Translation as Reparation

Paul Bandia

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317640172
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Linguistica

Translation as Reparation showcases postcolonial Africa by offering African European-language literature as a case study for postcolonial translation theory, and proposes a new perspective for postcolonial literary criticism informed by theories of translation. The book focuses on translingualism and interculturality in African Europhone literature, highlighting the role of oral culture and artistry in the writing of fiction. The fictionalizing of African orature in postcolonial literature is viewed in terms of translation and an intercultural writing practice which challenge the canons of colonial linguistic propriety through the subversion of social and linguistic conventions. The study opens up pathways for developing new insights into the ethics of translation, as it raises issues related to the politics of language, ideology, identity, accented writing and translation. It confirms the place of translation theory in literary criticism and affirms the importance of translation in the circulation of texts, particularly those from minority cultures, in the global marketplace.

Grounded in a multidisciplinary approach, the book will be of interest to students and scholars in a variety of fields, including translation studies, African literature and culture, sociolinguistics and multilingualism, postcolonial and intercultural studies.

1. African Europhone Literature and the Politics of Language

1.Introduction

Since the inception of African European-language literature there have been endless debates about what it actually constitutes. Questions have been raised as to whether African literature means literature written by Africans or, more generally, literature about Africa or the African experience (Senghor 1964a; 1964b; Chinweizu et al. 1980; Wa Thiong’o 1986).¹

Some have wanted to know if the works of a non-African about Africa would qualify as African literature, or whether the work of an African set in a non-African world would still be considered African literature. A few proponents of vernacular literature have based their arguments mainly on language (Wali 1963; Irele 1981; Wa Thiong’o 1986), but have been challenged by the question of whether to consider as African literature the works of a European author writing about Europe in an African language. Today, these debates have lost steam and have become somewhat futile, as African European-language literature has taken its rightful place among world literatures. Ethnic or vernacular literature has continued to flourish alongside Europhone literature. The latter has remained dominant for the simple reason that, unlike ethnic literature, it has become the national literature of postcolonial societies and cuts across ethnic boundaries. The debates notwithstanding, it can be assumed that African literature remains that literature which conveys African thought both traditional and modern, and deals with the African experience, both ancient and contemporary. It is the sum total of all the national and ethnic literatures. The language of writing may not be as serious a determinant as some would think, for although language is the medium through which cultural values are expressed, it is not responsible for generating those values and cannot be used alone to determine the origin or provenance of a literature.

African European-language writing has grown steadily in number and variety since the dawn of independence, and many reasons have been cited for this growth (see Obiechina 1967, 1975; Chinweizu et al. 1980; Gérard 1986). Some of the reasons are:

(i) illiteracy, and the fact that those who can read and write are educated, for the most part, in colonial languages;

(ii) due to illiteracy, even vernacular language literature will reach only a few educated people and will be confined to a particular ethnic literary space. Added to this is the difficulty of writing in languages that, for the most part, are oral in nature and do not yet have a stable writing code;

(iii) modern African writers generally write for an affluent Western readership and a Westernized African bourgeoisie for mainly economic or pecuniary reasons;

(iv) some African authors claim that writing in European languages naturally gives them a wider audience and the opportunity to inform the world about Africa, thus dispelling some of the false myths and wrong impressions given to the outside world by early European scholars (Okara 1964; Coussy 1988);

(v) generally, some African intellectuals view European languages as a welcome solution to the potentially divisive problems that might ensue from the multiplicity of local languages within the same geographical zone (Spencer 1971; Mazrui 1975; Gérard 1986);

(vi) European languages have been retained for official use in communication, trade and commerce, in spite of the desire of the African people to decolonize themselves culturally, economically and politically (Whiteley 1971). The fate of African literature may simply be following that of individual nation states.

The French and English languages have gained a great deal of importance in West Africa as languages of education, business and politics.² Though generally associated with the elite, the use of these languages has intensified as the population has become more educated, and the languages are now spoken by a sizeable segment of the society. These colonial languages have been used to forge a more homogenous citizenry sharing at least one common language that enjoys nationwide currency and transcends the barrier of local vernaculars. In fact, the two languages have become synonymous with economic success and social progress to the extent that some African leaders have had no qualms about choosing these languages over local ones for political gain and expediency. When it was observed that Senghor seemed to have a preference for French over Senegalese languages, he unabashedly said:

If we had a choice we would have chosen French [because] it is a language which has enjoyed far reaching influence and which still enjoys it in great measure. In the 18^th century French was proposed and accepted as the universal language of culture… It is the supreme language of communication: a language of politeness and honesty, a language of beauty and clarity. (interview by Egejuru 1980:10).

