accessible, they, however, have to preserve the difference 38 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY or otherness of the cultures and further ensure that they come as close as possible to what is adequate and authentic to the purpose of the translation and to provide notes on what have been lost. The importance and role of the translator in this instance is in bridging the gap of cultural misunderstanding but not through removing or obscuring cultural difference and distance. He fulfils this role in two complementary ways. On the one hand, he makes obvious what is common in both cultures through appropriate comparisons that assure the equal validity and authenticity of both cultures. On the other hand, he makes the target culture/readership to participate in the cultural experiences of the source culture. He does this by making the source culture accessible to the target culture/readership through explicating and explaining its otherness without bias and ethnocentrism while at the same time insisting on the cultural distance and difference between source and target cultures. (cf. Nord 870). In other words, the translator so translates the cultural text units with their imageries, emotions and allusions, making implicit cultural knowledge accessible, that the target reader can participate in experiencing the source culture while keeping the difference between the source and target cultures evident. This textual participation in cultural experience through the accessibility of difference but without obscuring or supressing the difference and the separate identity claim of the source culture is important because difference is what identifies a culture. Difference further matters because it is essential to meaning; meaning does not exist outside difference. Additionally, meaning is consructed through dialogue with the other, and the other is important to the constitution of the self (cf. Hall 1997:234-7). Thus “without relations of difference, no representation could occur” (Hall 1996:115). This translator‟s role, if appropriately fulfilled, brings to the understanding of the target readership that the source culture is validly and authentically a culture, but understandably different; it is neither an irrational expression of barbarism and subhumanity nor a pathological adaptation to slavery and/or colonialism. The source culture and its people will have to be related with in full recognition and consideration of their difference. 38 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Fourthly, The semantic translation approach techniques augmented with appropriate and judiciously deployed communicative approach techniques, a thorough knowledge of source and target cultures and languages, plus a sincere and non- ethnocentric attitude and will to truthfully present and create understanding is is judged to be bests suited, and, therefore, recommended for translating such cultural postcolonial texts as the Achebean texts studied. This analysis shows that there are more cultural text units that needed to have been translated with the „semantic or, as the case may be, lexical cushioning‟ technique, i.e. a literal or loan rendition of source cultural term or expression or concept combined with a creative elaboration or paraphrase. This elaboration may be in the form of creative in-text notes or gloss explanations. “Creative” here means that the translator has to be imaginative enough not to drown the smooth literary flow of narration with his style of elaboration. The additional in-text and glossary enteries will no doubt expand the volume of the translated text and may have the risk of interrupting the smooth flow of reading of the translated text. However, it is important that the translator bring the reader close enough as possible to understanding the source culture; for understanding is the sole aim of communication. In addition, the use of the substitution technique for source text cultural expressions, terms and concepts must, in the context of the authorial communicative purpose, be cautiously used as the very last resort in the face of an extreme irresolvable untranslatability. Substitution, in the context of this study, denies the rational capacity of the source culture to interact and comprehend its environment and to process enduring wisdom from that interaction and comprehension, it denies the capacity of the source culture to tame and order its environment by the power of naming, and gives the impression that the target language and culture is rescuing the source language and culture by providing it with terms or expressions for what it (the source language/culture) is not capable of naming or expressing in its (the source) culture. Furthermore it cuts off the stories and cultural experience that possibly inhabit such substituted source cultural terms and names. Besides, the target reader is prevented from seeing or experiencing the source culture as different. Interculture presurpposes the very idea of difference or Otherness. The source culture need not be accepted on the cultural terms of the target 38 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY culture, but on the terms of its own Otherness mediated in communication. The translated source culture in its Otherness must be left with its ability to shock, to mean and to negotiate its own meaning(s). On names and naming, Osundare makes these significant assertions that applies to terms and concepts as well as to persons and for which we quote him in full: The world is shaped – and frequently determined – by the words we use for expressing it. In naming the world we also name ourselves, evoking a recognizable, tangible construct of that panoply of realities which constitute what we call human experience. Names serve as the door to the house of experience, a guide to hidden meanings in the shadowy nooks of time and place. Names tell stories, liberate or imprison, they may serve as self-fulfilling prophecies. Names commit; which is why the Yoruba say that it is only mad people who do not mind the names they are called, or who refuse to see the difference between the names they choose to bear and the ones the world prefers to call them. The negative politics of representation so famous in contemporary literary discourse is very much the product of misrepresentation, as it is of mis-naming and mis- verbalization. (204). Fiftly, the analyses carried out in this study suggest that an effective means to realise the Skopos of the target text in intercultural postcolonial translation is to break up the entire source text into cultural text units (CTUs). Each CTU is treated uniquely with attention to the overall purpose of the target text. The translator has to judge for each CTU what approach and technique(s) is appropriate to most adequately align the result of translating the CTU to the overall purpose of the target text taking into consideration critical relations to the source text in terms of variables such as message, meaning, cultural asymmetry, the politics of power and ideology, cultural identity representation, and so on. Finally, The cultural relations of asymmetry, of power and the representation of cultural identity between former coloniser and former colonised cultures and peoples need to be duly taken into consideration in the translation of African postcolonial literatures into Western languages and cultures. 38 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 7.4. Suggestion for further Research This research examined the relations between the Skopos of the source texts and that of the target texts, between both Skopos and the translating approaches and techniques deployed by the translators, and the translators‟ role and involvement in the translation process. These relationships were examined within intercultural communication and postcolonial theory contexts to ascertain their impact on the translational transfer of African cultural knowledge, the representation of the African cultural identity to the German reading world; and their effects on cultural identity perception and intercultural German scholarship. This study can be furthered beyond the Skopos of the source and translated African postcolonial texts to examining the location of these translated African texts in the cultural polysystem of the German people. Such study may either be carried out with only the two texts studied here or in a corpus study with other African postcolonial texts translated into German. The recommended study can, among other things, clarify the function of the African postcolonial texts within the German cultural polysystem and reveal, perhaps, a deeper level interculturality. 