Appraisal and the transcreation of marketing texts : persuasion in chinese and english 1st edition h
Appraisal and the Transcreation of Marketing Texts : Persuasion in Chinese and English
1st Edition Ho
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Thinking English Translation Analysing and Translating English Source Texts 1st Edition Stella Cragie
Appraisal and the Transcreation of Marketing Texts
This book contributes to growing debates on transcreation, applying an appraisal framework to texts from luxury brands in Chinese and English to reveal new insights into marketing transcreation and set out transcreation as an area of study in its own right.
The volume charts the origins of the term “transcreation”, emerging from the interplay of established concepts of translation, creation, localisation, and adaptation and ongoing debates on what should be transcreated and how. Using these dialogues as a point of departure, Ho outlines a way forward for transcreation research by advocating for the use of an appraisal framework, taken from work in systemic functional linguistics and employed to evaluate persuasion in language. In focusing on marketing texts from the websites of three luxury brands in English and Chinese, the book explores how this approach can surface fresh perspectives on the diferent ways in which the processes and practices of marketing transcreation are used to generate persuasion across languages. The volume looks ahead to the implications for other language pairs and the applications of the appraisal framework to understand transcreation practice of other genres, such as literary texts.
This book will be of interest to students and scholars in translation studies and marketing studies.
Nga-Ki Mavis Ho is Lecturer in Translation and Interpreting Studies at the University of Edinburgh, UK.
Routledge Advances in Translation and Interpreting Studies
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Appraisal and the Transcreation of Marketing Texts
Persuasion in Chinese and English
Nga-Ki Mavis Ho
First published 2024 by Routledge
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The right of Nga-Ki Mavis Ho to be identifed as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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ISBN: 978-1-032-26933-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-26936-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-29057-5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003290575
Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC
List of Figures ix
List of Tables x Abbreviations and Transcription Conventions xi Acknowledgements xii
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Current Debate on Transcreation and Aims 1
1.2 Structure 2
1.3 Intended Readers and How to Beneft from this Book 4
Notes 5
References 5
2 Transcreation, Marketing Transcreation and Persuasion 7
2.1 Debunking the Industry Myth: Transcreation is Not Translation Because it is Creative 7
2.1.1 Translation is Creative 8
2.1.2 Transcreation is a Form of Translation, Just Not “Prototypical Translation” 9
2.2 Decluttering the Academic Discussion: The Concepts of Localisation and Adaptation 10
2.2.1 What is Localisation? 11
2.2.2 What is Adaptation? 16
2.3 Defnition of Transcreation 19
2.3.1 Realisation of Transcreation 19
2.4 Persuasion in Marketing Texts: Rational and Emotional 21
2.5 Conclusion 22
Notes 23
References 23
3 The Appraisal Framework 29
3.1 Introduction: The Origin of Appraisal 29
3.2 Attitude 31
3.2.1 The Presence of Persuasion: Inscribed and Invoked Attitude 32
3.2.2 Afect 40
3.2.3 Judgement 42
3.2.4 The Inducements of Persuasion: Appreciation 44
5.1.1 Fewer Inscribed Instances in English When Compared to Chinese 100
5.1.2 Only Invoked Instances in English When Compared to Chinese 102
5.1.3 No Persuasion in English when Compared to Chinese 108
5.2 Invoked Attitude 110
5.2.1 Attitudinal Tokens 110
5.2.2 Graduation 113
5.2.3 Counter-Expectancy 116
5.2.4 Logical-Semantic Relations 117
5.2.5 Intra-Textual References 119
5.2.6 In-Group Allusions 120
5.3 Conclusion 124
Notes 125
References 126
6 The Force of Persuasion 127
6.1 Maximisation in Time 128
6.1.1 Modernity: −Distance:Time versus Superlatives 128
6.1.2 Heritage: +Scope:Time 131
6.2 Maximisation in Number and Mass 132
6.2.1 Abundance: +Number and +Mass 132
6.3 Maximisation in Intensifcation 135
6.3.1 Perfection: +Intensifcation 135
6.4 Non-Maximisation in Time 137
6.4.1 Modernity: −Distance:Time and Heritage: +Scope:Time 137
6.4.2 Craftsmanship: +Scope:Time 138
6.5 Non-Maximisation in Number and Mass 139
6.5.1 Abundance and Credibility: +Number 139
6.5.2 Impressiveness and Popularity: +/−Mass, +/− Number, +Distance:Time and −Scope:Time 141
6.6 Non-Maximisation in Intensifcation 144
6.7 Conclusion 147
Notes 148 References 148
7 The Inducements of Persuasion 149
7.1 Reaction 149
7.1.1 Four of Five Senses 149
7.1.2 Reaction:Impact: Expressions with the Word 人 (People) in Chinese 152
7.1.3 Reaction:Quality: More Diverse Vocabulary and Extensive Usage 157
7.1.4 Chinese Compound Words with Two Appreciation Types 161
7.1.5 Summary 163
7.2 Composition 163
7.2.1 Composition:Balance 163
7.2.2 Composition:Texture 167
7.2.3 Summary 168
7.3 Valuation 169
7.3.1 Valuation:Distinctiveness 169
7.3.2 Valuation:Product Quality and Valuation:Skilfulness 174
7.4 Conclusion 175
7.4.1 Emotive Persuasion (Pathos) in Chinese: Diverse, Extensive, Poetic, Positive, and Attention-Grabbing 175
7.4.2 Rational Persuasion (Logos) in Chinese and English: Harmony versus Dominance 176
7.4.3 Persuasion by Social/Group Norms (Ethos) 176
Notes 177 References 177 8 Conclusion 178
8.1 An Example of All Dimensions of Persuasion at Play 178
8.2 Summary of Findings: Key Points for Academics and Practitioners 188
8.3 Practical Implications: What Now for Transcreation Practitioners? 189
8.4 Limitations 190
8.5 Theoretical Implications: Future Research on Transcreation and Beyond 190
References 192
Index 195
3.1
3.2
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.7
3.8
3.1 Subtypes of judgement and their lexical realisations 43
3.2 Subtypes of appreciation and their lexical realisations 46
3.3 Subtypes of appreciation and their lexical realisations for the genre of luxury fashion marketing texts 59
4.1 Data distribution 85
5.1 Titles of the makers in the Chinese corpus 110
5.2 Actions of the makers in the Chinese corpus 112
5.3 In-group allusions in the English corpus 121
7.1 Epithets of four senses 150
7.2 R:I epithets with the word 人 (people) – type 1 adjectives with a gerund + 人 (people) 153
7.3 R:I epithets with the word 人 (people) – type 2 fourcharacter idioms 155
7.4 R:I epithets with the word 人 (people) – type 3 expression 令人 . . . . . . (making people . . . [feel/do something]) 156
7.5 Inscribed R:Q markers about beauty 158
7.6 R:Q epithets (non-product objects) 161
7.7 Inscribed C:B instances: four-character Chinese idioms 165
7.8 Inscribed C:B instances: collocations in the Chinese corpus 166
7.9 C:T epithets, or epithets of the ffth sense: touch 167
7.10 Vocabulary of inscribed V:D instances 171
7.11 Examples of V:D epithets in the two corpora 172
7.12 V:D epithets in English and diferent valuation subtypes in Chinese 173
7.13 Examples of Chinese V:PQ epithets 175
8.1 The presence of persuasion 180
8.2 The force of persuasion 183
8.3 The inducements of persuasion 184
Abbreviations and Transcription Conventions
–
[5.1]
Downscaling in graduation
An example
+ Upscaling in graduation
Bold A marker of inscribed attitude in examples
BT Back translation
Curvy underline
Curvy underline in bold
Double underline
EN
Greyed out
Italic
LSPs
Narrow dotted underline
N.B.
