REFLECTIONS ON LINGUISTIC FEATURES IN THE FRENCH TRANSLATION OF SOYINKA’S THE LION AND THE JEWEL

Abstract

Abstract: The whole idea of researching in literary translation and in the translation of African literature in particular has come of age. While volumes of works have been published on translation of prose, little has been done on the translation of drama let alone appraising the translation of the linguistic features in a play. The translation of linguistic elements in African literature into foreign languages comes with a lot of challenges especially when the translators are not native speakers of the languages. This study therefore, attempts to identify and analyse the linguistic features in both the source and the target texts of Soyinka’s drama text. The Lion and the Jewel (1963) was translated by Jacques Chuto and Phillippe Labuthe-Tolra into French as Le lion et la perle (1968). The study therefore, employs descriptive and comparative research methods in analysing our data. We adopt Seleskovitch and Lederer’s Interpretive Theory of Translation (1970s). The Theory postulates that the translation of a text should produce the same cognitive, affective and esthetic effects on target readers as the original text does and this can be achieved through the theory’s components- comprehension, deverbalisation and reformulation of meanings. The study finds out that untranslatability abounds all through the translation. The study, therefore, concludes that to avoid translation loss or mistranslation, indigenous thoughts in African drama texts can be retained or translated with the use of direct translation techniques such as loan-words, literal translation and calque. Some other expounding tools such as footnotes and glossaries can be employed. Keywords: linguistic, feature, The lion and the jewel, translation, untranslatability