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"Save oure tonges difference" : reflections on translating Chaucer’s Canterbury tales into Afrikaans

Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2019.

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Other Authors: Noomé, Idette
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: University of Pretoria 2020
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access_status_str Open Access
author2 Noomé, Idette
author_browse Noomé, Idette
author_facet Noomé, Idette
collection Thesis
dc_rights_str_mv © 2019 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria.
description Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2019.
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institution University of Pretoria (South Africa)
language English
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provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository
publishDate 2020
publishDateRange 2020
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source_str UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository
spelling oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/74353 "Save oure tonges difference" : reflections on translating Chaucer’s Canterbury tales into Afrikaans Noomé, Idette u27469957 @tuks.co.za Boje, Johannes Gerhardus UCTD Translation Translation studies Literary translation Chaucer Canterbury tales Middle English Afrikaans literature Pelgrimsverhale Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2019. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (c1340-1400) is acknowledged as a major work of world literature. It has been translated, as a whole or in part, into more than fifty languages. This study reflects on the process and outcome of an Afrikaans translation, Die Pelgrimsverhale van Geoffrey Chaucer (appended), of this Middle English text. The aim of this study was to explore what happens when a text is decontextualised as a result of its removal from the historical linguistic, literary and cultural context in which it originated and it is recontextualised in terms of a very different twentieth and twenty-first century receptor culture. This necessitates interpretation of the source text in its fourteenth century thought world, elucidated by scholarship accumulated over the centuries, and its reinterpretation in order to be intelligible and acceptable to contemporary readers, specifically Afrikaans-speaking readers, shaped in large measure by Calvinist theology and nationalist ideology. The focus of the study was on the correlation between theory underpinning Translation Studies and the practical conclusions arrived at in the course of an extended translating process and as a result of this study. Theorists whose insights figure prominently include Toury, Gadamer, Jauss, Iser and Even-Zohar. A central dilemma facing any translator was formulated by Friedrich Schleiermacher in 1813: a translation should either move the writer towards the reader (domestication) or move the reader towards the writer (foreignisation). Most more recent functionalist translation studies favour the former option, exemplified by Gideon Toury’s insistence on the normative nature of cultural accommodation in translation in order iii to achieve acceptability in the target text’s literary polysystem. Schleiermacher favoured moving the reader towards the writer, a course of action vigorously espoused by Lawrence Venuti, who rejects domestication in favour of foreignisation. The translation investigated is the researcher’s own work, a translation of Chaucer’s Canterbury TalesI, completed over a period of sixty years. These circumstances favoured a longitudinal approach and an autoethnographic methodology to investigate how practical translational strategies were employed to achieve the adequacy of the translation which can be reconciled with the theoretically based norms of acceptability, and how the theoretical acceptability of the translation relates to the realities of an Afrikaans polysystem. Based on the practical experience set out in the reconstruction of the translation process, the study opposes the binarism implied in adopting either domestication or foreignisation fully. The research established the adequacy of the translation in terms of Toury’s theoretically based norms of acceptability. These norms are usually advanced as purely descriptive, but in practical terms they may achieve prescriptive force for a translator in pursuit of acceptance. This difficulty, which arose in the context of a translation that was unacceptable to the Afrikaans polysystem at the height of Afrikaner nationalism, led to an appraisal of the current situation and a reflection on hypothetical future audiences for the translated work. The study concluded that in contrast to modernisations, translations draw on the vast linguistic resources of the target language and are therefore able to throw new light on the source text. Translations of the Canterbury Tales are therefore of benefit to Chaucer scholarship. Consequently, the Afrikaans translation and the author’s reflection on it may have a measure of significance in the global reception of Chaucer’s work. English PhD Unrestricted 2020-04-22T12:23:17Z 2020-04-22T12:23:17Z 2020 2019 Thesis Boje, JG 2019, Save oure tonges difference : reflections on translating Chaucer’s Canterbury tales into Afrikaans, PhD Thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd <http://hdl.handle.net/2263/74353> A2020 http://hdl.handle.net/2263/74353 en © 2019 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. application/pdf University of Pretoria
spellingShingle UCTD
Translation
Translation studies
Literary translation
Chaucer
Canterbury tales
Middle English
Afrikaans literature
Pelgrimsverhale
"Save oure tonges difference" : reflections on translating Chaucer’s Canterbury tales into Afrikaans
title "Save oure tonges difference" : reflections on translating Chaucer’s Canterbury tales into Afrikaans
title_full "Save oure tonges difference" : reflections on translating Chaucer’s Canterbury tales into Afrikaans
title_fullStr "Save oure tonges difference" : reflections on translating Chaucer’s Canterbury tales into Afrikaans
title_full_unstemmed "Save oure tonges difference" : reflections on translating Chaucer’s Canterbury tales into Afrikaans
title_short "Save oure tonges difference" : reflections on translating Chaucer’s Canterbury tales into Afrikaans
title_sort save oure tonges difference reflections on translating chaucer s canterbury tales into afrikaans
topic UCTD
Translation
Translation studies
Literary translation
Chaucer
Canterbury tales
Middle English
Afrikaans literature
Pelgrimsverhale
url http://hdl.handle.net/2263/74353