Stilet : Tydskrif van die Afrikaanse Letterkundevereniging

In this two part article the view of Delebastita (1988:214-215), that film “translation” is indeed translation per se, and not “adaptation”, is endorsed. The approach that is followed here is in accordance with Forseville’s argument (2007:1237) that there is a need for specific research in the field of multi-modality so that there can be a theoretical progress in what he calls a desolate field of research. Unlike Baldry and Thibault (2006), the focus is not on a micro level in the first place, but more on the macro level that Liu (2013:1262) regards as socio-cultural strategies. Our focus is therefore more pragmatic than structural. In the first part of the article a brief overview of translational theories is given as a backdrop for our specific approach which concentrates on foreignization, domestication and manipulation within the paradigm of the Scopos theory. Translation proper and film translation both entail the transforming of a source text (SC) into a target text (TT) and in a sense is a mediation between two cultures. Specific reference will be made to the processes of domestication and foreignization (Venuti) – which entail bringing the original culture nearer to home or on the other hand stressing the distance between source and target culture–; manipulation, manipulating aspects of the source text to align it with the target text’s readers’ (or in the case of a film, spectators’) expectations (Toury); and last but not least, the scopos of the translating/ film-rendering. Scopos (Vermeer) views translating as a process with an aim and with a “loyalty” (Nord) to the source text’s author, the target reader and the instructor (Encyclopedia, 1998:200 e.v.). In the latter part of this article fundamental criticism against this theory is scrutinized and with reference to film theory arguments are proposed in support of the supposition that the process of the film rendition of a novel can be seen as a process of translation.

The figure of the heir, as conceptualised by Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida, is used to explore the tension between the global and the local in Marlene van Niekerk’s novel Memorandum (2006). It is argued that the figure of the heir is prominent throughout Van Niekerk’s oeuvre, but that Johannes Wiid, the main character in Memorandum, differs from his intertextual predecessors in substantial ways. He disregards the inheritance bequeathed to him by his father, and the intellectual and cultural traditions associated with his family inheritance. He prefers to see himself as the heir of a much broader community of artists and intellectuals, an alternative family which transcends linguistic and geographical boundaries and which is reminiscent of the Enlightenment ideal of a World Republic of Letters. However, even as the novel breaks with nation and family as frames of reference, questions are raised about cultural globalisation and the position of the Afrikaans writer in the transnational context of what has become known as World Literature. Memorandum is discussed as a novel in which the writer confronts and wrestles with her linguistic and cultural inheritance, but also reaffirms its value as source of creativity and meaning.

Interwoven network of a site-specific digital dwaalverhaal 

The mobile locative narrative, the dwaalverhaal, forms part of a practice-based investigation into the creation, distribution and reception of site-specific digital literature. The article is a retrospective reflection by members of the project team on the interlinked nature of the collaborative process, the narrative network, and navigation mechanisms of the dwaalverhaal to contribute to a better understanding of the creative process and poetics of interactive place-based narratives. Theoretical points of departure are Greyling’s (2017) multimodal ensemble for site-specific digital literature, Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2001) communicative practices as part of their multimodal theory of communication and Ritchie’s (2014) concepts of narrative bridges and wayfinding. In the practical implementation of the experimental project, collaborators constantly considered the components (text, place, body, experience interface) of site-specific digital literature and combined several modes and media in various ways, thus contributing to the layered and interwowen character of the dwaalverhaal.