The housemaid d’Amma Darko: traduction commentee des six premiers chapitres

In this research entitled “Translation into French of, and comment on, the first six chapters of The Housemaid by Amma Darko”, it was all about the translation and the analysis of the first six chapters of the novel, The Housemaid, by Amma Darko, a contemporary Ghanaian writer. This study comprises three chapters. The first chapter, whose title is “Epistemological approach”, gives an account of the theoretical framework and the method of analysis of the research. It displays three translation theories expounded by Inês Oseki-Dépré (1999), known as prescriptive or classic theories, descriptive or modern theories and prospective or artistic theories. The methodology used was semantic translation, a method which takes into consideration the aesthetic value of the original text. This relates to the fact that the text-type is expressive and therefore authoritative because it is full of the author’s imaginations. However, we used communicative translation to give account of target statements whose effects are as close as those of the original statements. The second chapter entitled “The translation Activity” is about the translation of the novel from English to French. At this level, it was all about the application of the methodology that has just been summarised. With the semantic and communicative methods, we ensured to find versions of expressions, most of which are idiolects, as well as those of dialects and colloquial expressions. The third chapter (“Translation Analysis”) refers to the study of the translation. This chapter emphasises the problems of translation which are generally lexical and whose versions demanded detailed processes and procedures such as equivalence, concentration, (by Vinay et Darbelnet), functional equivalence (by Peter Newmark) and George Mounin’s theory (which insists on the exact understanding of the notion rather than an emphasis on the reference of the source language). This same chapter illustrates a lexical distinction between English and French. It has been noted from the author’s style that some English sentences show in themselves a repetition of ideas, which the French language cannot tolerate. It has been noticed in the course of this research that all human languages have common aspects (“language universals”), though there are linguistic differences between them. In grammar, for example, languages have sentences which consist of words with a pronunciation and a meaning. Each language distinguishes between nouns and verbs and each also has pronouns. Furthermore, each language demonstrates an agreement between subjects (agents) and objects. It is necessary to indicate that the differences and the common aspects provide each language with a unique manner of expression about any situation, thereby ensuring the possibility of translation between languages. Thus, we tried through this research to dissipate the notion of untranslatability of any language. Key words: translation, semantic translation, communicative translation, linguistic aspect, cultural aspect, sentence, expression, procedure, source language, target language, expressive text, analysis

Source: KNUST