Significantly, what first emerges from Obi's translation is the fact that the song is itself concerned with the problematical crossing of boundaries and allegiances, that is, with treachery and betrayal. This, however, is also the language of Achebe's novel in which all communication is rendered, even for Igbo characters whose words are being translated. My point is that the translator must acknowledge this complicity and may not situate himself at a privileged position outside the field of contesting powers in which translation functions. One might well see the example as a warning that the invalidation of the traditional Igbo code of ethics is connected to the interference of English and that the process of translating culture may result in the breaking and falling apart of these cultures. This, however, is too negative a view of translation, too closely related to the essentialist concept referred to above which ignores the make-up and constructedness of what we call culture.
Culture is contested, temporal, and emergent.
To speak of rhetorics in this context means to consider the repertoire of topoi and tropes which are available for anyone trying to engage in cultural activity and especially for anyone trying to interpret or translate cultural meanings. This, of course, applies not only to First World interpreters of Third World texts. Furthermore, this rhetorical topos, so readily available to the interpreter here, is also invariably employed in colonial literature. But as the semiotic framework outlined above insists, these elements are also functional in intracultural communication. The partial truths of culture therefore result from the rhetorical truths of such figures in thought and speech.