Publications

Publication details [#10530]

Fioupou, Christiane. 2006. Translating pidgin English, rotten English and ubuesque English into French. In Granqvist, Raoul J., ed. Writing back in/and translation. Bern: Peter Lang. pp. 75–90.
Publication type
Chapter in book
Publication language
English
Source language
Target language

Abstract

Fioupou discusses the different translational strategies of rendering two plays by Wole Soyinka (The Road and King Baabu) and the novel Sozaboy: A Novel Written in Rotten English by Ken Saro-Wiwa into French. Her starting-point was that this translation had to subvert a colonial French known as langage tirailleur that had popularised racist expressions such as "Y'a bon … Banania." What the Nigerian works have in common is their strong and active presence of multicultural and multilingual varieties, Nigerian Pidgin English, and colloquialisms of a most innovative kind — and the presence in them of the already-translated and the already-writing-back. The major problem for the translators was where to find the tool with which to give the works an acceptable French voice and syntax.
Source : Based on abstract in book