Domestication and Foreignization of Realia in the Post-colonial Novel Annie John

Abstract

In this thesis I examine the translation strategies domestication and foreignization used in the translation of realia to Finnish from Jamaica Kincaid’s post-colonial novel Annie John (1985). My research question concerns whether either domestication or foreignization strategy is more common in translation of realia in Katoava paratiisi (Buckley 1986).

The data consists of realia harvested from the source text and corresponding passages from its target text translation in Finnish. In the analysis, I use qualitative comparative method combined with simple quantitative methods. The purpose is to explore how the Finnish translation relates to its post-colonial source text by comparing the data from translational perspectives.

The theoretical background of this thesis is based on the translation of realia or culture-bound elements according to Leppihalme (2011). In addition, I examine especially the use of Lawrence Venuti’s concepts of domestication and foreignization (2018). The emphasis is on how the effects of cultural distance between the source and the target culture emerge in translation. On one hand the cultural distance relates to the prevailing foreign post-colonial approach employed in the source text, on the other the realia depict the traditional life of Antiguan people in their society.

The result of my analysis indicates that foreignization is slightly more common strategy than domestication in the Finnish translation Katoava paratiisi. The culture-bound realia elements of the source text are retained foreign in translation when they do not have equivalents in the Finnish target language. Additionally, it is expressed as a percentage that the number of the realia in the data relate mostly to the nature, society, or culture of Antigua. Domestication and foreignization are not mutually exclusive in this translation.