Chapter published in:
A World Atlas of Translation
Edited by Yves Gambier and Ubaldo Stecconi
[Benjamins Translation Library 145] 2019
► pp. 243–270

Chapter 11
Translation tradition throughout South African history

In this report South African translation history is approached from the perspective of asymmetrical power relations with a view to revealing various functions and conceptualisations of translation throughout the country’s notoriously turbulent past. Translation is viewed in a reciprocal relationship with social forces, being stimulated and shaped by them and affecting them in return. Translation is considered from its earliest documented practice by Khoikhoi interpreters in communications with colonists in the 17th century until the present. Changes and trends in the practice and conceptualisation of translation are investigated ranging from translation’s use in manipulating and controlling people under colonialism and apartheid to its use in bringing about transformation in contemporary democratic South Africa. Translation is not only used to bridge communicative barriers according to traditional views, but is seen to extract information and intellectually subjugate, culturally and religiously convert, culturally elevate, manipulate, control, separate, resist and transform. This proves that translation analysed as socially contextualised communication unveils various covert functions of translation, contributing fresh insights to its conceptualisation.
Keywords: South African translation, extraction, cultural conversion, cultural elevation, separation, resistance, transformation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Translation and cultural conversion
    • 2.1The mercantilist period
    • 2.2The missionary period
  • 3.Translation and cultural elevation/construction
  • 4.Translation and resistance
  • 5.Translation, transformation and neo-liberalism
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 05 February 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.145.11bot
References
Alexander, Neville
1989 Language Policy and National Unity in South Africa/Azania. Cape Town: Buchu Books.Google Scholar
Bartnik, Ryszard
2010 Review: Knowledge and Colonialism: Eighteenth-Century Travellers in South Africa – Siegfried Huigen. Werkwinkel 5(1), 111–117.Google Scholar
Bassnett, Susan & Trivedi, Harish
2012 Postcolonial Translation: Theory and Practice. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Belcher, Ronnie
1987 Afrikaans en Kommunikasie oor die Kleurgrens. In Du Plessis, H., and Du Plessis, T., (eds.) Afrikaans en Taalpolitiek: 15 Opstelle. Pretoria: HAUM. 11–34.Google Scholar
Beukes, Anne-Marie
1993 Vertaling in Suid-Afrika: ’n Kritiese Perspektief (Translation in South Africa: A Critical Perspective). Unpublished doctoral thesis, Rand Afrikaans University. Available at: http://​hdl​.handle​.net​/10210​/10077.
2006 Translation in South Africa: The Politics of Transmission. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 24 (1), 1–6. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2007 Governmentality and the Good Offices of Translation in 20th Century South Africa. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies (25) 2, 115–130. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bickford-Smith, Vivian
2011 African Nationalist or British Loyalist? The Complicated Case of Tiyo Soga. History Workshop Journal 71 (1), 74–97. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bleek, Wilhelm
1983 On the Origin of Language as a First Chapter in a History of the Development of Humanity. In Koerner, K. (ed.) Linguistics and Evolutionary Theory: Three Essays by August Schleicher, Ernst Haeckel, and Wilhelm Bleek. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Bond, Patrick
2014 Elite Transition. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Botha, Maricel
2018 Power and Ideology in South African Translation. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Johannesburg.Google Scholar
den Besten, Hans
2010 A Badly Harvested Field: The Growth of Linguistic Knowledge and the Dutch Cape Colony until 1796. In Huigen, S., De Jong, J. L. and Kolfin, E. (eds.) The Dutch Trading Companies as Knowledge Networks, 267–294. Leiden: Brill. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dimitriu, Ileana
2002 Translation, Diversity and Power: An Introduction. Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa, 14 (2), 1–14. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dube, John Langalibalele
1951 Jeqe, the Bodyservant of King Tshaka. Trans. J. Boxwell. Lovedale: Lovedale Mission Press.Google Scholar
Gerard, Albert
1981 African Language Literatures: An Intoduction to the Literary History of Sub-Saharan Africa. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Gilmour, Rachael
2006 Grammars of Colonialism: Representing Languages in Colonial South Africa. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Guma, Enoch
1928 Nomalizo, or The Things of This Life are Sheer Vanity. Trans. S. J. Wallis. London: Sheldon Press.Google Scholar
Harrigan, Michael
2008 Veiled Encounters: Representing the Orient in 17th Century French Literature. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Seth
2012 Do Language Policies Contribute to Poverty and Underdevelopment? In Policy Innovations, Carnegie Council, 25 July 2012. Available at: http://​www​.policyinnovations​.org​/ideas​/commentary​/data​/000242#​.UBkTXj​-lI​-k​.twitter (Accessed 1 August 2012).
