Abstract

Literary hybridity necessitated by cultural differences is a distinct feature of Postcolonial Europhone African Literatures. This is evident in Chimamanda Adichie's Purple Hibiscus (2000). This paper examines the hybridity in the source text (ST) and their translation from English into German. Instances of hybridity in the source text and their translation were identified. This highlights the translation strategies in the process of analyzing the translation choices and their implications, especially in transferring culture-specific elements in the source text into the target text (TT). Some challenges of intercultural translation are discussed in relation to the reflection of the author's style in literary translation. The paper reveals the consciousness of the translator to preserve the culture-specific elements that portray the author's culture and purpose through the adoption of ethnocentric strategies. Nida's equivalence theory was adopted to examine the translation of cultural phrases to determine how they were transferred to German language, and also discuss the implications of some choices made by the translator in propelling intercultural dialogue through translation. The study concludes that the translator's effort to strike a balance between the source and the target text was challenged as a result of inability to provide explanation for some unexplained culture-specific terms of vernacular origin in the source text.

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