Implications of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis for literary translation

Abstract

On the grounds of the examination of the historical development of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and theoretical interpretations and evaluations of the hypothesis, it is postulated that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis can basically be reformulated as intimating that language influences and shapes worldview. Due to the fact that worldview in the work of Sapir and Whorf refers rather to the worldview of a specific cultural group - whose members share a language - than to the individual, the conclusion can be reached that the hypothesis implies that culture influences worldview and that language, as a reflection of culture, therefore indirectly influences world view. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis can be applied to translation in general, because translation entails transposition between languages as well as between cultures. As a literary text calls into existence a fictional textual world, the hypothesis that language influences worldview is especially applicable to literary translation. The writer of a literary text creates the world in the text through the medium of language and also represents views of this textual world (as held by the characters and the narrator) through language. The translator, as the producer of the target text, has the task of recreating the world in the source text into the target text through the medium of another language. Text-level equivalence between the source text and the target text is reached if a world that is equivalent to the source text world is created in the target text, and if the target language readers' experience of this world is similar to that of the source language readers' experience of the source text world. As this textual world is experienced through the medium of language, foregrounding based on linguistic deviation as well as culture-specific linguistic elements in the source text requires a certain amount of creativity on the part of the translator. The specific challenges involved in the rendition of instances of linguistic deviation and culture-specific linguistic elements are illustrated practically by way of a text-linguistic analysis of Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and an evaluative comparison between these texts and their Afrikaans translations by Brink. The conclusion is reached that literary translation requires a great deal of the translator due to the fact that a textual world and the readers' experience of this world must be recreated in the translation of a literary text.