Translating linguistic diversity and cultural context in Mia Couto’s Sleepwalking Land: translation strategies and paratexts in the Chinese version
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2023.e97136Keywords:
linguistic diversity, indigenous languages, foreignization and domestication, paratextAbstract
The linguistic diversity in Mia Couto's Sleepwalking Land, resulting from the insertion of indigenous words in the text, plays a fundamental role in constructing the African cultural context and seeking Mozambican national identity. To translate this linguistic diversity and reproduce the African context of the original, the Chinese translator, Min Xuefei, adopted a hybrid approach to deal with indigenous words. On one hand, some indigenous words are transliterated to disconnect Chinese readers from their own context, allowing them to immerse themselves in the African context of the work. On the other hand, when faced with indigenous words that constitute culturally recognizable symbols for Chinese readers, the translator directly translates their semantic meaning to preserve the stability of these symbols. Instead of solely relying on foreignization as the only way to highlight linguistic diversity in the work, this article explores the possibility of combining foreignization and domestication to create an accessible translation that does not obscure cultural nuances, through an analysis of Min's Chinese translation. Furthermore, as the linguistic tension present in the original is challenging to convey directly in translation, the research examines and values the paratextual elements in the Chinese version, where the translator unveils the author's perspectives on language diversity, especially in a post-colonial context.
References
Ashcroft, Bill; Griffiths, Gareth & Tiffin, Helen. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literatures. Londres: Routledge, 2002.
Bajanca, Ana Isabel Bento Mendes. Mia Couto em inglês: inconvenções de tradução em A Varanda do Frangipani-Under the Frangipani. Dissertação (Mestrado em Estudos da Tradução) – Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, 2009.
Baldick, Chris. Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Berman, Antoine. A tradução e a letra ou o albergue do longínquo. Tradução de Marie-Hélène Catherine Torres, Mauri Furlan & Andréia Guerini. Florianópolis: Copiart, 2012.
Brugioni, Elena. “Escrevendo a partir de outras margens. Diferença, exceção e tradução no mundo de língua portuguesa: contrapontos entre representações literárias e paradigmas críticos”. Cadernos de Tradução, 37(1), p. 65-89, 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2017v37n1p65
Couto, Mia. “A Língua Portuguesa em Moçambique”. Ciberdúvidas da Língua Portuguesa. 09/05/2003. Disponível em: https://ciberduvidas.iscte-iul.pt/outros/antologia/a-lingua-portuguesa-em-mocambique/709. Acesso em: 1 out. 2023.
Couto, Mia. Sleepwalking Land. Tradução de David Brookshaw. Londres: Profile Books, 2006.
Couto, Mia. Terra Sonâmbula. Lisboa: Editorial Caminho, 2009.
Couto, Mia. E se Obama fosse africano? São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2011.
Couto, Mia. Terra Sonâmbula. Tradução de Min Xuefei. Pequim: CITIC Press Group, 2018.
Firmino, Gregório. “A situação do Português no contexto multilíngue de Moçambique”. Simpósio Mundial de Estudos da Língua Portuguesa, 1., 2008, São Paulo. Disponível em: https://simelp.fflch.usp.br/sites/simelp.fflch.usp.br/files/inline-files/06_26.pdf. Acesso em: 30 nov. 2023.
Genette, Gérard & McIntosh, Amy G. “The Proustian Paratexte”. SubStance, 17(2), p. 63-77, 1988. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3685140
Genette, Gérard. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. Tradução de Jane E. Lewin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Genette, Gérard. Paratextos editoriais. Tradução de Álvaro Faleiros. Cotia: Ateliê Editorial, 2009.
Min, Xuefei. “北京大学葡语非洲文学研究简况.” 中国非洲研究评论•非洲文学专辑(2016)总第六辑 , 2018.
Nogueira, Maria das Graças de Castro. “A tradução nas literaturas africanas de língua portuguesa: a posição de Mia Couto”. Cadernos CESPUC de Pesquisa Série Ensaios, 2(20), p. 40-47, 2010.
Pellatt, Valerie. (Org.). Text, Extratext, Metatext and Paratext in Translation. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholar Publishing, 2014.
Rothwell, Phillip. Leituras de Mia Couto. Lisboa: Leya, 2015.
Schleiermacher, Friedrich Daniel Ernest. “Sobre os diferentes métodos de tradução”. Tradução de Celso Braida. In: Heidermann, Werner. (Org.). Clássicos da Teoria da Tradução: Alemão-Português. Florianópolis: Núcleo de Pesquisas em Literatura e Tradução, 2010. p. 38-101.
Torres, Marie-Hélène Catherine. “Tradução e ética: a problemática da retroconversão”. Cadernos da Tradução, 41(1), p. 174-184, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2021.e84952
Venuti, Lawrence. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. Londres: Routledge, 1995.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Cadernos de Tradução
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright Notice
Authors hold the copyright and grant the journal the right for their articles' first publication, being their works simultaneously licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which allows the sharing of such works with its authorship acknowledged and its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are allowed to enter into separate additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or as a book chapter, with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal).