Intercultural engagement and inherent difficulties: Examining translation and transfer of cultural concepts and idioms in Femi Adedina’s Highway to Nowhere

Abstract

Writing as an L2 English language writer for L1 English language readers and trying to convey concepts and elements of an indigenous language to them have challenges. The challenges include perception, beliefs and cultural understanding. Many writers try to tackle these challenges through many means such as substitution, transliteration and the use of glossaries. This article centres on the challenges faced by an L2 English language writer trying to convey Yoruba concepts and culture in his novel, Highway to Nowhere, to non-Yoruba speakers and L1 English speakers. These challenges include misconception of ideas and concepts about women and the non-understanding of Yoruba language, Yoruba’s culture’s ideas of respect and some other ideas embedded in the culture.  This article explains the tools the writer used such as footnotes, epitaphs and folktales, and it also explores the ways the writer handles cultural and perceptual difficulties that are encountered by his L1 English language reader. The paper then concludes that, a glossary could have been better than footnotes and that there are differences in cultural perceptions and world views of both the writer and his readers. It then suggests that the use of new media with its potential of multimedia presentations would be a better means of transferring cultural concepts without losing most of what the concept contains.

“The agony it was to switch from Russian to English... not only style but subject undergoes a horrible bleeding and distortion when translated into another tongue” – Vladimir Nabokov

“Nobody who attempts to translate Yorùbá into English will doubt that ‘poetry is what is left out of translation’ “– Ulli Beier