Traduction et analyse des elements socioculturels dans les six premiers chapitres de The Kaya Girl de Mamle Wolo.

Abstract

This research entitled “Translation and Analysis of Socio-cultural Elements in the first six chapters of The Kaya Girl by Mamle Wolo”, focuses on the translation and the analysis of socio-cultural and stylistic elements in the first six chapters of the novel. Our research also aims to complement Mamle Wolo’s effort by translating this particular novel from English to French to make the novel accessible to French speakers. The methodology used is a combination of semantic and communicative translation, making it possible to respect the style and tone of the author while guaranteeing the accessibility and comprehension of the text in the target language. The theories underpinning this research are Newmark’s semantic translation, descriptive theory of translation by Oseki-Dépré (1999) and domestication and foreignization by Venuti (2017). The study confirms the idea that translating a novel often reveals challenges in conveying cultural references, idioms, and social norms from the source language into the target language as certain expressions or cultural phenomena may have no direct equivalent in the target language, but with the appropriate techniques, these challenges can be overcome. Finally, the study acknowledges some limitations, such as the limited corpus and time constraints, while proposing perspectives for future research. This thesis thus contributes to the understanding of the challenges and practices of literary translation in an intercultural context.