Problems relating to the translation of young adult’s literature from English into IsiZulu

Abstract

Are there any challenges relating to the translation of young adult’s literature from English into isiZulu, and how may these be identified and solved? This Research Report investigates problems relating to the translation of young adult’s literature from English into isiZulu. The also present a ranked classification of problems in translating young adult’s literature from English into isiZulu, as these are identified. The researcher explored challenges relating to the translation of young adult’s literary works by translating Sello Mahapeletsa’s When Lions Smile (Mahapeletsa, 2003).

This research will entail categories: supra, main, sub and sub-sub-categories. The supra section will incorporate challenges involved in understanding the source text, production of the target text, and the transfer process. The main section will comprise challenges regarding technique, strategy, micro-language, and macro-language. The sub-section will contain challenges regarding culture, background knowledge, style and register, spelling, vocabulary, rhetorical and stylistic devices. The sub-sub-sections cover various categories, e.g., omissions, additions, spelling slips, fixed expressions, and word order. An experimental ranking of challenges is based on the following factors: error severity, error count, and observed pitfalls. The combination of source text understanding in young adult’s literature, target text production, problems of the transfer process, linguistic problems, and those of an extra-textual nature furnishes this research, a status of comprehensiveness that makes it different from most research that exists currently.