Language function and literary translation: The realisation of transculturation in the translation of Sans Famille from French to Igbo

Abstract

Translation as an exercise was born out of the need to comprehend texts written in foreign languages. There are two sides to this comprehension; the text and the reader of the translated version. Every literary text has its target audience; in the same manner, the translated versions have their target audiences. In translating, one tries to create a text that would be comprehensible to the target audience; to effectively create this, one must consider several factors, one of which is culture. Culture is often richly represented in literature. This study aims at finding a solution to one of the problems of literary translation: the means of depicting European culture to an African audience. The study illustrates the relationship between Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics and translation through translating Hector Malot’s novel Sans Famille (2006) from French to Igbo. To adapt the translated version to an Igbo audience, French cultural elements are replaced with those existing in Igbo culture, but having the same meaning as those seen in the French text. This is known as cultural adaptation or transculturation. This study realises transculturation by applying the semio-pragmatic translation theory. The result shows that transculturation leads to the creation of a new text.