7.5. Postscript Achebe has with great discipline and artistry avoided a purely ethnographic and, consequently, avoided also, dull and uninteresting details of the Igbo African culture. Such abstract ethnographic details could overwhelm his „texts‟ as prose literature and frustrate the means that would be the most effective for the reception of the cultural knowledge he communicates. This means, that has the potential to most effectively reach the widest segment of his targeted readership with this knowledge, is the passive absorption of knowledge through leisurely (or serious) reading of „enjoyable‟ seriously plotted literature. He has, however, foregrounded the narratives of both TFA and AOG in the Igbo African culture in order to present an integrated, coherent and authentic Cultural knowledge and African cultural identity The invaluable significance of cultural identity and cultural knowledge, also at the international cultural relations arena, established in this thesis and upon which the contestations of cultural identity and representation are based – a contest into which the translator by the intricate nature of his/her profession is forced to partake, perhaps against 38 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY his/her will – affirms that translation in an intercultural postcolonial communication context is far beyound an activity in the linguistic and scientific analysis of abstracted language structures and lexis. The above affirmation is further reinforced by the fact evident in this thesis that literary texts in particular and their translated versions – and by extension all texts – in some way structure our perceptions of reality. They are the means by which we apprehend the real, the everyday and the quality of texts may help or hinder us in gaining a critical distance from the everyday. These facts make imperative the need for translators to have a critical and dialectical attitude that is sensitive to the tension and asymmetry between cultures and that is aware of cultural and textual practices in translation that block the development of a more democratic and equal relations between cultures. This critical and dialectical attitude supports the negation of those attitudes and textual practices in translation by the self-designated „higher‟ and stronger, imperial cultures that continue to denigrade the so called “low” and “peripheral” cultures of Africa; and implies the deployment of translation approaches and techniques and textual practices that will permit the development of the collective consciousness necessary for a global progressive change. It further means that the translator will be courageous to sincerely acknowledge any limitations he/she has regarding his/her competence in the source and target languages and cultures and find adequate remedies for his/her limitations before embarking on the translation of the cultural other. He/she also has to be aware of himself/herself, his/her ethnocentrism and prejudices and resolve any conflict of conscience he/she has before embarking on translating such cultural texts as this thesis has studied. 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Wolf, Michaela. “Postkolonialimus.” Handbuch Translation (zweite, verbesserte Auflage). Hrsg. Mary Snell-Hornby, Hans G. Hönig und Paul Kußmaul. Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, 1999. 102-104. Print. Xu, Li-Sheng. “Strategic Competence for Intercultural Communication.” SCIENCE, Journal of Zhejiang University. Vol.1, No. 4. 2000. 476-480. Web. 02 Dec. 2006. 41 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Appendix I Proverbs sampled from AOG 1. A man does not go to his in-laws with wisdom (AOG 12). Ein Mann soll nicht mit weisen Reden zu seinem Schwager gehen (trans. 22). [Semantic: Literal]. 2. ... the little bird, nza, who ate and drank and challenged his personal god to a single combat (AOG 14). ... der kleine Vogel nza, der aß und trank und seinen Gott zu einem Zweikampf herausforderte (trans. 24). [Communicative-Semantic: Omission, Literal]. 3. Wisdom is like a goatskin bag; everyman carries his own (AOG 16). Die Weisheit ist wie eine Ziegenledertasche; jeder Mann trägt seine eigene (trans. 26). [Semantic: Literal] 4. If the lizard of the homestead should neglect to do the things for which its kind is known, it will be mistaken for the lizard of the farmland (AOG 17). Wenn die Hauseidechse nicht tut, wofür ihre bekannt ist, wird man sie für die Eidech des Ackerlandes halten (trans. 27). [Semantic: Literal]. 5. When an adult is in the house, the she-goat is not left to suffer the pains of parturition on its tether (AOG 18). Wenn ein Mann zu Hause ist, läßt er die Geiß Schmerzen an die Kette gebären (trans. 28). [Communicative-Semantic: Modulation, Literal]. 6. The fly that has no one to advise it, follows the corpse into the grave (AOG 27). Die Fliege, die keinen Ratgeber hat, folgt dem Leichnam ins Grab. (trans.38). [Semantic: Literal]. 