Translate Afrikaans Na Engels
Kam Bergmann
This article will look at the translation of idioms and other types of fixed expressions from Afrikaans (the source language) into South African English (the target language), from selected texts in Huisgenoot and You magazines from a study conducted over the 10-week period from 18 July 2013 to 19 September 2013. The article will start by looking at the difficulties in defining idioms and other types of fixed expressions and will draw on the work of Rosamund Moon for this. It then uses the strategies on the translation of idioms (and other types of fixed expressions) in Mona Baker's In Other Words to categorise a set of 70 such expressions according to the strategy used to translate them and concludes by looking at whether equivalence is obtained.
This suggests that idioms present somewhat of a double-edged sword to the translator: firstly, they form an intricate part of a particular language and specifically a way of representing its peoples' culture, and secondly, they often present the translator with the problem of how to translate them into a target language and culture which may be partially, or even wholly unfamiliar with the culture of the source language and thus not necessarily have an appropriate idiom to replace it with. According to Baker (2011):
The purpose of this article is then to investigate the translation of fixed expressions (including idioms) from Afrikaans (the source language) into English (the target language) from selected texts in Huisgenoot and You magazines during the 10-week period from 18 July 2013 to 19 September 2013 (Media24 2013a-t). As already mentioned, both magazines have a large number of readers and both contain essentially the same content. The publications are thus an ideal source of translation in action, in that they contain translations of everyday language and (fixed) expressions used by South Africans when speaking Afrikaans and English. This article will thus look at how these fixed expressions were translated from Afrikaans to English and whether equivalence was obtained. Equivalence is a seminal concept in translation studies and Baker and Saldanha (2009:96) define 'equivalence as a relationship between two texts: a source text (ST) and a target text (TT)'. Equivalence can be sought, or said to exist, at any of a number of levels in the translation. Hartmann et al. cited in Bell (1991) say that 'Translation is the replacement of a representation of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in a second language' and they go on to say that:
According to the Collins English Dictionary (Black et al. 2009:820), an idiom is defined as 'a group of words whose meaning cannot be predicted from the meanings of the constituent words'. It also defines an idiom as 'linguistic usage that is grammatical and natural to native speakers of a language'. Similarly, The Cambridge Dictionary of Linguistics (Brown & Miller 2013:173) says that 'Many fixed expressions, both phrases and clauses, are idioms, that is fixed expressions whose meaning cannot be guessed from their individual words'. This is quite an important aspect when it comes to translation, as a native speaker of English is likely to recognise an idiom, not least of all because it might not make sense on a literal level within the context in which it is presented. On the other hand, a second language speaker, or someone learning English, may not pick up on the fact that an idiom is being used and then translate it directly into their target language and in so doing lose the meaning of the idiom, or even distort the meaning of the translation as a whole. As Baker (2011) says:
Baker (2011:71-75) says that 'Once an idiom or fixed expression has been recognised and interpreted correctly, the next step is to decide how to translate it into the target language', and then identifies the following four 'main difficulties in translating idioms and fixed expressions':
An example of such a translation is idiom (3), which can be translated into Afrikaans as idiom (4), and which, as mentioned above, also represents a literal translation. According to the HAT (Odendal et al. 1985:182) the Afrikaans idiom means 'gee aan elkeen die eer wat hom toekom'. According to the Collins English Dictionary (Black et al. 2009:459), the English equivalent means 'to acknowledge the talent or the success of an opponent or unpleasant person'. Because both these definitions are essentially the same, this then adheres to Svensén's definition of full equivalence as 'there is complete agreement between [the] two expressions in [English and Afrikaans] as regards content and usage' (2009:258).
