ABSTRACT

There are various forms of texts for translation. These texts are specialized or technical texts, general texts and literary texts. But the focus of this study is on the translation of a literary text. Enough studies have not been carried out in the area of literary translation. As a result, the art of literary translation has not gained much ground. Ala Bingo by D.N. Achara is the text to be looked into. In order to carry out this work, several techniques would be employed. They include: equivalence, explicative, loaning, calque, transposition, etc. Translating the text from Igbo to English and highlighting the problems therein will enable non Igbo speakers to understand what the text is all about and appreciate the rich Igbo culture in it. It will also motivate more scholarly work in the area of literary translation, thereby promoting and developing the domain.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Translation is the process in which a written communication or a text in the source language SL is produced as the written communication or text in the target language TL.

As regards the origin of the term translation, etymologically according to Wikipedia translation refers to carrying across. It originated from the Latin word translacio, the perfect passive participle of which is translatum or transferre Trans implies to transfer and ferre implies to carry, to bring across. For the modern Roman, German and Slavic European languages, the word traducere is used for translation which implies to bring across or to lead across in English.

The Greek term for translation is metaphrasis which implies a word for word translation or literal translation while paraphrase in Greek means saying in other words.

There are various forms of texts for translation. Okeke 1995:21 observes that these texts include specialized or technical texts, general texts and literary texts. Translation is not as easy as it sound to be. Moreover, it does not mean a simple word for word correspondence between any two languages. It is not a mechanical process where each word is translated to the target language. Rather many factors are to be taken into consideration to get the exact output in the target language. Such factors are:

Actual context

The rules of grammar of the two languages

Their writing conventions