7. Let the slave who sees another cast in a shallow grave know that he will be buried in the same way when his day comes (AOG 27). Der Sklave der sieht, wie ein andere in ein flaches Grab geworfen wird, weiß wohl, daß man ihn auf gleiche Art begräbt, wenn seine Stunde kommt (trans. 38). [Semantic: Literal, Transposition]. 8. The man who carries a deity is not the king (AOG 27). Ein Mann, der einer Gottheit dient, ist kein König (trans. 39). [Communicative-Semantic: Modulation, Literal]. 42 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 9. A man might have Nqwu and still be killed by Ojukwu (AOG 39). Ein Mann könne wohl Ngwu auf seiner Seite haben und dennoch von Ojukwu getötet werden (trans. 52). [Semantic: Literal, Elaboration]. 10. The inquisitive monkey gets a bullet in the face (AOG 44). Die Neugierige Affe bekommt leicht eine Kugel ins Gesicht (trans. 58). [Semantic: Literal]. 11. If you want to see a mask dancing very well, you do not stand in one place (AOG 46). Wenn du eine tanzende Maske gut sehen willst, darfsr du nicht nur auf einer Stelle stehenbleiben (trans. 60). [Semantic: Literal]. 12. . . .Whatever music you beat in a great man's household, there is somebody who can dance to it (AOG 46). Was für eine Musik du auch an einem solchen Ort (den Häusern aller großen Männer) auf deiner Trommel schlägst, es ist immer jemand da, der danach tanzen kann (trans. 60). [Semantic: Literal]. 13. A coward may cover the ground with his words but when the time comes to fight he runs away (AOG 50). Ein Feigling mag den Boden mit Worten verteidigen - wenn aber die Zeit zum Kämpfen kommt, läuft er fort (trans. 65). [Semantic: Litera]. 14. A man who brings home ant-infested faggots should not complain if he is visited by lizards (AOG 59). Wenn ein Mann Riesig mit Ameisen dran nach Hause bringt, sollte er sich nicht beklagen, daß ihn die Eidechsen heimsuche (trans. 70). [Semantic: Literal]. 15. The man who has no gift of speaking says his kinsmen have said all there is to say (AOG 63). Der Mann, der nicht die Gabe des Sprechers hat, gern behauptet, seine Verwandten hätten alles gesagt (trans. 80). [Semantic: Literal, transposition]. 16. A man, who knows that his anus is mall, does not swallow an udala seed (AOG 70). Ein Mann, der weiß, daß sein After klein ist, schluckt keinen Udala-samen (trans. 89). [Semantic: Literal]. 17. When the roof and the walls of a house fall in, the ceiling is not left standing (AOG 85). Wenn das Dach und die Wände eines hauses einstürzen, bleibt die Decke nicht oben (trans. 106). [Semantic: Literal]. 18. Only a foolish man can go after a leopard with his bare hands (AOG 85). Aber nur ein Idiot geht den Leoparden mit den nackten Händen an (trans. 106). [Semantic: Literal]. 42 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 19. The stranger will not kill his host with his visit, when he goes may he not go with a swollen back (AOG 85). Die Fremde wird sein Gastgeber nicht durch seinen Besuch töten; wenn er geht, will er nicht mit einem geschwollenen Rücken gehen (trans. 106). [Semantic: Literal]. 20. The death that will kill a man begins as an appetite (AOG 89). Der Tod, der später einen Mann umbringt, fängt an als ein bisschen Durst (trans. 111). [Semantic: Literal, Transposition]. 21. He is a fool who treats his brother worse than a stranger (AOG 94). Ein Dummkopf ist [er], wer seinen Bruder schlecter behandelt als einen Fremden (trans. 117). [Semantic: Literal]. 22. A boy, who tries to wrestle with his father, gets blinded by the old man‟s loin cloth (AOG 99). Ein Junge, der mit seinem Vater zu ringen versucht, wird von des alten Mannes Hüfttuch geblendet (trans 123). [Semantic: Literal]. 23. We chase away the wild cat; afterwards we blame the hen (99). Laßt uns die Wildkatze fortjagen und nachher die Henne schelten (trans. 123). [Semantic: Literal]. 24. A woman who starts cooking before another must have more broken utensils (AOG 100). Eine Frau, die eher al seine andere zu kochen beginnt, auch mehr zerbrochene Küchengeräte hat (trans. 123). [Semantic: Literal]. 25. When an old woman stops in her dance to point again and again in the same direction, we can be sure that somewhere there something happened long ago which touched the roots of her life (AOG 100). Wenn wir eine alte Frau in ihrem Tanz innenhalten sehen, um wieder und wieder nach einer Richtung zu zeigen, dann können wir sicher sein, daß dort vor langer Zeit etwas geschah, das die Wurzel ihres Lebens berührt (trans. 123-4). [Semantic: Literal]. 