Ideology in the French translation of Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's children's books

Abstract

The research presented here analyses translations of Ngugi wa Tshiong’o’s children’s books from the point of view of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), as outlined by Norman Fairclough (1989, 1992). The research investigates whether an approach taking into consideration ideological issues in translation is most appropriate in translating Ngugi’s children books for a francophone child reader by giving them access to Gĩkữyữ culture. To achieve this objective, the French translations of selected ideologically embedded extracts of Ngugi’s children books (Njamba Nene and the Flying Bus and Jamba Nene’s Pistol) are compared. The translations were carried out in different socio-cultural contexts by translators of different origins (France and Cameroon). The results of this research show that the translated texts read differently from one translator to another. This suggests that certain ideological and other social factors influence translators, resulting in differing translation products. In this way, translation cannot be considered as a one-to-one transfer between languages. Nor can translation theory draw on one linguistic theory alone, however complex it may be. What is needed is “a theory of culture to explain the specificity of communicative situations and the relationship between verbalised and non-verbalised situational elements” (Nord, 1997:11).