Translating The Poetics of Creolisation

Hélène Buzelin
York University (Toronto)

The last two decades have seen the emergence of a new literary trend based on the conscious and poetic use of Caribbean Creole languages in narratives sold to wide international, Creole and non-Creole speaking, audiences. This trend, prevailing in both French and English Milieux, could be illustrated by the works of novelists like Samuel Selvon, Earl Lovelace or David Dabydeen and those of Patrick Chamoiseau, Raphael Confiant or Suzanne Dracius Pinalie, to name but a few.

Parallel to this, an increasing body of research, in linguistic and literary fields, have been devoted to these use of Creole languages in contemporary fiction, and more generally to phenomena of literary metissage and creolisation. Yet, while a steady stream of new translations makes such novels accessible to a wider world audience than ever, the concrete challenges these texts may actually raise has hardly been discussed. What does it mean to translate a novel that, following the Créolité literary agenda, would search for a poetics rooted in orality? Does such poetics require new interpretative and translation approaches? And, if that is the case, why and for whom?

This paper is written from a translation studies perspective. Its analytical framework is more precisely that of contemporary translation theories that have addressed political and ethical issues in literary translation (Berman 1986, Pym 1997, Venuti 1998, Spivak 2000). Its aim is to discuss to what extent such theories can fully grasp the challenges of translating creolised literary works. On the basis of particular case studies, this paper argues that these theories have remained, to a large extent, bound by the old debate opposing literalist vs. target-oriented translation. As such, they have failed to take into account the interpretative process that precedes the translation act per se. Considering the tremendous interpretative challenges that creolised narrative raise, we propose that the reflection on the ethics of translation be opened up, so that this interpretative process usually regarded as sacred or taken for granted in literary translation, be more thoroughly problematized and, ultimately, integrated to any ethics of translation.

Praatjies and Boerenbrieven - Popular literature as an instrument of normalization and standardization in the history of Afrikaans

Ana Deumert
Monash University

Popular literary culture played an important role in the early standardization of Afrikaans, a complex colonial contact language with pidgin/creole ancestry (cf. Roberge forth.). From the 1820s short literary texts in what was meant to represent the general Cape colloquial began to appear in the periodical press of the colony. This popular tradition developed from the 1850s into a highly productive genre and influenced the formation of an early Afrikaans standard language by shaping expectations about social, linguistic and national authenticity, leading to the identification of certain linguistic practices as a marker of Afrikaner identity (at the time, Afrikaner identity politics was not necessarily limited to the European section of the population, see e.g. the literary practices which are attested for the Moravian mission stations, cf. Belcher 1987). The early Afrikaans literary tradition is best described as a type of variety imitation (cf. Preston 1992): the texts were largely produced by outsiders (most commonly recent immigrants to the colony), and showed linguistic and graphemic manipulations of the basilectal, mesolectal and acrolectal varieties which coexisted within the Cape Dutch language continuum.

This paper provides an analysis of the symbolic and indexical functions of the early Afrikaans literary tradition, and shows how the linguistic (specifically morphological and syntactic) structures characteristic of these popular writings came to be used as social and ideological resources in non-literary texts. The data basis for the analysis includes early literary texts, the Corpus of Cape Dutch Correspondence (1880-1922, cf. Deumert 2001) as well as a small, pragmatically cohesive corpus of application letters (1924; the Nanny letters).

References

Belcher, R. 1987. Afrikaans en kommunikasie oor die kleurgrens. In: Afrikaans en Taalpolitiek. Ed. by H. Du Plessis and T. Du Plessis, 17-35. Pretoria: HAUM.

Deumert, A. 2001. Language variation and standardization at the Cape (18801922): A contribution to Afrikaans sociohistorical linguistics. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 13: 30152.

Preston, D.R. 1992. Talking Black and Talking White: A Study in Variety Imitation. Old Engish and New. Studies in the Honor of Fredric G. Cassidy. Ed. by J.H. Hall, N. Doane and D. Ringler, 237-355. New York: Garland Publishing.

Roberge, P. T. Forthcoming. Reconstructing the Cape Dutch Pidgin. In Pidgins: Their Nature and Significance, P. Baker, H. den Besten and M. Parkvall (eds). London: Battlebridge.

Representation and respect: Creole status and Caribbean literature

Barbara Lalla
University of the West Indies (St. Augustine, Trinidad)

Discussion of the status of Caribbean Creole (as in Carrington 2001, "Status of Creole", in Christie, ed. Due Respect) normally excludes consideration of Creole represented in Caribbean literary discourse. Also, comments on literary activity in the Caribbean (as in Roberts 1997 From Oral to Literate Culture) rarely accommodate examination of on-going Creole/English interaction in the literature.