SFL
Single underline
Distance:time in examples
Scope:time in examples
A marker of force:intensifcation in examples
An excerpt of the English corpus
A case of maximiser in force or focus in examples
An emphasis in the main text
Language service providers
Quantifcation:number in examples
Nota bene
Systemic functional linguistics
A further emphasis on top of italics in the main text/a marker of focus in examples
ST Source text
Thick underline
ToE
TT
Wide dotted underline
Wide dotted underline in bold
Wide and narrow dotted underline
Wide and narrow dotted underline
A marker of invoked attitude in examples
Target of evaluation
Target text
Quantifcation:mass in examples
Quantifcation:frequency in examples
Distance:space in examples
Scope:space in examples in bold
ZH
An excerpt of the Chinese corpus
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, my heartfelt thanks go to Dr Yvonne McLaren and Dr Michelle Min-Hsiu Liao. The many illuminating discussions with them and their constructive feedback have shaped me into an independent researcher. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr Peter White and Dr Alexanne Don, for their patience in answering my endless questions and giving me advice on the applications of the appraisal framework, on which most of the work of this book is based.
I would also like to thank Dr Charlotte Bosseaux, without whom I would not have written the successful book proposal which led to the publication of this book.
Special thanks are also given to my husband and lifelong friend, Mr Jonathan Lasne, and my dear friend and fellow researcher, Dr Cristina Clopot, for always being there to share many highs and spur me on when I was feeling low. I also thank all of those who helped me through the completion of this project in any possible way.
1 Introduction
“Advertising is not made of words, but made of culture” (Anholt, 2000, p. 5). Likewise, translation, including transcreation, is not made of words but made of culture. These two statements are the themes of this book.
1.1 Current Debate on Transcreation and Aims
In the last two decades the study of transcreation has gained momentum; however, there is still a split in the debate over what transcreation is. The term was allegedly recorded for the frst time in the late 17th century in the literature of religious philosophy (Cook, 2008), with a more well-known usage in Lal’s (1957, 1964, 1972) Indian into English theatrical translation since 1957. However, it was not until the 2000s that colloquies on this topic started to form and defnitions of transcreation began to proliferate.
In the context of marketing, there are two main colloquies on the subject of transcreation: that of the industry providing language services, and of the academia of translation studies. In the industry colloquy, most language service providers (LSPs) actively advertise that transcreation is not translation; it is more than translation because transcreation is creative (Pedersen, 2014, 2016, 2017). Defnitions ofered by LSPs are vague and show misunderstandings about the nature of translation.
The academic colloquy is contrary to that of the industry, with a longestablished notion that translation itself is creative (e.g., Gaballo, 2012, p. 95; Gambier and Munday, 2014) and a consensus that transcreation is a type of translation. However, there is no consensus on genre-specifc defnitions of transcreation, such as the defnition of transcreation for marketing texts.1
In addition, although relevant concepts like localisation and adaptation are discussed, the discussion of these two concepts is intertwined with the concept of transcreation. All these result in many nebulous defnitions of transcreation. In essence, the debate on what transcreation means is far from fnished. The frst aim of this book is to establish a workable defnition
of transcreation in the marketing context by debunking the industry myth and decluttering the current academic discussion about transcreation.
The second aim of this book is to ofer answers to the fundamental question asked by all translators: what should, or should not, be transcreated between two languages and cultures. This aim is prompted by the low generalisability of current studies to transcreation practice owing to the very limited size of data explored in most studies on the topic of transcreation, for example, a few excerpted text samples. The study presented in this book is the frst corpus-based study in transcreation, including two parallel corpora with over 15,000 words in each. The representativeness of its results is thus increased.
To answer the question of what should or should not be transcreated, we need to frst understand that the main function of marketing texts is to persuade and how persuasion is achieved between two languages and cultures. Three dimensions of persuasion – the presence, the force, and the inducements of persuasion – are established from the appraisal framework (Martin and White, 2005) to identify persuasion in texts. The next section unfolds how these two aims are achieved, with an overview of each chapter.