Notwithstanding Senghor’s unbridled enthusiasm for French, the colonial language is indeed looked upon as a symbol of unity, a means of rising above ethnic and linguistic differences for the common good of postcolonial society. It is rather ironic that even after independence, the colonial languages were still considered invaluable agents of unification and nation building. Political activity has often been conducted in colonial languages, and a politician would refrain from using local languages for fear of being misquoted or mistranslated, or simply because he did not want to appear as too much a member of his tribe (Achebe 1965). In A Man of the People, Achebe alluded to this reality in one of his satires, when one character, a government minister, finds it unwise to speak in his native language to the people of his home district. The minister, Nanga, has the following explanation for his choice of language:

He would have preferred not to speak to his own kinsmen in English which was after all a foreign language, but he had learned from experience that speeches made in the vernacular were liable to be distorted and misquoted in the press. Also there were some strangers in that audience who did not speak [our] own tongue and he did not wish to exclude them. They were all citizens of [our] great country whether they came from the highlands or the lowlands. (Achebe 1966:15)

This comment, in a way, mirrors the African writer’s difficult circumstances, as he is inclined to use the colonial language as a medium of communication that transcends linguistic and ethnic barriers.

2.The polemics of language

Language choice and language use have always been a main staple in discussions on postcolonial literatures. Although narratives continue to be written in some local languages, writing in colonial languages has continued to grow even in contexts where only a small fraction of the population speaks non-indigenous languages.³ Many postcolonial writers face a difficult linguistic choice, as most of them are often bilingual with access to one of the “cosmopolitical languages once the metropolitan tongues of European empires, now spoken and read by millions worldwide” (Fraser 2000:11), including access to one or more vernacular languages (i.e., lingua franca or indigenous languages). Many African writers and critics have grappled with this ambivalent situation, and the decision to write in an imposed colonial language is fraught with difficulties, especially since the reaction of some Western literary critics has not always been favourable, ranging from condescension to outright disapproval of what some traditionalists consider an improper use of Western languages and literary techniques (Chinweizu et al. 1980). Faced with the dilemma of having to use an alien language which they believe can only imperfectly express the subtleties of the African world view, some authors have become even more ‘afrocentric’ and have chosen to write only in their indigenous languages. Such is the case of the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o who, after a very successful career in English language writing, resolved to write only in his native Gikuyu (Ngugi wa Thiong’o 1986). He subsequently had to translate his own works into English, mainly for the benefit of non-Gikuyu speakers in Africa and across the world. Others, on the other hand, have been more assertive of their right to use the colonial languages, claiming the right to ‘invent’ an African variety of these languages. This latter view was eloquently expressed by Chinua Achebe in a speech entitled “The African writer and the English language” when he said:

Is it right that a man should abandon his mother tongue for someone else’s? It looks like a dreadful betrayal and produces a guilty feeling. But for me there is no other choice. I have been given the language and I intend to use it. … I feel that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit new African surroundings. (Achebe 1975:62)

Achebe embraces English for purely historical and practical reasons. He argues that although colonialism had its ills, it brought together many peoples who might have otherwise continued to live in fractured societies, and gave them a language with which they could talk to one another. As he sees it, “[t]here are not many countries in Africa today where you could abolish the language of the erstwhile colonial powers and still retain the facility for mutual communication” (1975:57). English is a world language which history has forced onto many peoples and civilizations: “Therefore those African writers who have chosen to write in English, or French, are not unpatriotic smart alecs with an eye on the main chance – outside their own countries. They are by-products of the same process that made the new nation-states of Africa” (Achebe 1975:57). Proponents of European language writing are buoyed by the belief that Africa needs to take its rightful place among world cultures, and that this can be achieved by explaining and translating Africa in a language with a global reach. Some, like Senghor, unreservedly extol the beauty and efficacy of their adopted European language, which they believe will help them rescue the spirit, style and content of African oral literature.

3.Colonial language policies

The longstanding dilemma over language choice can be put into perspective through an understanding of the disparate linguistic policies, or lack thereof, of the colonial powers. According to Fraser (2000), over the centuries of imperialism, official language policies varied widely and were almost as diverse as the empires themselves. The sheer diversity of languages and dialects caused the imperial powers to impose Western metropolitan languages for administrative and commercial purposes despite the existence of sizeable language blocks across the continent. Moreover, the imperial power saw the African societies as having languages without written scripts and sought to impose the Romanized script which was often unsuitable for local languages. However, there is documented evidence that some indigenous languages used written scripts before the arrival of European colonialists. For instance, there was flourishing literary activity among the Hausa, the Efik and Yoruba peoples of Nigeria and elsewhere. Ancient Akan in West Africa had its own script and Kiswahili in East Africa used the Arabic script. The Ethiopians wrote their literature in Amharic and the Sultan of Bamoun in Cameroon is said to have painstakingly put together an alphabet for his people (Finnegan 1970; Gérard 1986; Bandia 1998). Interest in such vernacular literate practices waned over the years as the colonial powers did not view them favourably. Some groups such as missionaries took advantage of their empire’s control over territories to discourage literary activity likely to spread ideas that were not in conformity with their beliefs. Also, the lack of a stable and acceptable orthography for most African languages facilitated the imposition of colonial languages.

