Ein Kritischer Vergleich Der Übersetzung Afrikanischer Lieder in Zwei Deutschen Ausgaben Am Beispiel Von Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong‘os Roman „petals of Blood“

Abstract

The translation of metaphors from one language and culture to another is problematic, and therefore requires a lot of competence from the translators. This study analyzed the loss in meaning and the change in metaphorical understanding of the metaphors in the two German translations of the novel “Petals of Blood”, using the Post-Colonial translation theory of (Bandia 2003) and the Relevance Theory of Communication by (Sperber and Wilson 1986). The metaphors were divided into those that appear in single sentences and those that appear in song excerpts. This considered that the processing time of those that appear in song excerpts is much longer and they also activated a larger encyclopedic understanding, thus stimulating more aspects when interpreting, than the ones that appear in single sentences. The metaphors were also categorized into four themes: politics, wealth, cultural practices and objects as well as religion and beliefs. During the analysis of the interviews, it was evident that the German interviewees indicated a higher loss in meaning and a higher change in metaphorical understanding in the metaphors than the Kikuyu/ English speakers. This is because the cultural understanding of the target language readers in regards to wealth, perception to religious beliefs, knowledge of the cultural practices and objects in the source language and the politics of the source culture differed significantly to that of the source language readers. The author of the source text also gave his insight to some of the metaphors and it was clear that his goal, which is the same message to be transferred from the source text to the target text, had not been achieved during the translation of some metaphors. The translation of a couple of words in the target texts was distorted and it led to change in the cognitive interpretation of some metaphors to the target language readers. The source language readers also indicated some discrepancies in the source text of how some metaphors had been translated by the author from Kikuyu to English. This discrepancy was carried forward to the target texts, thus leading the target language readers not to get the intended message or metaphorical understanding as it is in the source text. To bridge the difference in cultural understanding, (Newmark 1981) strategies of translating metaphors would have been fully utilized. The best strategy that the translators of this novel could have used would have been Newmark’s seventh strategy, which is to combine the metaphor with the meaning during the translation of the metaphors in the target language.