1.2 Structure
Chapter 2 defnes transcreation in the marketing context. The concept of transcreation is introduced through a brief review of the birth of this term. The defnition of transcreation is developed through an examination of both the industry and the academic perspectives. Relevant concepts and notions from these two perspectives, for example, concepts like translation, creativity, localisation, and adaptation, and notions like transcreation not being translation and localisation being part of or including translation, are compared and discussed to narrow down a specifc defnition of transcreation for marketing texts. Based on the defnition of transcreation and the intended persuasive efect of marketing texts, a new term, “skopos shift”, is proposed to account for translation changes that achieve persuasion. Last, the two main types of marketing persuasion, rational and emotional, are reviewed, and three dimensions of persuasion are proposed in this book: the presence, the force, and the inducements of persuasion.
Chapter 3 expounds on the model used to identify persuasion in marketing texts. It frst presents the model, Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal framework in systemic functional linguistics, and then proposes a refned model specifcally for identifying persuasion in Chinese and English marketing texts. The key concepts of the model – attitude (inscribed and invoked), graduation, and appreciation – which form the
three dimensions of persuasion, that is, the theoretical foundation of analysis in Chapters 5–7, are explained in this chapter.
Chapter 4 presents the chosen materials and details the methods employed. The materials are two parallel corpora in Chinese and English. Consideration is given to diferent criteria during the selection process: the specifc Chinese and English versions; the period of publications to be included; and the segmentation process of the Chinese raw data, that is, how many characters form one Chinese word. Both quantitative and qualitative content analyses are used. Relevant methodological issues are raised, and possible solutions or mitigating measures are proposed. A procedure of coding is developed. Patterns suggested by the result of coding are included for the in-depth textual analysis included in Chapters 5–7.
Chapter 5 investigates the frst dimension of persuasion: the presence, explicit or implicit. The explicitness and implicitness of persuasion are studied using the concepts inscribed and invoked attitude, respectively. Chinese texts with instances of inscribed attitude are compared with English texts in three scenarios: the same English excerpt 1) only has instances of inscribed attitude; 2) only has instances of invoked attitude; and 3) does not appear to be persuasive, that is, no attitude. The six most common types of invoked attitude – attitudinal tokens, graduation, counterexpectancy, logical semantic relations, intra-textual references, and in-group allusions – are examined.
Chapter 6 analyses the force of persuasion by applying the concept of graduation.2 Both maximised and non-maximised graduation resources are examined, to illustrate how the force of persuasion is realised in texts, and how these graduation resources can highlight diferent values and perceptions: modernity, heritage, abundance, perfection, craftsmanship, credibility, importance, impressiveness and popularity.
Chapter 7 explores the stimuli behind persuasion: the inducements of persuasion. The concept of appreciation is employed. There are three types of appreciation: reaction, composition, and valuation. Each of them represents a type of inducement. Reaction represents persuasion induced by emotions (pathos) because it concerns the emotional impact and likability of objects, composition represents persuasion induced by reason (logos) because it concerns the structure of objects, and valuation represents persuasion induced by norms of a particular group (ethos). Based on the patterns examined in Chapter 4, the most common subtypes of reaction, composition, and valuation are exemplifed to showcase the use of inducements in the parallel corpora.
Chapter 8, the last chapter, frst ofers an example that includes all three dimensions of persuasion. This example enables an overview of how all three dimensions of persuasion are at play in a piece of integrated text. It follows with a summary of fndings, which includes key points for
transcreation practitioners. Practical implications are established based on these key points. Limitations of the research are laid out before the chapter ends with theoretical implications, suggesting possible future research in transcreation and beyond.