The third strategy which Baker (2011:79) proposes is to use the source language idiom exactly as is, that is, not to translate it, but to leave it in the original source language. She says that (2011):
While this strategy might seem counterintuitive, in the absence of a full or partial translation equivalent, the idiom or other type of fixed expression in its source language form may be largely familiar to target language readers and thus understandable as is. This may even be the case where a suitable equivalent does in fact exist. An example of this would be an expression like 'absolutely fabulous' which can be translated into Afrikaans as absoluut fantasties, but this phrase does not capture the essence of the word 'fabulous'. This is similar to trying to translate lekker, or any expression containing lekker into English, where, although a suitable equivalent may exist, the word lekker just means so much more. The example of lekker kwaad wees in the Pharos Afrikaans-Engels English-Afrikaans Woordeboek (Du Plessis et al. 2010:317) provides an English equivalent of 'be jolly cross' which, although technically a suitable equivalent, a phrase like 'lekker cross' would be just as good, if not even better as lekker is widely used in South African English, in an informal context.
This fourth strategy is, according to Baker (2011:80) 'by far the most common way of translating idioms when a match cannot be found in the target language', or if 'it seems inappropriate to use idiomatic language in the TT because of differences in stylistic preferences of the source and target languages'. This strategy thus involves giving an explanation in the TT of the meaning of an idiom in the ST, in the absence of a suitable equivalent idiom in the target language, or depending on the context, if the use of an idiom is not appropriate in the TT. In fact, this method could be applied to any idiom whereby its literal meaning is simply translated. Thus, an idiom such as gestewel en gespoor would be translated into English as 'fully dressed' and not with an idiomatic equivalent like 'suited and booted'. The translator thus, once again has to choose which to use, based on the context of the translation.
Baker's fifth strategy 'involves rendering only the literal meaning of an idiom in a context that allows for a concrete reading of an otherwise playful use of language' (2011:84), but according to Van der Merwe (2001:69), because both English and Afrikaans are Germanic languages with mutual origins, it is sometimes possible that an idiom be translated directly from English to Afrikaans, while maintaining the same idiomatic meaning - a fact she attributes to some idioms originating from the same source.
Because they were unable to translate specific puns at the points at which they occurred in the text, translators of Astérix 'have sometimes resorted to inserting English puns (of equivalent impact rather than equivalent meaning) in different frames of the cartoon'. (p. 86)
All the idioms and other types of fixed expressions were placed in a spreadsheet and then it was determined which strategy was used to translate them, as well as their equivalence assessed. The results of this are discussed below.
Idiom (16) occurs twice in the data set and in the first instance is translated using an idiom of similar meaning and form, namely (17), which represents full equivalence. The second time however it is translated to (18) and in this instance it represents translation by paraphrase and as such represents partial equivalence as per Svensén (2009:258), because of the dissimilar form. Another example of this strategy would be the replacement of 'n twisappel with the English 'a bone of contention'. Once again the form of the two idioms is different, but their meanings are essentially the same and can be used in the same contexts.
The example of idiom (19), translated to (20) is another example of translation using an idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form. According to the Pharos Afrikaans-Engels English-Afrikaans Woordeboek (Du Plessis et al. 2010:1411), the correct form of the Afrikaans expression is 'op die net/internet rondkuier/rondsnuffel/rondrits'. Here then the Afrikaans idiom, which admittedly has various forms has been altered in the magazine, while the English equivalent 'surf the net/internet' (Du Plessis et al. 2010:1411) is used in its standard form. This may be because of the frequent use of the English expression in Afrikaans, meaning that the correct form of the Afrikaans expression is not as familiar to Afrikaans speakers. Translation borrowing the source language idiom could thus have been used here, but the Afrikaans equivalent nevertheless achieves partial equivalence.
The example of idiom (24) was also translated by paraphrase to (25) and while this is the correct verb to describe how mist clears up, that is, it dissipates, the Pharos Afrikaans-Engels English-Afrikaans Woordeboek (Du Plessis et al. 2010:635) suggests (26) as an equivalent.
Idiom (30) was probably translated to idiom (31) because of the apparent similarity of the two idioms, but the English idiom actually means to 'be in a dream world, that is, out of touch with reality', while the Afrikaans idiom relates to being happy or excited about something. A more appropriate English idiom, in addition to 'be delighted, tread/walk on air, be up in the air' (Du Plessis et al. 2010:711), could be to describe someone as being 'on cloud nine'. This then would use the strategy of translation using an idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form, although both do allude to clouds.
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