Kavanagh, Robert & Qangule, Zithobile Sunshine
1971 The Making of a Servant and Other Poems. Johannesburg: Ravan Publications.Google Scholar
Kelly, Nataly, DePalma, Donald & Hegde, Vijayalaxmi
2012 The Need for Translation in Africa. Addressing information inequality so that Africa may prosper. Lowell: Common Sense Advisory.Google Scholar
Khalema, Nene
2016 Linguicism and Nationalism: A Post-Colonial Gaze on the Promotion of Afrikaans as a National Language in Apartheid South Africa. International Journal of Language Studies 10 (1), 91–110.Google Scholar
Kleyn, Leti
2013 ’n Sisteemteoretiese Kartering van die Afrikaanse literatuur van die Tydperk 2000–2009: Kanonisering van die Afrikaanse Literatuur. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Pretoria. Available at: http://​www​.repository​.up​.ac​.za​/dspace​/bitstream​/handle​/2263​/32714​/Kleyn​_Sisteemteoretiese​_2013​.pdf​?sequence​=1
Kruger, Jan-Louis, Kruger, Haidee and Verhoef, Marlene
2007 Subtitling and the Promotion of Multilingualism: The Case of Marginalised Languages in South Africa. Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series 6, 35–49.Google Scholar
Kruger, Alet
2012 Translation, Self-Translation and Apartheid-Imposed Conflict. Journal of Language and Politics 11 (2), 273–292. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kruger, Haidee
2012 Postcolonial Polysystems: The Production and Reception of Translated Children’s Literature in South Africa. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Maake, Nhlanla
2000 Publishing and Perishing: Books, People and Reading in African Languages in South Africa. In Evans, N. and Seeber, M. (eds.) The Politics of Publishing in South Africa. London: Holger Ehling Publishing, 127–159.Google Scholar
Maake, Nhlanhla
2015 Negotiating Ironies and Paradoxes of Mother Tongue Education: An Introspective and Retrospective Reflection. South African Journal of African Languages 35 (1), 11–17. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Maumela, Titus Ntsiene
1985 Mafangambiti: The Story of a Bull. Trans. D. McCutcheon and N. Tshikovha. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.Google Scholar
May, Stephen
2004 Rethinking linguistic human rights: answering questions of identity, essentialism and mobility. In Freeland, J. and Patrick, D. (eds). Language Rights and Language Survival: Sociolinguistic and Sociocultural Perspectives. Manchester: St Jerome, 35–53.Google Scholar
Mendelssohn, Sidney
1979 A South African Bibliography to the Year 1925. London: Mansell.Google Scholar
Millán-Varela, Carmen
2003 ‘Minor’ needs or the ambiguous power of translation. In: Hogan-Brun, G. & Wolff, S. (eds). Minority Languages in Europe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 155–172. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Möller, Jana
2014 Multilingual Publishing: An Investigation into Access to Trade Books through the 11 Official Languages in South Africa. Unpublished Master’s dissertation: University of Pretoria. Available at: http://​repository​.up​.ac​.za​/handle​/2263​/45945​?show​=full
Mwepu, Dominique Ngoyi
2008 Government’s Contribution to the Development of Translation in South Africa (1910–1977). Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 26 (1), 87–96. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Nienaber, Gabriël Stephanus & Nienaber, Petrus Johannes
1943 Die Opkoms van Afrikaans as Kultuurtaal. Pretoria: Van Schaik.Google Scholar
Ntuli, Bhekinkosi & Swanepoel, Chris
1993 Southern African Literature in African Languages: A Concise Historical Perspective. Pretoria: Acacia.Google Scholar
Olsen, Birgitt
2008 An Overview of Translation History in South Africa 1652–1860. Unpublished master’s dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand. Available at: http://​mobile​.wiredspace​.wits​.ac​.za​/bitstream​/handle​/10539​/7798​/History%20of%20Translation%20in%20South%20Africa%201652%20to%201860​.pdf​?sequence​=1
Opland, Jeff
2000 Languages of South Africa. In France, P. (ed.) The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation, 134–136. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Phaahla, Pinkie
2006 Knowledge Production in What Language? The Hegemonic Use of English as a Language of Commerce and Industry from a South African Perspective. In Arasanyin, O. F. And Pemberton, M. A. (eds.) Selected Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, 142–154. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Pratt, Mary Louise
1992 Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London/New York: Routledge. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rangarajan, Padma
2014 Translation, Exoticism and the Long 19th Century. New York: Fordham University Press.Google Scholar
Ricard, Alain
2016 Towards Silence: Thomas Mofolo, Small Literatures and Poor Translation. Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, 53(2), 48–62. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Richard, Jean-Pierre
2005 Translation of African Literature: A German Model? In Translation – Transnation (1994–2004): Ten years of literary exchange between South Africa and France – A special publication of the Association of French Studies in South Africa, 39–44.Google Scholar
Schalkwyk, David & Lapula, Lerothodi
2000 Solomon Plaatje, William Shakespeare and the Translations of Culture. Pretexts: Literary and Cultural Studies 9 (1), 9–26. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Strauss, Helene
2006 From Afrikaner to African: Whiteness and the Politics of Translation in Antjie Krog’s A Change of Tongue. African Identities 4 (2), 179–194. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Teer-Tomaselli, Ruth
2015 Language, Programming and Propaganda during the SABC’s First Decade. African Journalism Studies, 36 (2), 59–76. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Vosloo, Frances Antoinette
2010 Om te skryf deur te vertaal en te vertaal deur te skryf: Antjie Krog as skrywer/vertaler. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Stellenbosch. Available at: http://​scholar​.sun​.ac​.za​/handle​/10019​.1​/4011​?locale​-attribute​=es
Wells, J.
1998 Eva’s Men: Gender and Power in the Establishment of the Cape of Good Hope, 1652–74. The Journal of African History, 39 (3), 417–434. CrossrefGoogle Scholar