1.3 Intended Readers and How to Beneft from this Book
The principal readership is researchers, educators, and postgraduate students of translation studies. The book would also be useful to an audience in cognate disciplines: marketing studies, intercultural studies, and linguistic studies. Unlike a handbook for transcreation (e.g., Sattler-Hovdar, 2019), the main focus of this book is for research and education. However, with a forewarning on the terminologies used, this book is still very useful to transcreation practitioners, such as translators, language service providers, and marketing managers, because it showcases many examples of what should or should not be transcreated and includes the reasons due to the two diferent languages and cultures.
Researchers can use the appraisal framework to study the same genre in diferent languages or a diferent genre in the same or diferent languages. The theoretical implications developed from the research in this book are detailed in Section 8.5, “Theoretical Implications: Future Research on Transcreation and Beyond”.
Educators can certainly showcase the fndings in this book to justify the concept that transcreation (just as any form of translation) is never a linguistic matching game. It means that when the source advertisement has wordplay, the translator does not necessarily need to deliver wordplay in the target advertisement. Rather, the target text should maximise the appeal to and the impact on the target readers (Gaballo, 2012; Rike, 2013; Benetello, 2018; Sattler-Hovdar, 2019; Katan, 2021) (more details in Chapter 2).
With all the examples in this book, students will not only understand that transcreation is not a linguistic matching game but also learn what needs to be done to know more about diferences between two cultures, how this is done, and how these diferences inform transcreation choices. All these are analytical skills essential not only in studying transcreation but also in practice.
Transcreation practitioners can certainly use the three dimensions of persuasion to guide their transcreation practice (see Sections 8.2 and 8.3). More importantly, this book is a manifestation of the value of human translators. With the increasing prevalence of using machine translation engines to translate many genres of texts, even literary texts, another genre of creative texts (e.g., Toral and Way, 2018; Kuzman et al., 2019; Hadley et al., 2022), this book emphasises the translator’s role as intercultural
mediator. As the examples in this book show, to transcreate successfully, the translator’s cultural knowledge is key. Cultural knowledge is what machine translation engines do not have.
Although the materials are only in English and Chinese, as reasoned previously, the fndings in this book are of relevance to our understanding of transcreation research and practice in general: the acknowledgement of local characteristics and intercultural transfer. I sincerely hope that wherever you are in the journey of transcreation research and/or practice, you will enjoy reading this book and that it will be of use to you.
Notes
1 “Marketing texts” in this book refers to diferent types of promotional materials that have an ultimate function to persuade; an advertisement is one type of marketing text. See Torresi (2021) for diferent types of marketing texts. The 240 articles in the chosen data are not necessarily advertisements, because some promote the brand image and certain values rather than a specifc product. For this reason, the book adopts a broader term, the transcreation of marketing texts, not advertisements.
2 Graduation here and that mentioned in the summary of Chapter 5 are the same concept, but the focus is diferent. Discussion about graduation in Chapter 5 focuses on the presence, that is, graduation as a resource to invoke persuasion. Discussion about graduation in Chapter 6 is about intensity – the force of persuasion.
References
Anholt, S. (2000) Another One Bites the Grass: Making Sense of International Advertising. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Benetello, C. (2018) ‘When translation is not enough: Transcreation as a conventiondefying practice: A practitioner’s perspective’, JoSTrans: The Journal of Specialized Translation, 29, pp. 28–44.
Cook, D. J. (2008) ‘Leibniz on creation: A contribution to his philosophical theology’, in Dascal, M. (ed.) Leibniz: What Kind of Rationalist? Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science. 13. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 449–460.
Gaballo, V. (2012) ‘Exploring the boundaries of transcreation in specialized translation’, ESP Across Cultures, 9, pp. 95–113.
Gambier, Y. and Munday, J. (2014) ‘A conversation between Yves Gambier and Jeremy Munday about transcreation and the future of the professions’, Cultus: The Journal of Intercultural Mediation and Communication, 7, pp. 20–36.
Hadley, J. L., Taivalkoski-Shilov, K., Teixeira, C.S., and Toral, A. (2022) Using Technologies for Creative-Text Translation. Edited by Hadley, J. L., Taivalkoski-Shilov, K., Teixeira, C.S. and Toral, A. New York; Oxon: Taylor & Francis.
