Translation and Interculturality: Africa and the West

This book reveals the heterogeneous image of translation using positive metaphors featuring bridge building between languages and cultures, neutral ones such as translation finding place in intercultures, but also controversial aspects of translation as a potential source of conflict. The articles address a variety of topics, all connected with cultural challenges to translation between Africa and the West discussing linguistic, political and ideological aspects of translation, ranging from problems related to Bible translation to the position of African postcolonial literature. The languages discussed range from North to South, from global to local ones, varying from sacred terms to obscene language. Methodological approaches not only cover linguistics, literary and translation studies, featuring especially skopos theory and relevance theory, but also cultural studies and anthropology.

The Editors: Stella Linn is senior lecturer in translation studies and translation at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands). Her research interests include the interaction between culture and translation and the reception of translated literature.
Maarten Mous is professor of African linguistics at the University of Leiden. He worked on several East African languages and is particularly interested in language description and language contact.
Marianne Vogel is coordinator at the Department of German Language and Culture at the University of Groningen. In her publications she focuses on cultural differences, the literary field, and discourse and gender analysis.