My brief presentation proposes that Caribbean literary discourse, as a dynamic and hybrid system operates through a dialectic of absorption and repulsion, definitive characteristics of both Creole and Standard English being drawn into or excluded from representation in the indigenous literature. Bilingual writers who are technologists of the discourse (see Devonish 1996 in Christie ed. Caribbean Language Issues) address audiences comprising bilingual and monolingual (English) readers, and it is these bilingual writers who filter Creole marking in the discourse. The stature and scope of the resulting scribal discourse has been enlarged through increase in function, in angles of viewing, in mixing oral and scribal strategies, in widened audience comprehension.

These observations are based on comparison between imperial discourse in Caribbean setting and indigenous discourse, and between earlier and more recent indigenous discourse.

On functional equivalence: some aspects from the Tok Pisin Bible translation

Timo Lothmann
Aachen University

A full translation of the Bible has been available for Tok Pisin since 1989. This work was carried out mainly by expatriate missionaries and linguists who succeeded in producing an adequate vehicle for Christian ideology. The content of the biblical stories telling of alien cultures was carefully geared towards the target group: the diverse peoples of Papua New Guinea, themselves nowadays positioned between their own traditions and influences from Western modernity.

The translators took various linguistic and stylistic decisions in the Buk Baibel to render it into an appropriate, lasting version which could be accepted and appreciated by contemporary speakers of Tok Pisin nationwide. In doing so, the translators have created a piece of literature which is, at the same time, influential in terms of standardization of the chosen lectal variety. As a by-product, a religious register in its own right became codified. In the present paper, this “cultural bridging” carried out by the Bible translators is exemplified by chosen examples from different types of text and illustrations. These are discussed in the context of translation theory, especially concerning the principle of functional equivalence, which aims at aemulatio rather than imitatio. In this respect, the application of qualitative valuation criteria appears to be legitimate. Further criteria concerning a translation of quality are: devotion to the “oral principle”, avoidance of anachronisms, lexical precision, consistency of grammatical rules and aesthetic enjoyment.

Orthographic practices in Da Jesus Book. Hawai‘i Pidgin New Testament.
How dey wen figga um out?

Suzanne Romaine
Oxford University

The publication of Da Jesus Book. Hawaii Pidgin New Testament (2000) by Wycliffe Bible Translators constituted a powerful act of legitimation for Pidgin in Hawaii (or Hawaii Creole English, as it is known by linguists). This paper examines the writing system used by the team of translators, who opted for an adapted form of English spelling rather than a phonemic orthography such as the one developed by Odo (1975). Their adaptations reflect some of the salient phonological features of Pidgin such as absence of post-vocalic /r/ (e.g. foeva for), /l/ vocalization (e.g. peopo people), and use of stops instead of English interdental fricatives (e.g. fadda father), etc. However, not all words which could have been respelled are actually respelled (e.g. bear instead of bea, three instead of tree, schoo instead of school) etc. Other respellings represent eye dialect, i.e. non-standard spellings that mean nothing phonetically because they convey no phonological difference from the standard, or ordinary colloquial English, e.g. nite/tonite night/tonight, etc. These inconsistencies turn up within the same word, or related word forms (e.g.. the first syllable in carpenta is not respelled even though many Pidgin speakers would not have post-vocalic /r/ in either the first or last syllable). Overall, the respellings and other lexical choices that serve as indicators of Pidgin are rather small indeed, compared to the number of words which appear in their usual English spellings. Unlike other ad hoc spelling systems, however, this one does not use apostrophes, and words that are respelled seem generally (although not always) to appear in their respelled form. I compare the translators system with the spelling practices of other contemporary authors, who tend to vary a great deal, spelling, for instance, ask as ax, ass and ask, or for as for or fo'. Da Jesus Book, however, uses only aks and fo, respectively. The dependence on English orthography, whatever its inconsistencies, has decided advantages for readers already literate in English because they know the spelling conventions. Most Pidgin speakers are not used to seeing the language written, and a phonemic-based orthography can look alien and intimidating. However, I raise the question of the extent to which the translators aim of setting a standard for written Pidgin based on its basilectal variety is well served by their orthographic practices.

Reference:

Odo, Carol 1975. Phonological Processes in the English Dialect of Hawaii. Ph.D. dissertation. University of Hawaii.