26. We do not bypass a man and enter his compound (AOG 111). Wir können nicht ein Mann vorbei in seinem Hof treten (trans. 138). [Semantic: Literal]. 27. The time a man wakes up is his morning (AOG 111). Die Zeit, da ein Mann auf wacht, ist sein Morgen. (trans. 138). [Semantic: Literal]. 28. Greeting in the cold harmattan is taken from the fireside (AOG 113). Eine Begrüßung im kalten Harmattan geht auf Kosten des Herdfeuers (trans. 140). [Semantic: Literal]. 42 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 29. The flute player must sometimes stop to wipe his nose (120). Der Flötenspieler manchmal innehalten muß, um sich die Nase zu putzen (trans. 148). [Semantic: Literal]. 30. The lizard who threw confusion into his mother‟s funeral rite, did he expect outsiders to carry the burden of honouring his dead? (AOG 125). Die Eidechse, die die Feierlichkeiten bei idem Begräbnis ihrer Mutter zunichte machte – erwartet sie, daß Fremde sich Mühe geben würden, die Tote zu ehren (trans. 154). [Semantic: Literal]. 31. The offspring of a hawk cannot fail to devour chicks) AOG 126). Der Nachkommen des Habichts kann nicht umhin, Hühner zu fressen (trans 156). [Semantic: Literal]. 32. … a man does not talk when a masked spirit speaks (AOG129). … ein Mensch nicht zu reden hat, wenn maskierte Geister sprechen(trans. 158). [Semantic: Literal]. 33. The fly that perches on a mound of dung may strout around it as it likes, it cannot move the mound (AOG 130). Die Fliege, die sich auf einen Misthaufen setzt, mag dort herumstolzieren, so lange sie will - den Misthaufen kann sie nicht bewegen (trans. 160). [Semantic: Literal]. 34. No man however great can win judgement against a [his] clan (AOG 131). Kein Mann, wie bedeutend er auch sein mag, gegen seinen Clan recht behält (trans. 160). [Semantic: Literal]. 35. When two brothers fight, a stranger reaps the harvest (AOG 131). Wenn zwei Brüder sich kämpfen, ein Fremder ihre Ernten einbringen (trans. 161). [Semantic: Literal]. 36. A disease that has never been seen before cannot be cured with everyday herbs (AOG 133). Eine Krankheit, die es noch nie gegeben hat, kann nicht mit dem üblichen kräutern geheilt warden (trans. 163). [Semantic: Literal]. 37. No matter how many spirits plotted a man‟s death, it would come to nothing unless his personal god took a hand in the deliberation (AOG 136). Wieviele Geister es auch immer sein mögen, die beschließen, daß ein Mensch sterben soll, sie haben keinen Erfolg, wenn sein eigener Gott nicht bei der Sache mitspielt (trans. 166). [Semantic: Literal]. 42 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 38. The unexpected beats even the man of valour (AOG 142). Das unerwartete schlägt selbst den tapfersten Mann (trans. 174). [Semantic: Literal]. 39. Unless the penis dies young, it will surely eat bearded meat (AOG 142). Wenn der Penis nicht jung stirbt, wird er sicherlich bärtiges Fleisch essen (trans.174). [Semantic: Literal]. 40. Only those who carry evil medicine on their body should fear the rain (AOG 146). Nur solche, die ein übles Zaubermittel auf ihrem Körper tragen, müssen den Regen fürchten (trans. 178). [Semantic: Literal]. 41. When a masked spirit visits you, you have to appease its footprints with presents (AOG 154). Wenn ein maskierter Geist euch besucht, müßtet ihr seine Fußspuren mit Geschenken wegwischen (trans. 187). [Semantic: Literal]. 42. A fowl does not eat in the belly of a goat (AOG 157). Ein Fedevieh ißt nicht in den Bauch einer Geiß (trans. 190). [Semantic: Literal]. 43. It is the fear of causing offence that makes men to swallow poison (165). Die Angst, Anstoß zu erregen, verlangt die Menschen, Gift zu schlucken (trans. 199). [Semantic: Literal]. 44. The young he-goat says but for the sojourn in his mother‟s clan, he would not have learnt to stick his upper lip (AOG 168). Da sprach der junge Geißbock aber für einen Aufenhalt beim Clan seiner Mutter hätte er keine dicke Lippe riskiert (trans 203). [Semantic-Communicative: Literal, Amplification]. 45. A man of sense does not go on hunting little bush rodents when his agemates are after big game (AOG 169). Ein kluger Mann geht nicht zur Jagd auf kleine Nagetiere, wenn seine Altersgenossen auf Großwildjagd sind (trans. 204). [Semantic: Literal]. 46. Every lizard lies on its belly; so we cannot tell which has a belly ache (AOG 171). Jede Eidechse liegt auf dem Bauch, also kann man nicht sagen, welche von ihnen Bauchschmerzen hat (trans. 206). [Semantic: Literal]. 