The Use of Igbo Cultural Expressions in Things Fall Apart (1958) of Chinua Achebe and the Challenge of Cultural Transfer in Translation

Abstract

Cultural transfer has remained a vital tool for the spreading of different cultures of the world. To translate from one language to another is to learn and understand new cultures, and to  come in contact with other realities. Chinua Achebe, the author of Things Fall Apart, takes a  critical look at his Igbo society whose culture as well as other African cultures have been destroyed by colonialism. This is with reference to the destruction of the bond between individuals and  their society. In doing this, he translates Igbo myth and proverbs from his native Igbo language  into English. Some of the items used belong exclusively to the Igbo culture and do not have  lexical correspondence in the receptive culture. Often, he uses Igbo items to retain their Ibo   meaning and form: these are known as loan words. Where it is possible, he attaches an English word to the loan word to help the reader understand or he tries to explain the Igbo item. Achebe also uses coinage to paraphrase the Igbo concept to overcome some of challenges he encountered in trying to translate the meaning of these cultural terms into English language.  After analyzing Achebe’s work, we can say that Chinua Achebe was able to render a translation that was socially and culturally acceptable to the target audience. For a translation to be acceptable, the translator must possess the mastery of both the culture of the language from which he is translating and that of the receptor. It is expected that this paper would better the understanding of readers, especially non-Ibo speakers, as to what is linguistically at work in the English of Achebe.