Deconstructing the Other Heteroglosia and Postcolonial Translation in Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon
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Abstract
Linguistic and cultural hybridity has become the new reality of postcolonial societies, and literature has offered postcolonial authors the possibility to convey and normalise such hybridity. Yet, the heteroglossia that characterises postcolonial narratives poses a great challenge when it comes to its translation. Having said that, the article aims to offer a translation technique to replicate the heteroglossia employed as a subversive strategy in Lagoon (2014), by American author Nnedi Okorafor. More precisely, from a postcolonial approach, this paper focuses on the analysis and translation of a particular linguistic phenomenon: the alternation between standard English and Nigerian Pidgin English as a subversive strategy. In order to translate a representative fragment of the novel, I have opted for Snell-Hornby’s prospective translation (1998) as the translation method. And, after comparing different translation techniques, I have resorted to the creation of a hybrid linguistic variety based on Spanish to replicate the symbolic function of NPE and the defamiliarization effect of the source text. This project is ultimately intended to revindicate the crucial role played by the translator as an author-creator and as an intercultural mediator whose objective is guaranteeing the political agency of the postcolonial author.
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