Analysing translated metaphors in Amaka ga Bawansolo and Eby'edda Bisasika

Abstract

Authors of literary texts often use metaphors in most of their writings. Chinua Achebe and George Orwell are among the writers who use metaphors to convey meaning in their texts namely; Things Fall Apart and Animal Farm respectively. These texts were translated from English into Luganda by J.B Walakira and Cranmer Kalinda respectively. The aim of the study was to analyze the translation of metaphors and their meanings in Animal Farm and Things Fall Apart as was done in the Luganda texts namely; Amaka ga Bawansolo and Eby’edda Bisasika. Specifically, the study set out to identify the metaphors in the selected source text (ST) and examine how the metaphors were translated in the target text (TT). In addition, the study intended to examine the quality of translation of the metaphors used by the writers in Amaka Ga Bawansolo and Eby’edda Bisasika as target texts. The study adopted a qualitative approach to research as well as a descriptive research design. Document analysis was used as the main method of data collection. The metaphors in the ST were compared with those translated in the Luganda versions, with the view of finding out whether there are deviations or misinterpretation of the metaphors in the TTs. In this study, three main types of metaphors namely conceptual/structural, orientational and ontological were identified. Study results show that there were a number of deviations in the translation of these metaphors, especially those which fell in the ontological category. It was further observed that, the deviations in the translation of metaphors in Animal Farm and it’s to Luganda version were more than those in Things Fall Apart. This is partly explained by similarities in African cultures. Further still, a number of metaphors in Animal Farm, especially the ontological metaphors were not translated in Amaka ga Bawansolo and this was due to the differences in cultural and political settings of the two STs. The study results indicated that in both TTs translators are recommended to pay full attention to the usage of the figurative language as used in the ST so as to ensure the maintenance of the same empirical meaning in the TT.