Translating Gendered Language in Francophone Senegalese Women’s Literature

1. Translating Gendered Language in Francophone Senegalese Women’s Literature Georgina Collins 14 May 2011

2. Women Write Differently “...les femmes ont leur propre sensibilité...elles ont leur propres problèmes. Elles ont leur propre approche de la vie et de la société. Donc elles écrivent forcément différemment.” (Sall 11) “Women have their own sensitivities... they have their own issues. They have their own approach to life and society. So they are bound to write differently.”

3. Key Questions • How has this gendered language come about? • Have separate pools of communication resulted in the development of distinct languages? • Can we apply knowledge of Senegalese cultures, including gendered education and distinct female/male societal roles, to our understanding of a text in pre-translation analysis? • How can this knowledge and analysis be used in the process of translation?

4. My Thesis • Translating Francophone Senegalese Women’s Literature: Issues of Change, Power, Mediation and Orality. • Over twenty source texts, theories and models from a range of disciplines including Translation Studies • “Following in the footsteps of the writer” (Seck Mbacké 1) - informed decisions in translation • Primary research in Senegal, interviews with writers and academics

5. Education • Traditional society - man prepared for leadership roles, women for life in the home • Colonial period - educating boys “to suit a specific male-oriented colonial agenda” (d’Almeida 5) • Independence - surge in female students • Today – top roles for women in education etc • Generally - traditional patriarchy still prevails • Poverty and illiteracy - influence language • Female Senegalese writers influenced by amount or lack of colonial education

6. Distinct Roles • Women form social and organisational discussion groups, to talk of their lives / plan special occasions • Distinct roles of men and women, educated or not • Men and women form distinct social groups • Language has developed in different ways • A “female language” communicates how women perceive themselves, which reflects their society • Power often lying in a sense of community amongst other women • “Contemporary African writers ‘translate’ their African vision…” (Gyasi9)

7. Generalities of Language Use • research into language use supports the notion of female familiarity in communication • Women speak about emotion more than men • Different “conversation codes” set up patterns of talk between people of different sexes • Gendered speech is present early in life - people amend body language, vocab according to gender • This varies from one language to another • Generalities on gendered language use can be learnt, but this varies from culture to culture

8. Women’s Speech “At a rough guess, women’s speech is richer than men’s in those shadings of desire and futurity known in Greek and Sanskrit as optative; women seem to verbalize a wider range of qualified resolve and masked promise.” (Steiner 42)

9. Senegalese Chitchat “Elles savent parler, elles savent s’exprimer. Et je suis toujours émerveillée par la richesse du lexique chez les femmes wolofs... C’est vrai que le discours sur l’amour est très riche, le discours sur la façon de gérer la famille, le mari, etc., ce sont les discours très, très riches. Il est vrai que l’univers de la femme est différent ici de l’univers de l’homme, qu’on le veuille ou non et cela se répercute sur le discours.”(Mbow 6) “They know how to speak, they know how to express themselves. And I am always amazed by the richness of the vocabulary of Wolof women... Certainly, discourse on love is very rich, discourse on the way the family is managed, the husband etc – those areas are very very rich. Certainly, a woman’s world is different here to a man’s world, and whether you want it or not that has repercussions upon discourse.”

10. The Facets of Reality “Feminine use of the subjunctive in European languages gives to material facts and relations a characteristic vibrato. I do not say that they lie about the obtuse, resistant fabric of the world: they multiply the facets of reality, they strengthen the adjective to allow it an alternative nominal status, in a way which men often find unnerving. There is a strain of ultimatum, a separatist stance, in the masculine intonation of the first-person pronoun; the ‘I’ of women intimates a more patient bearing, or did until Women’s Liberation....” (Steiner 42)

11. Oral and Social Realities • Juxtaposition of women’s writing to the oral form • Senegalese women adhere to social realities • Male and female world perspectives are different • Women use the same language but differently – often more freely • Autobiographical form and the first person • Some women write like men and vice versa • Great writers attempt to break away from the language and stereotypes of their time

12. Translator Analysis • Writing is varied - exceptions to patterns exist • Consider elements with no presumptions: • “qualified resolve” • “masked promise” • “vibrato” due to subjunctive use • strong adjectives • “richness,” especially on subjects of love and family • closeness to orality • use of the first person • adherence to social realities • unique perspective on the world • To adhere to textual qualities and nuances of “female language” in translation - take care in making decisions

13. Realities and Replacements “...obliges us to ask with each proper name, with each cultural reference, with each stylistic trait, with each idiomatic expression, with each swear word: how similar is this reality to its possible replacement in another language?...how different? When do differences climb from the trivial to the substantial?” (Simon24)

14. Conclusions • Senegalese women’s perspectives are illustrated in writing styles and language - transformed alongside their societal roles • Education in French affects how women write - translators can learn from researching their educational background • The translator can take generalities from analysis of “women’s language” • At present there are no cast-iron rules • Translator must pay extra attention to - register, tone, nuances and cultural value of terms / phrases

15. Questions and Comments? Contact: georgina.collins@warwick.ac.uk Website: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/georginacollins