47. The wife who has seen the emptiness of life: let my husband hate me as long as he provides yams for me every afternoon (AOG 175). Eine Frau, die die Sinnlosigkeit des Daseins erkannt, ruft: mag mein Mann mich hassen, wenn er mich nur jeden nachmittag mit Yams versorgt (trans. 211). [Semantic: Literal]. 42 4 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 48. …like the toad which lost the chance of growing a tail because of I am coming (AOG 185). Wie die Kröte, die die Möglichkeit verspielte, sich einen Schwanz zu wachsen zu lassen, weil sie immer sagt: Ich komme schon, ich komme schon (trans 223). [Semantic: Literal]. 49. …the puppy… which attempted to answer two calls at once and broke his jaw (AOG 188). Wie der junge Hund im Sprichwort, der zwei Befehlen zugleich gehorchen will und sich dabei den Kiefer brach (trans 226). [Semantic: Literal]. 50. Why should a man be in a hurry to lick his finger, was he going to put them away in a rafter (AOG 191). Warum sollte ein Mann, es eilig haben, seine Finger abzulecken? Wollte er sie den auf den Dachsparren legen? (trans. 229) [Semantic: Literal]. 51. A man who asks questions does not lose his way (AOG 203). Ein Mann, der Fragenstellt, verliert seinen Wert nicht (trans 244). [Semantic-Communicative: Literal, Amplification]. 52. The person who sets a child to catch a shrew should also find him water to wash the odour from his hand (AOG 208). Ein Mensch, de rein Kind ausschickt, um eine Spitzmaus zu fangen, der wird auch Wasser finden, mit dem das Kind seine Hand vom dem Geruch reinwaschen kann (trans. 249) [Semantic: Literal]. 53. It was a bad death which killed a man in the time of famine (AOG 216). Es ist ein schlecter Tod, der einen Mann zu Zeiten einer Hungersnot tötet (trans.259). [Semantic: Literal]. 54. Unless a man wrestled with those who walked behind his compound, the path is never closed (AOG 221). Wenn ein Mann nicht mit denen kämpft, die hinter seinem Hof vorbeigehen, wird der Weg nie wieder verschwinden (trans. 264). [Semantic: Literal]. 55. The thing that beats the drum for ngwesi is inside the ground (AOG225). Die Ding, das die Trommel für Nkwesi schlägt, ist unter der Erde (trans. 269). [Semantic: Literal]. 56. It is ofo that gives rain-water power to cut dry earth (AOG 226). Ofo gibt dem Regenwasser Kraft, die trockene Erde aufzuschneiden (trans. 269). [Semantic: Literalisation, Gloss]. Cf. glossary entry on ‚ofo„ in AOG 279. 42 5 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 57. Bat said he knew his ugliness and chose to fly at night (AOG 226). Die Fledermaus sagte, sie weiß, daß sie häßlich ist, deshalb fliegt sie des Nachts (trans. 270). [Semantic: Literal]. 58. An ill-fated man drinks water and it catches in his teeth (AOG 226). Ein Mann der vom Pech verfolgt wird, trinkt Wasser, und es bleibt ihm in den Zähnen hängen (trans. 270). [Semantic: Literal]. 59. He who sees an old hag squatting should leave her alone; who knows how she breathes (AOG 226). Wer eine alte Hexe hocken sieht, soll sie in Ruhe lassen; weiß er, was sie ausatmet? (trans. 270). [Semantic-Communicative: Literal, Modulation]. 60. The sleep that lasts from one market day to another has become death (AOG 226). Der Schlaf, der von einem Markttag zum andern dauert, ist zum Tot geworden (trans. 270). [Semantic: Literal]. 61. The mighty tree falls and the little birds scatter in the bush (AOG 226). Der mächtige Baum fällt, und die kleinen Vögel flattern ins Gebüsch (trans. 270). [Semantic: Literal]. 62. A common snake which a man sees all alone may become a python in his eyes (AOG 226). Eine gewöhnliche Schlange, die ein Mann sieht, der ganz allein ist, kann in seinem Augen eine Python warden (trans. 270). [Semantic: Literal]. 63. The boy who persists in asking what happened to his father before he has enough strength to avenge him is asking for his father‟s fate (AOG 226). Der Junge, der beharrlich fragt, was seinem Vater zustieß ehe er Kraft genug hat, ihn zu rächen, zieht seines Vaters Schicksal auf sein Haupt (trans. 270). [Semantic: Literal, Elaboration]. 64. When death wants to take a little dog, it prevents it from smelling even excrement (AOG 226). Wenn der Tod einen kleinen Hund weggrafen will, hinder er ihn sogar, an den Excrementen zu riechen (trans. 271). [Semantic: Literal]. 65. A man does not send his son with a potsherd to bring fire from a neighbour‟s hut and then unleash rain on him (AOG 229). Ein Mann schickt nicht sein Son mit einer Scherbe zum Nachbarhaus um Feuer [zu bringen] und dann eine Regenflut auf ihn niederstürzen lassen (trans. 273). [Semantic: Literal]. 