A TRANSLATION OF WOMEN OF OWU (BY FEMI OSOFISAN) FROM ENGLISH TO IGBO: PROBLEMS AND PRINCIPLES

A TRANSLATION OF WOMEN OF OWU (BY FEMI OSOFISAN) FROM ENGLISH TO IGBO: PROBLEMS AND PRINCIPLES

ABSTRACT

Literary translation, which is our major focus, implies the translation of all genres of literature which include prose, drama and poetry. Literary translation has to do with translating texts written in a literary language which are highly connotative and subjective, abound in ambiguities, homonyms and arbitrariness, as distinct from the language of science or that of administration which is denotative and direct. Literary translation may as such be said to have the greatest number of peculiar problems. This research is therefore aimed at examining the problems and principles of literary translation. The methodology adopted include applying the techniques of translation (direct and indirect methods) to obtain the target text. The analysis of the result showes that cultural, linguistic, equivalence problems amongst others exist in the course of translating the source text to the target text. It is recommended that the following steps amongst other be taken to tackle such problems: the translator must have a sound linguistics knowledge including a good theoretical and practical knowledge of translation, the cultural backgrounds and the requisite communicative competence in both languages, since the quality of translation depends upon them.