Article,
Multilingual translation vs. English-fits-all in South African media
Across Languages and Cultures, 11 (2): 189--216 (2010)
DOI: 10.1556/Acr.11.2010.2.4
Abstract
After the demise of apartheid, the ANC government in South Africa elevated
nine African languages to the status of official languages, on a par with the two official
languages during the apartheid regime (1948–1991), Afrikaans and English. With
eleven official languages in this vast country, the home of some 50 million people, one may
expect a high level of translational activities, as is seen in, for instance, the EU, with 23 official
languages – one of which happens to be English. However, although English plays an
important role in the European media, it has an all but dominant role in South African media.
To the extent that translation is found in South African media, it tends to be either between
English and Afrikaans or from an African language into English, not from English
into an African language. This paper establishes a theoretical framework distinguishing between
varying degrees of visibility in (media) translation, and exemplifies various translational
phenomena typical of the special conditions found in South Africa, with the local use
of English as a de facto lingua franca reinforced by the global success of Anglophone culture.