42 6 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Appendix II Cultural Idiom Expressions sampled from AOG 1. …a softer pillow… (AOG 7). …ein menschliches Polster… (trans. 16). [Communicactive: explicitation]. 2. To stretch the arm too far (AOG 12). …den Arm zu weit austrecken (trans. 21). [Semantic: literal]. 3. When lizards were still few and far between...” (AOG 14). … als die Eidechsen noch selten und sehr vereinzelt waren…. (trans 24) [Semantic: literal]. 4. To hold your tongues in your hands (AOG 20). Eure Zungen im Zaum zu halten (trans 31). [Communicative: substitution]. 5. [To make a] man a corpse before his own eyes. (AOG 25). … des Mannes, den er vor seinen eigenen) Augen vernichtet (trans, 36). [Semantic:Literalisation, transference, gloss]. 6. he-goat‟s head dropping into he-goat‟s bag(AOG 25). … dem Kopf des Ziegenbocks, der in den Beutel den Ziegenbocks fällt (trans. 36). [Semantic: literal]. 7. To pull out the hair and chew it (AOG 26). …die Haare ausrissen und darauf herumkauten (trans 37). [Semantic: literal]. 8. …no longer head nor tail in anything that is done (AOG 27). …alles, was geschieht hat weder Hand noch Fuß (trans. 38). [Semantic-Communicative: literal, substitution]. 9. ...a man who passed shit on the head of his mother‟s father‟ (AOG 27). …einen Mann... der scheiße auf das Haupt des vaters seiner mutter gehäuft hat‟. (trans.38). [Semantic: literalisation]. 10. To weep louder than the owners of the corpse (AOG 49). …lauter weinen als die, denen der Leichnam gehört (trans 64). [Semantic: literal]. 11. …like a fowl soaked in the rain (AOG 60). …wie ein regendurchweichtes Huhn (trans 77). [Semantic: literal]. 42 7 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 12. To draw a line between her children and your children (AOG 62). [k]einen Strich ziehen zwischen ihren und deinen Kindern (trans 79). [Semantic: literal]. 13. To become palm oil and salt again (AOG 75). Palmöl und Salz wieder werden (trans 94). [Semantic: literal]. 14. … he was dead with palm-wine (AOG 79). …ihn der Palmwein getötet hatte (trans 99). [Semantic: literal, transposition]. 15. …not the smallest drop of human presence inside his entire body (AOG 79). …nicht den kleinsten Funken Verstand in seinem ganzem Korper habe (trans 100). [Communicative: amplification]. 16. ...like a grain of maize [lost] in an empty goatskin bag (AOG 80). … wie ein verlorenes Maiskorn in einem leeren Zeigenledersack (trans. 100). [Semantic: literal]. 17. …got out of bed from the left side (AOG 81). …mit dem linken Fuß zuest aufgestanden sein (trans.102). [Communicative: substitution]. 18. ...to let out words alive without giving them as much as a bite with his teeth (AOG 84). … und seine Worte lebendig herausspazieren zu lassen, ohne sie vorher auch nur einmal durchgekaut zu haben (trans 104). [Semantic: literal]. 19. ... travelled in olu and Igbo (AOG 84). ...herumgereist in Olu und Igbo (trans. 20, 29, 105, 107 and 139). [Semantic: literal, borrowing,]. 20. …who trailed his son like a vulture after a corpse“ (AOG 89). … der seinem Sohn folgt wie ein Geier dem Aas folgte (trans. 110). [Semantic: literal]. 21. …mushrooms to sprout from your head (AOG 93). …dir die Pilze auf dem Kopf wachsen… (trans. 116). [Semantic: literal]. 22. ...to give you a wife and find you a mat to sleep on. (AOG 96). …um dir eine Frau zu suchen, und dann. noch eine Matte, um darauf zu schlafen (trans. 119). [Communicative-Semantic: literal, modulation]. 42 8 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 23. to have the yam and the knife (AOG 96). ...Du hast den Yam und du hast das Messer (trans. 119). [Semantic: literal]. 24. to swallow [someone] whole and bring him up again (AOG 98). [jemandem] ganz geschluckt und wieder heraus gewürgt (trans. 122). [Semantic: literal]. 25. …find her [the new wife] at home (AOG 118). … [die neue Frau] zu Hause finden (trans. 145). [Semantic: literal]. 26. …walking like one afraid the earth might bite her (AOG 122). …umhergehen müssen wie eine, die Angst hat, die Erde könne sie beißen (trans. 150). [Semantic: literal]. 27. not to fall where one‟s body might be picked up (AOG 126). „der Mensch fällt nicht dorthin, wo sein Körper vielleicht aufgelesen wird” (trans. 155). [Semantic: literal]. 28. an overblown fool dangling empty testicles(AOG 130). …ein aufgeblasener Idiot mit leeren Hoden… (trans 159). [Semantic: literal]. 29. we…where this rain began to fall on us (AOG 132). …wissen wir, wo dieser Regen zuerst auf uns niedergegangen ist (trans. 161). [Semantic: literal]. 