Katan, D. (2021) ‘Transcreation’, in Gambier, Y. and Van Doorslaer, L. (eds.) Handbook of Translation Studies. 5. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 221–226.
Kuzman, T., Vintar, Š. and Arcan, M. (2019) ‘Neural machine translation of literary texts from English to Slovene’, in Proceedings of the Qualities of Literary Machine Translation. Dublin, pp. 1–9.
Lal, P. (1957) Great Sanskrit Plays in Modern Translation . New York: ND Publishing.
Lal, P. (1964) Great Sanskrit Plays: In New English Transcreations. New York: New Directions.
Lal, P. (1972) Transcreation. Calcutta: Writers Workshop.
Martin, J. R. and White, P. R. R. (2005) The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. London; New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pedersen, D. (2014) ‘Exploring the concept of transcreation: Transcreation as “more than translation”?’, Cultus: The Journal of Intercultural Mediation and Communication, 7, pp. 57–71.
Pedersen, D. (2016) Transcreation in Marketing and Advertising: An Ethnographic Study. PhD thesis. University of Aarhus, Denmark.
Pedersen, D. (2017) ‘Managing transcreation projects: An ethnographic study’, Translation Spaces, 6(1), pp. 44–61.
Rike, S. M. (2013) ‘Bilingual corporate websites: From translation to transcreation?’, Journal of Specialised Translation, Spec. Issue 20, pp. 68–85.
Sattler-Hovdar, N. (2019) Get Fit for the Future of Transcreation: A Handbook on How to Succeed in an Undervalued Market . Elixhausen: Independently Published.
Toral, A. and Way, A. (2018) ‘What level of quality can neural machine translation attain on literary text?’, in Translation Quality Assessment. Cham: Springer, pp. 263–287.
Torresi, I. (2021) Translating Promotional and Advertising Texts. 2nd edn. Oxford; New York: Routledge.
2 Transcreation, Marketing Transcreation and Persuasion
What is Transcreation?
Transcreation has been a buzzword for the last two decades (Gambier and Munday, 2014; Katan, 2021). Its defnitions proliferate but remain nebulous. In order to arrive at a clearer defnition of transcreation, frst, it is necessary to understand the reasons contributing to the current vague concept of transcreation so as to avoid the same mistakes when developing a refned defnition. Two main reasons contribute to the current numerous and divided defnitions: the over-popular yet problematic defnitions germinated in the industry and the rather cluttered discussion of transcreation in academia.
2.1 Debunking the Industry Myth: Transcreation is Not Translation Because it is Creative
The term transcreation was frst used in religious philosophy in the late 17th century (see Leibniz’s defnition in Cook, 2008), remained dormant until its reappearance in Lal’s (1957) works on Indian theatre texts, and has been used sporadically since then in the literature of literary translation (Katan, 2021). Despite these early usages, the more common understanding of the term transcreation stems from defnitions profered by language service providers since the early 2000s (Bernal-Merino, 2006; Benetello, 2018).
These defnitions are limited to the marketing genre. They are all based on the premise that transcreation is not translation because it is creative (Pedersen, 2014, 2016). The main motivation behind these defnitions is a rebranding of marketing translation to boost sales (Munday, 2004; Bernal-Merino, 2006; Gambier and Munday, 2014; Katan, 2016). As Agorni (2018) suggests, the term transcreation sounds more prestigious than translation. These defnitions of transcreation are created for the public, including clients commissioning transcreation services, who may have
DOI: 10.4324/9781003290575-2
Marketing Transcreation, and Persuasion
misconceptions about translation. Clients of transcreation services usually see translation as a simplistic linguistic transfer (Pedersen, 2016). In fact, some LSPs may already have the same misconception, hence defning transcreation as creative and not translation.
