The exploration of compensation in English literal translation of Sesotho proverbs

Abstract

This study explores how Mokitimi employed compensation in producing literal translations of Sesotho proverbs in her book The Voice of the People (1997). The impetus for this study was our observation that generally, researchers tend to provide literal translations of their Sesotho excerpts, not only to give readers a taste of the foreignness of the Sesotho culture embedded in the proverbs but also to familiarise them with its unique and interesting features. However, the lack of one-to-one correspondence for concepts or words in the source text in the target language often poses challenges in achieving a genuine literal translation in some communicative contexts. Based on the methodological principles of qualitative research, this paper explores how Mokitimi used compensation in the literal English translations of Sesotho proverbs and examines the communicative context in which these strategies were employed to understand the complexities of producing a literal translation. The researchers extracted excerpts from the book to which the compensation strategy had been applied and analysed this qualitative data based on the descriptive and target-oriented approach. As a result of this investigation, we argue that Mokitimi’s compensation strategies effectively communicate the meaning of the source text in the English translations of selected Sesotho proverbs and that using compensation strategies minimises the chances of confusion for the target readers and improves their comprehension of the proverbs. We recommend further research on literal translation, as its dynamics and complexities in handling cultural concepts have not received enough attention.