However, as mentioned earlier, language policies varied from one colonial regime to another. Territories that were under British rule developed a bilingual literary tradition at an early stage, creating literature in the vernacular languages and then producing works in English at a later stage. Literature in hybrid languages such as pidgins and creoles or semi-literate English also flourished⁴ in growing urban areas. The same cannot be said for those under French or Portuguese control, as these imperial powers deliberately discouraged literary activity in vernacular languages (Gérard 1986). Although the English language was perceived as a potential instrument of imperial control throughout the British empire, it was also believed that vernacular languages could act as stabilizing agents. There were also concerns about imposing a foreign language on peoples whose sense of identity was bound up with their mother tongue (Fraser 2000). The British therefore adopted what can be referred to as a ‘remote control’, or aloof, attitude towards their West African subjects. Their schools were for the most part run by Protestant missionaries whose main interest was to make Christians out of Africans, while the colonial administration was mainly concerned with protecting British economic interests in the region. The Protestant missionaries began to translate the Bible into numerous vernaculars, to compile bilingual dictionaries and to standardize local dialects into a lexicon stable enough for carrying out translations (Fraser 2000). As a consequence, missionary presses were established with a keen interest in publishing literary works in the vernacular, which resulted in an impressive amount of creative works in indigenous languages. Due to the numerous vernacular translations and vernacular writing, the penetration of English was limited and uneven across the territories. The British colonial administration instituted a policy of Indirect Rule, introduced into West Africa after 1901 by Lord Lugard, whereby the colonial power ruled its subjects through the existing local or traditional governing structures headed by African chiefs or a council of elders (Whiteley 1971; Todd 1982; Gérard 1986). These traditional rulers were given authority over many aspects of the local administration and infrastructure, which had serious consequences for educational policy. Missionary activity was banned in some areas such as the Islamic regions of Nigeria, although welcomed in some places, making the spread of English difficult and inconsistent (Fraser 2000). It should be said, though, that over time the English language became associated with education and thus with modernism. Given this situation, the continued propping up of traditional chiefs by the British led to the vernacular languages in Anglophone territories being seen as important factors in a colonial policy of ‘divide and rule’. It can be argued that the British might have viewed the broad education of the masses in English as a potential threat to their authority.⁵ These conditions favoured the flourishing of vernacular writing in British West Africa, and even when Africans began to write in English, there was generally a positive reaction and understanding on the part of the English-speaking world, which seemed more willing than the French, for instance, to see its language undergo some measure of adaptation to alien cultures. This is one of the reasons why, in the early days of independence, there were so many creative works in English and so relatively few in French (Gérard 1986).

Colonial rule in most Latin-dominated territories, especially regions under French rule, was based on a policy of assimilation, the ideological underpinnings of a mission civilisatrice (‘civilizing mission’). By this policy, the French sought to create a France d’outre mer with the expressed intention of turning the colonial subjects into ‘proper’ French citizens (Calvet 1979; Gérard 1986; Coussy 1988). The policy was born of a concept of humanitarian egalitarianism left over from the French revolution (Gérard 1986). The colonized territories were treated as regions of a greater France that extended well beyond the Hexagone. Each territory was considered a département and entitled to representation in the National Assembly in Paris. The whole apparatus of French life (the lycées, the Code Napoléon) was imposed upon the colonies and, given the daunting and impossible task of imposing French values upon so many different peoples and cultures, certain individuals were selected for intensive assimilation and were granted French citizenship. This small group of privileged élite, known as the assimilés (‘the assimilated’), were thrust at the forefront of colonial life and became the local mouthpieces for the French colonial process. The assimilés were school...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. African Europhone literature and the politics of language
• 2. Intercultural writing as translation
• 3. Cultural representation and postcolonial aesthetics
• 4. Linguistic experimentation and intercultural writing
• 5. Literary heteroglossia, sociolects, translation
• 6. Intercultural writing and inter-European language translation
• 7. African Europhone literature and the ethics of translations
• Bibliography
• Index