Saro-Wiwa's Language of Dissent: Translating between African Englishes

Abstract

This article calls attention to the essential translational aspect of linguistic experimentation in literary uses of African Englishes in colonial and postcolonial West African literature. It focuses mainly on the literature of the most linguistically diverse country in Africa – Nigeria. Drawing on the theoretical work of Itamar Even-Zohar, Lawrence Venuti, and Pierre Bourdieu, it demonstrates how the different Englishes used in this literature act in a translational way, relating and responding to cultural, political, and social contexts. Specific attention is paid to Amos Tutuola's use of interlanguage and diglossia; Chinua Achebe's manipulation of acts of code-switching and mixing; and how Ken Saro-Wiwa's development of a unique language of dissent in his novel Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English is built upon these earlier experimentations with translations between Englishes.