Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: African Europhone literature and the politics of language

1. Introduction

2. The polemics of language

3. Colonial language policies

4. Criticism and responses

5. Critical view of orality and its influences

6. The complex union of writing and orality

Chapter 2: Intercultural writing as translation

1. Introduction

2. The pragmatics of African oral discourse in European-language writing

2.1. Crosscultural pragmatics and intercultural writing

2.2. Theoretical relevance for transcultural analysis

3. Writing culture and identity

4. Sociopragmatics and culture-specific discourse

5. What's in a name? Writing traditional onomastic practices

5.1. Pragmatic functions of naming

Chapter 3: Cultural representation and postcolonial aesthetics

1. Introduction

2. Interculturality and discoursal indirectness

3. The art of oratory

4. Proverbs, aphorisms and intercultural narratives

4.1 Proverb patterns and style

4.2 Proverb content and meaning

5. Intercultural narratives and 'African time' concepts

6. The aesthetics of vulgarity

Chapter 4: Linguistic experimentation and intercultural writing

1. Introduction

2. Lexical innovation and formation

3. Semantic shifts

4. Interpolations of the vernacular

5. Hybrid formations and some lexical innovation strategies

6. Recreating ornamental discourse

Chapter 5: Literary heteroglossia, sociolects, translation

1. Pidgins and creoles in creative writing

2. Linguistic hybridity in Francophone literature

3. Polylingualism and intercultural writing

4. Code-switching and literary stylistics

5. Code-switching, translation and resistance

Chapter 6: Intercultural writing and inter-European language translation

1. Interculturality, heteroglossia and inter-European language translation

2. Towards a postcolonial translation theory for African literature

3. From orature to writing: accented translation between colonial languages

4. Tripartite or three-tier approach

4.1. Initial translation or the orality/writing interface

4.2. Postcolonial translation as conversion

5. Between Francophone and Anglophone literatures: translation as conversion

Chapter 7: African Europhone literature and the ethics of translations

1. Creative writing and translating in non-indigenous or second languages

1.1. The impact of orality

1.2. Language contact and cultural encounter

2. Postcoloniality and translation

3. Writing, translation and an ethics of difference

3.1. Translation equivalence or sameness in difference

About the Author

Paul F. Bandia is a professor in the Department of French at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada and a non-resident fellow at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University. He has published widely in the fields of translation studies and postcolonial Francophone and Anglophone literatures and cultures. He is the co-editor of Charting the Future of Translation History (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2006).

Reviews

This is a book that blends critical perspectives to celebrate hybridity. It tackles questions of belonging and displacement, speech and writing, transnationalism and interculturality. It puts the African postcolonial experience in a global context and demonstrates both the reach and the anxiety of translation. A momentous book and a stupendous achievement. (Theo Hermans, Centre for Intercultural Studies, University College London)Empirically based on numerous examples drawn from the wide spectrum of African Europhone literature, Paul Bandia's book is essential reading for scholars and students working in the field of crosscultural communication as it specifically relates to issues of language and identity in a most significant but heretofore neglected region of the world. (Annie Brisset, President, International Association for Translation & Intercultural Studies - IATIS)