Four female Khoisan language translators across three centuries of Cape history: a morphogenetic analysis

Maricel Botha
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Abstract

Female translators are highly atypical in South African colonial history. Yet four important female translators appear on the scene who, interestingly, all translated or interpreted into or from Khoesan languages. Therefore, apart from their marginalised position as women, these translators are also linked to marginalised languages. These translators are Krotoa, a Khoe interpreter employed by colonial administrator Jan van Riebeeck, Zara Schmelen, a Nama mission assistant and Bible translator, and Lucy Lloyd and Dorothea Bleek, so-called Bushman researchers and relatives of the famous philologist Wilhelm Bleek. This article is interested in the ways in which the work of these early female translators expressed social conditioning and in the characteristics of their agency within a restrictive social space. The hindering and enabling factors involved in these women’s practice of translation and interpreting is analysed and particular attention is paid to the ideological characteristics of their work. In the analysis of the social characteristics of translation, Margaret Archer’s morphogenetic approach is employed. Archer’s approach involves an investigation of structure, culture and agency and the ways in which these contribute to cycles of social change (morphogenesis) or maintenance (morphostasis). With regard to agency, the analysis is guided by Archer’s terms primary agency (which results from social rank), corporate agency (which results from social organisation) and social actorship (which results from the unification of personal identity with social roles). The research finds that chance and male sanctioning were present in these women’s involvement in translation, but that a strong exercise of agency was present which was personally motivated. Agency involved no organisation, however, and neither sought nor achieved social change. Yet, three of the four translators were able to achieve social actorship, whereby their role as translators was successfully united with their personal identity.
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四个女科伊桑语翻译跨越三个世纪的开普历史:形态发生分析
在南非殖民史上,女性翻译是极不典型的。然而,四位重要的女性翻译家出现在现场,有趣的是,她们都将书翻译成或翻译成荷山语。因此,除了作为女性的边缘化地位之外,这些翻译人员还与边缘化语言联系在一起。这些翻译人员是克罗托亚(Krotoa),他是殖民地行政长官扬·范·里贝克(Jan van Riebeeck)雇用的科伊语翻译;扎拉·施梅伦(Zara Schmelen),他是纳玛传教助理和圣经翻译;露西·劳埃德(Lucy Lloyd)和多萝西娅·布莱克(Dorothea Bleek),他们是所谓的布什曼研究人员,也是著名语言学家威廉·布莱克(Wilhelm Bleek)的亲戚。本文关注的是这些早期女性译者的作品是如何表达社会条件的,以及她们在一个受限制的社会空间中的代理特征。分析了这些女性翻译实践中的阻碍因素和促进因素,并特别关注了她们工作的意识形态特征。在分析翻译的社会特征时,运用了玛格丽特·阿切尔的形态发生理论。阿彻的研究方法包括对结构、文化和机构的调查,以及这些因素对社会变化(形态发生)或维持(形态停滞)周期的影响。在代理方面,分析以阿彻的术语为指导,主要代理(源于社会地位),公司代理(源于社会组织)和社会行动者(源于个人身份与社会角色的统一)。研究发现,在这些女性参与翻译的过程中,机会和男性的认可是存在的,但存在一种强烈的能动性,这种能动性是出于个人动机。然而,代理不涉及组织,既不寻求也不实现社会变革。然而,四位译者中有三位成功地实现了社会角色,他们的翻译角色成功地与他们的个人身份结合在一起。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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