RESEARCH REPORT:
Publishers and Translation policy:
The Challenges and Solutions in Translating Children’s Literature from English
into African Languages in South Africa.
By Kirsten Buchholtz
November 2001
Introduction:
The best way for language development to occur is for the language to be used. Every South African language has been used, some more widely than others, and unfortunately some have been discouraged from use and are in danger of extinction whilst others have become extinct. For a language to survive, it must be used for a wide range of functions. Were we to allow higher status functions to be limited to English and Afrikaans only, the other languages of the country would begin to whither and die.[1]
The political transition in 1994 in South Africa led to the acceptance of eleven official languages. This acceptance was brought about through the drafting of a language policy that emerged from the subsection of Language Section 6 (1-5) that affirms the equality of languages.
- The official languages of the Republic of South Africa are sePedi, seSotho, seTswana, siSwati, tshiVenda, xiTsonga, Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu.
- recognising the historically diminished use and status of the indigenous languages of our people, the state must take practical and positive measures to elevate the status and advance the use of these languages.[2]
We are one of a few countries to have so many languages recognised and our Constitution is groundbreaking - with good reason. The advantages of a multilingual society are numerous. Zanele Mbude, who works on the Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa mentions the element of personal identity. She says that if we teach South Africa’s children only English, `we will turn them into little Englishmen who have problems with their identity, who don’t know who they are’ [3](italics mine). Learning is easier, too, if South African children are taught in their mother tongue,`…use of the mother tongue as the language of instruction in the early years of education has proven advantages especially where the development of cognitive faculties is concerned’ [4]. The Pan South African Language Board (PANSALB) considers languages as resources as they incorporate `whole bodies of knowledge’[5], carrying tradition and culture in the words, phrases, grammatical structure and rules.
But, as groundbreaking as the Constitution is, it will only be as successful as its implementation. This implementation is particularly relevant for children in schools who are able to learn in their mother tongues for the first time. In the formative years of childhood, an individual is greatly affected by what they read and so, to fulfil the promises of the Constitution is paramount. This development though reading is called `personal engineering’ by Rosey Bennett:
[Personal engineering] has to do with the growth and development of the child, his soul, his psyche…to learn to differentiate between the
facile or tawdry and the worthwhile…developing standards
which will be internalised and become a part of the whole child…
[and] of the discerning adult the child will become.[6]
However, the reality is that South African children are not viewing multilingualism in a positive way. As a government document observed:
…high status has been given to those who use an international language, even when they are monolingual, whereas multilingual speakers of African languages have received little recognition for their communicative gifts and considerable knowledge.[7]
Such higher status was once only applied to white monolingual speakers, but now these attitudes towards local languages are echoed elsewhere and include black monolingual speakers. In a recent article headlined, `English Versus the Rest in Battle for the Classroom’, African-language-speaking learners explain how they `hate’ their home languages and how useless they find them[8].
Thus the language policy has a battle to fight within a society that cannot see the value of African languages. It is clearly to the advantage of the nation to become fully multilingual, and this will take time.
Publishers have a crucial role to play in encouraging multilingualism. They are the link in making the Constitution’s ideals reality by providing resources to the learners, as well as in retail, that fulfil those needs set out in Section 6. Publishers often bemoan the fact that there is not a vast reading culture in South Africa. At this moment publishers feel that they are caught in a catch-22 situation where to publish children’s books in African languages requires a market and there is none, and to create a market books have to be supplied. They say this is complicated by there being too few authors of African languages.[9]
A way to create books in children’s mother tongues in order to expand the markets, and to do it in a cost efficient way, is to translate already existing texts into the languages in which they are needed. Doing this reduces production costs and makes the books cheaper to produce, and also to buy. As the publishing industry finds itself dealing with new dynamics within our new language policy, no research has been done solely on translation policies within publishing houses. This research report attempts to fill this gap.
Translation policy should follow national language policy, outlining how the objectives of the multilingual aims of the Constitution are implemented. Roles, procedures and issues appearing in a translation policy should reveal how publishers are progressing to reach these goals.
The motivation for this study arose when I began work on a dual language children’s book. I faced some obstacles with regard to the translations used and wondered how other publishers were dealing with these difficulties. I am not an African-language-speaker and wished to find out how others in my position ensured that the languages they published were of a high standard. However, this problem is bigger than just what non-African-language-speaking publishers do, it revolves around how all publishers produce high quality translations for South African children. A simple way to determine what quality of translations in African languages are being published is to analyse the translation policies of publishers and how these policies maintain high standards of translation. An example of where publishers stand today is the instance of the guidelines to orthography and terminology once provided by Department of Education and Training. The newest books used as guidelines date back to the 1980s. To produce contemporary and relevant guidelines today could aid publishers in ensuring their translations are adequate as teaching devices, whether targeted for the education or trade markets. However, the new language boards have failed to produce new standards. The old standards are still being used by few publishers, but not as a rule. Thus we find publishers following their own translation policies and, sometimes simple established practice in the hope of producing children’s books that will fulfil the needs of the market they supply, as well as the ethical obligation in meeting the needs of an emerging multilingual society. Such informal translation policy may not be adequate to meet our nations needs.
This research begins with the example of the problems I encountered as editor of dual English/ Sesotho children’s book. This will give a small indication of the challenges that publishers face in this line of work. A discussion of the questionnaire follows, to outline the questions asked and the aims of each question, as well as to explain the theory behind the terminology. The responses of five publishers are given, followed by my recommendations for standards in policy and practices that would assist the publishing industry in producing high quality translations for children that appeal to them and also fulfil their role in building the readers’ psyche, cultural pride and language skills.
Problems found in translating:
Tristan and Thobe bring Gifts to the Wedding:
When editing the book Tristan and Thobe bring Gifts to the Wedding I faced challenges that motivated this research. These problems follow to illustrate only some of what a publisher faces when translating children’s literature from English into an African language.
I am not a Sesotho speaker, so although I cannot verify the two linguists’ -Moromoholo and Senoko’s- choices, I have however, had them verified by a third Sesotho speaker. I do stand in the advantageous position of not taking any word offered by the translator and editor for granted but can ask, `What does this word really mean?’ I believe this coaxes the translator and the editor to examine their choices through justifying their translation over the other’s.
The translator, John Moromoholo, is from Bloemfontein, and the editor is Thabang Senoko, born and raised in Lesotho. Their relationship outlines how, although the two can speak the same dialect (but do not) one may put his finger on an idea, or word, or phrase that the other had missed. In this case, both editor and translator were outsourced.
The first discrepancy in the book was the word `sesesi’ to name a scuba diver. John (the translator) chose `sesesi’, but Thabang (the editor) chose the word `sequidi’ as it would explain the notion of a diver better according to him. `Sequidi’ means `someone who dives under water’, while `sesesi’ is `swimmer’. Swimmer is clearly not a diver, but the idea of someone diving under water is also broad. While Sesotho is not directly translatable from English, it is difficult to find words that fully explain something in Sesotho that is a complete idea in English.
Grammar also plays a part. For example, in English an adverb and an adjective could not fill the same space (if no verb was present), but in Sesotho there are versions for `How exciting!’ were equally plausible, one employing an adverb and the second an adjective. `Ho thabisa jwang!’ (the adverb version) and `Ho thabisa hakakang!’ (the adjective version) were the options, and both could have been used.
An example of the editor hitting the nail on the head where the translator had not, was the word/s for `fishing tackle’. John used `dintho tsa ho tshwasa’(the general term for the paraphernalia associated with fishing) to explain the idea while Thabang used `dilope’(literally, `fishing tackle’)- one word.
As Ithemba! Publishing has no formal translation policy or style sheet, the translators determine their own levels of language. John thought it would be better to use the more easily understood word, `pakela’ for `pack’ while Thabang argued for the more linguistically correct, `ho phuta’.
Sesotho contains some anglicised words that are now standard Sesotho words, like `foroko’ for fork. However `duvet’ is a new term to the language and neither John nor Thabang opted for the easily modified `duveti’ but chose to explain the concept. But Thabang expounded upon it more. John called a duvet a `dikobo tsa masiba’(explained to me as `blanket of many layers’) while Thabang went with `dikobo tsa masela a kentsweng masiba kahare’(explained as `blanket that is filled with feathers in layers’). The word `cassette’ appears later and John used `khaseteng’- but it was too anglicised for the editor, and Thabang’s `lebateng la khasete’ replaced it.
As Sesotho speakers originally did not live near the Cape, the dilemma arose as to what to call Table Mountain. While it is not a phenomenon traditionally involved in the Sesotho language, today most Sesotho speakers will know of the mountain’s existence. Thabang explained it by saying `Thaba ya Tafole’ but John argued that that would be like saying `bread and cheese’ (`Thaba ya Tafole’ is actually `table of mountain’) and not `bread cheese’ like `Thaba Tafole’ would do, and John felt that it would be understood better as a concept and not explained in two ideas, as in `Thaba ya Tafole’.
The subtleties of language come into play; which is what makes linguistic choice so integral to translation, especially in the case where readers are learning from the text. When a heron catches a frog in the text, `tshwasa’ was chosen to depict the action as it means ` to catch with the intent to kill’ and `tshwara’ - `to grab’ – was dropped. One character built a sandcastle and the word `paleisi’ or `palace’ was exchanged for `qhobosheane’- castle or fortress. In another instance the characters `wandered’ along listening to music. The translator chose `di itsoka’ which is `danced’, and it was replaced with `di ithapolla’ that means `wandered’. A similar scenario was removing `emetse’, which is `waiting’, with `lebeletse’ that is `expecting’, when the latter was really needed.
John explained, in yet another case, that `little stones’ are `ka majwe a manyane’ but Thabang thought of `majwana’ that explained it in one word.
At other times synonyms were bandied about (and in confusion as to what was correct- a third person had to be called in) such as when `shebana’ was pitted against `tadima’. The English reads: `…they stared into the jaws of a crocodile’. The editor claimed `shebana’ meant `to look at each other’ and `tadima’ meant `to look at, to contemplate’. The translator disagreed and saw the two as being the same as saying `petrol’ or `gasoline’- the same, just different expressions chosen by different people.
Such difference of opinion regarding translation are inherent in the job. The quality of John’s translation was good, and cannot be judged by the discrepancies found in editing. These discrepancies, however, bring forward the fact that no matter how good a translation is, it a still subjective process and can be changed, and the publisher has the final word on what choice is printed.