30. An animal more powerful than nte caught by nte‟s trap (AOG 141). Ein Tier, stärker als nte, sich in der Falle für den nte gefangen hatte (trans 172). [Semantic: litera, borrowing]. 31. …my eyes have seen my ears (AOG 145). …meine Augen meine Ohren gesehen haben (trans. 177). [Semantic: literal]. 32. …those poking their fingers into my face (AOG 179). …die, die ihre Finger in mein Gesicht gebohrt haben (trans. 216). [Communicative: explicitation]. 33. …to cut without drawing blood (AOG 165). …wie man schneiden muß, ohne daß es blutet. (trans. 199). [Semantic: literalisation]. 34. The laughter of those who do not cry‟ (AOG 167). Das Lachen eines Menschen, der nicht weinen will (trans. 201). [Communicative: literal. modulation]. 42 9 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 35. …till palm fruits ripen at the tip of the frond…(AOG 167). …bis zu dem Tag dauert, an dem die Palmfrüchte an den Blattspitzen reifen…(trans. 202). [Semantic: literal, elaboration]. 36. To split [the matter] open with one blow of the matchet” (AOG 168). Er schneidet das Thema mit einem Machetenhieb an (trans 203). [Semantic: literalisation]. 37. …a woman who carries her head on a rigid neck as if she is… (AOG 172). … eine Frau, die ihren Kopf, wenn ein Topf mit Wasser darauf steht, auf einem steifen Nacken trägt … (trans. 207). [Semantic: literalisation, transposition]. 38. ...will strip him of his anklet (AOG 179). …wird ihm seine Fußringe abstreifen (trans. 216). [Semantic: literalisation]. 39. Their badness…is pregnant and nursing a baby at the same time (AOG 185). Ihre Bosheit…ist Schwangersein und einen Säugling nähren zu gleicher Zeit (trans. 222). [Semantic: literalisation]. 40. …praise a man because he offered him palm-wine (AOG 187). …die einen Mann preisen, weil er [ihm] Palmwein angeboten hat (trans. 225). [Semantic: literal]. 41. …to put his mouth into such a delicate matter‟ (AOG203). …seine Nase in eine so heikle Angelegenheit zu stecken‟ (trans. 244). [Semantic-Communicative: literal, substitution]. 42. How do you carry a man with a broken waist?‟ (AOG 207). Wie kann man mit gebrochenem Rückgrat) einen Mann trugen? (trans 248). [Communicative: modulation]. 43. …plant our yams in the farm of anaba-nti (AOG 209). …unsere Yams in den Acker von Anaba-nti gepflanzt (tran.s 250). [Semantic: literal, borrowing]. 44. She… told her the bide-price they paid for her mother (AOG 211). Sie … verriet ihr den Brautpreis, der fir ihre Mutter bezahlt worden war (tran. 253). [Communicative: amplification]. 45. … tie into the lappa and carry away (AOG 211). … in die schürze wickeln und wegtragen ließ. (tran. 253). [Communicative: explicitation]. 43 0 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY 46. …people laugh with one side of the face (AOG 218). Darüber lachten die Leute wenn auch halbherzig (trans. 261). [Communicative: amplification]. 47. Goat has eaten palm leaves from off my head (AOG 227). Die Geiß hat Palmblätter von meinem Haupt gefressen (trans. 272). [Semantic: literal]. 43 1 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Appendix III Table of Frequencies Cultural Text Units: Things Fall Apart (TFA) S/No Cultural Text No Semantic Semantic Semantic Communicative Comm. Comm. Units(CTU)/ Approach Approach Approach Approach Approach Approach Cultural Categories Total Error Adequacy Total Error Adequacy 1 Proverbs 33 15 - 15 18 16 2 2 Cultural Idioms & 45 30 10 20 15 10 5 Figurative Expressions 3 Personal & Place 2 1 - 1 1 1 - Names 4 Kinship 9 4 - 4 5 5 - Names/Terms and Honorifics 5 Med. Terms, 10 9 2 7 1 1 - Events/Ceremonies, Rituals & Cults 6 Material Culture 15 12 5 7 3 3 - and Artifacts 7 Organizations, 6 4 - 4 2 2 - Customs, Activities, Procedures & Concepts 8 Body-Text Cultural 12 3 1 2 9 9 - Signifiers TOTALS 132 78 18 60 54 47 7 43 2 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY Appendix IV Table of Frequencies Cultural Text Units: Arrow of God (AOG) S/No Cultural Text No Semantic Semantic Semantic Communicative Comm. Comm. Units(CTU)/ Approach Approach Approach Approach Approach Approach Cultural Categories Total Error Adequacy Total Error Adequacy 1 Proverbs 65 60 4 56 5 5 - 2 Cultural Idioms & 47 34 10 24 13 11 2 Figurative Expressions 3 Personal & Place 2 1 - 1 1 1 - Names 4 Kinship 7 4 1 3 3 3 - Names/Terms and Honorifics 5 Med. Terms, 10 5 1 4 5 3 2 Events/Ceremonies, Rituals & Cults 6 Material Culture 14 10 3 7 4 3 1 and Artifacts 7 Organizations, 1 - - - 1 1 - Customs, Activities, Procedures & Concepts 8 Body-Text Cultural 9 7 3 4 2 2 - Signifiers TOTALS 155 121 22 99 34 29 5 43 3 UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY