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Ml 48106-1346 USA 313.'761-4700 800/521-0600 WRITING AS TRANSLATION: TRANSLATION AND THE POSTCOLONIAL EXPERIENCE - THE FRANCOPHONE AFRICAN TEXT DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Kwaku Addae Gyasi, D.S.E.F., B.A.(Hons), M.A.I.A., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1996 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Abiola Irele Danielle Marx-Scouras Adviser John Conteh-Morgan Department of French/Italian UMI Number: 9620015 Copyright 1996 by Gyasi, Kwaku Addae All rights reserved. UMI Microform 9620015 Copyright 1996, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Ml 48103 Copyright by Kwaku Addae Gyasi 1996 To My Late Father, Akwasi Gyimah Brempong My Mother, Afua "Bio" Nyarko; You have been the source of my inspiration 11 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my adviser Dr. Abiola Irele for his invaluable guidance and insight throughout the writing of the dissertation. I express my appreciation to the other members of my Dissertation Committee, Dr. Danielle Marx- Scouras and Dr. John Conteh-Morgan for their suggestions and comments. I am also very grateful to Dr. Isaac Mowoe, the late Dr. Richard Bjornson and the late Dr. Joe Kubayanda for all their support and encouragement. To my wife, Effey, I offer sincere thanks for your steadfast faith in me and and your willingness to endure with me the vicissitudes of my struggles. To my children, Kofi, Yaa and Kwabena, I thank you for understanding my frequent absences. Ill VITA 198 1 .......................... Higher Diploma in French Studies, University of Dakar, Dakar, Senegal 198 2 .......................... B.A. (Hons), University of Ghana, Legon 199 0 .......................... M.A. (International Affairs), Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 199 1 .......................... M.A. , The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1982-84.......................French Teacher, St Monica's Secondary School, Ghana English Teacher, St. Andrew's College, Ghana 1984-1987.................... Translator/Bilingual Secretary, Pan African News Agency, Dakar, Senegal FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: French and Italian Francophone Literatures of Africa & the Caribbean; French Literature of the 17th & 20th Centuries. IV TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION........................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................. i ü VITA............................................... Iv PART 1 - INTRODUCTION: THE AFRICAN WRITER AND THE LANGUAGE OF WRITING................ 1 CHAPTER PAGE I. TRANSLATION THEORIES AND THEIR RELEVANCE TO THE AFRICAN TEXT....................... 36 II. LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, AND WRITING IN THE AFRICAN CONTEXT........................... 67 III. A. HENRI LOPES: WRITING AFRICAN LANGUAGES IN LE PLEURER-RIRE..................... 98 B. JEAN-MARIE ADIAFFI: THE SEARCH FOR AFRICAN IDENTITY THROUGH WRITING..... 114 IV. TIERNO MONENEMBO: TRANSCRIBING THE AFRICAN WORD IN FRENCH................... 124 V. AHMADOU KOUROUMA: TRANSLATION AND INTER PRETATION AS NARRATIVE CONFIGURATIONS OF THE AFRICAN TEXT.......................... 142 VI. SONY LABOU TANSI: WRITING, CREATION, AND THE POWER OF WORDS........................ 166 VII. WRITING AND TRANSLATION STRATEGIES....... 200 VIII. WRITING AS TRANSFERING CULTURE : SPECIFIC PROBLEMS IN THE TRANSLATION OF AFRICAN LITERATURE................................ 213 V PART 2 - EXPERIENCE AND PROBLEMS IN TRANSLATING SONY LABOU TANSIES LES YEUX DU VOLCAN INTO ENGLISH...... 242 A: THE TEXT............ ................. 245 B: COMMENTARY AND TRANSLATION PROBLEMS.. 426 CONCLUSION........................................ 446 BIBLIOGRAPHY...................................... 454 VI PART 1 INTRODUCTION THE AFRICAN WRITER AND THE LANGUAGE OF WRITING African literature in European languages occupies a unique position. Before western colonization, the novel, for instance, was an unknown genre in Africa. Athough there were oral narratives, there were no novelists or novels in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since the colonial period, novelists constitute a special kind of creators who, contrary to traditional poets or storytellers with whom they are in contact, are paradoxically products of colonization. Unlike traditional poets or storytellers, African novelists acquired their art through the possibility of writing. Within the framework of literature, the inmediate advantage that writing offered to the African was the means to participate in the development of the prevailing literary genre. However, because of the impossibility (or at any rate the difficulty) for some African writers to write in their mother tongues there arose the need for these writers 1 2 to write in the languages of the colonizers. Because, historically, Africans found themselves placed in this linguistic situation, the early African writers started to write in the languages of the colonizers without considering all the implications involved in the use of such languages. In their zeal to destroy the stereotypical images of Africa and to project their African world-view, these writers may have considered the colonial languages as mere tools or means to achieve their objectives. However, as Roland Barthes (1953) points out, "le langage n'est jamais innocent" since a people's social, political and cultural institutions are reflected in their language. If one considers what has been written on the language question in Africa, one realizes that the emphasis has especially been on the attitude of the African writer vis-a- vis the European language rather than on the creative use of the language. In fact, the classical question consisted in knowing if writing in the language of the colonizer was problematic for African writers or if they felt comfortable in using this language. Thus, based on the declarations of some African writers,^ Jacques Chevrier (1978) was able to make this remark: L'attitude de l'écrivain vis-à-vis d'une langue non maternelle repose, semble-t-il, sur une certaine ambivalence, mélange d'amour et de haine, de saisie et de rejet, ç[ui rend assez bien compte du sentiment du corps à corps avec le langage que provoque parfois la lecture des écrivains francophones. (49) 3 Although Chevrier's observation is pertinent, it directs the reflection only onto the ideological aspect of this linguistic question. What has been neglected is essentially how the European language is re-appropriated and given expression in the imagination of the African writer. In a situation of diglossia and bilingualism, such as that which characterizes African countries, the use of a foreign language as a medium of literary expression raises a certain number of questions. Is any given individual capable of mastering completely his or her mother tongue as well as a foreign language? Although this question can be answered in the affirmative, it is still possible to share ■ i the doubt entertained by Todorov (1985) when he writes: Je me demande si le bilinguisme fondé sur la neutralité et la parfaite réversibilité des deux langues n'est pas un leurre ou tout au moins une exception. (26) Todorov's remarks are pertinent in any bilingual situation in view of the fact there is always an unconscious interference of the mother tongue in any individual's actualization of a second language. This unconscious intrusion is mostly felt at the level of lexis where a bilingual speaker has an unconcious recourse to a lexicon in his or her mother tongue while speaking the other language. But interference may also be realized at the syntactic level where the structure of the second language is influenced by the mother tongue of the bilingual speaker. This linguistic interference which is most visible in speech is sometimes 4 also perceptible in the writings of a bilingual writer. In the case of African writers, the writings of Nazi Boni, for example, manifest a clear example of the unconscious intereference of the mother tongue in the European language of writing while those of Achebe, Okara,