Translation of personification into isiNdebele and isiZulu in selected Bible texts

Abstract

Translating figures of speech can be a daunting task particularly to people who are not skilled in translation. The purpose of this article was to examine whether personification as a figure of speech was successfully translated from the original Hebrew or Greek into the isiNdebele and isiZulu versions of selected Bible texts. This study was corpus-driven, with personification having been identified and analysed in both versions. The study was underpinned by Nida’s (1964) functional theory of equivalence, also referred to as reader response theory, which states that the readers of a translated text should be able to appreciate and understand it in potentially the same manner as the readers of the original text did. The spirit and meaning of the original author should be comprehended by the target readers, otherwise the purpose of the translation will not have been achieved. The findings indicate that in most instances different strategies were adopted in the isiNdebele and isiZulu texts to translate personification. This suggests that personification was not conceptualised in the same or a similar way by both translators. The isiZulu translator employed more literal translation than the isiNdebele translator. According to the findings of this research, it is through the literal translation strategy that personification was imported into the target text without misrepresentation.