LSPs defning transcreation as creative and not translation is evident in Pedersen’s (2014, 2016) investigation. In his interviews with various LSPs, the LSPs expressed that “transcreation is more than translation, or more than a straightforward or traditional translation”; “[transcreation] is used when the level of creativity in the original copy is higher than usual”, and when “translation isn’t enough”; transcreation is “beyond transferring words from one language to another” and “involves changing both words and meaning”; transcreation is to “recreate your . . . texts in a new language, rather than just translating the source version” (Pedersen, 2016, pp. 76–78). These descriptions of transcreation are fallacies because they defy the understanding of translation supported by research on translation practice since the establishment of the discipline of translation studies. Since these fallacies are based on the aforementioned false premise that transcreation is not translation because transcreation is creative, this myth is debunked in Section 2.1.1.
2.1.1 Translation is Creative
The notion that translation is creative is not new. Back in 1697, Dryden already proposed the idea of free translation, which highlights the creative endeavours of translators in keeping the spirit of the author by transmitting ideas but not words (1990). The sine qua non of creativity in translation is evident in more recent works as well, for example, Pound’s three types of poetics: melopoeia (words with musical properties), phanopoeia (visual imagination), and logopoeia (connotations) (Claro, 2004) and Lefevere’s (1975, pp. 76–83) version and imitation. Version focuses on the change of form but not content; for example, the Chinese folk song 当你老了 (Dang Ni Lao Le) by 赵照 (Zhao Zhao) in 2015 is based on the poem When You Are Old by William Butler Yeats (1956). Imitation is neither restricted in form or in content, for example, Jacques Brault’s (1975) Poèmes des quatre côtés from four diferent English poets’ work.
While the discussion of creativity in translation initially focused on the translation of the literary texts, many scholars argue that translation in general is creative. Savory (1957) defnes translation as art, which calls for the original input of the translator. Gaballo (2012) posits that translation of any type of text involves a varying degree of creativity. As Gambier and Munday (2014) simply put it: any translation is a creative act in itself. Benetello (2018), a transcreator of marketing texts, concurs with Gaballo (2012) and Gambier and Munday (2014) that translation is a creative act,
adding that it is “never and has never been a word-for-word rendition of a text from one language to another” (p. 28). Katan (2021, p. 221) also declares that “translation is inherently creative”. Here, I would like to contribute to this argument by highlighting the relationship between translation and creativity.
Translation is “intended to represent someone else’s thought or utterance” (Hatim, 2009, p. 208). This someone is the translator, and, as explicated by Abrams (1999) that translation is a manifestation of the translator’s own neuroses. Translators invest original thoughts in the process of translation. These original thoughts are part of creativity. Creativity is the combination of originality and appropriateness (Ang and Low, 2000; Koslow et al., 2003). Because a consideration of appropriateness is also required, goal attainment and problem solving are key features in any kind of creativity (Amabile, 1983; Mumford and Gustafson, 1988; Martindale, 1999; Sternberg and Lubart, 1999; Unsworth, 2001). This means that the creator needs to intervene innovatively and properly in order to achieve a goal or solve a problem. This lines up with the fundamental principle of translation: translation is a purposeful activity (Nord, 2014; Reiss and Vermeer, 2014). Each translation requires interpretation of the source text and re-creation into the target text. This process is conducted under the consideration of not only the norms of the source and the target languages, cultures, and customs (Gaballo, 2012) but also the context of the textual environment (Katan, 2016). For example, the style in the same language varies from literary to marketing texts. Both interpreting the source text and delivering the target text require constant original thinking and judgement of appropriateness. In other words, translation is creative because it is a purposeful activity that involves originality and appropriateness.
2.1.2 Transcreation is a Form of Translation, Just Not “Prototypical Translation”
When LSPs propose that transcreation is more than a straightforward or traditional translation (Pedersen, 2016), these LSPs acknowledge transcreation is a type of translation, just not “straightforward” or “traditional”. The notion of a straightforward or traditional translation can be understood through the notion of prototypical translation proposed by Dam and Zethsen (2018), as follows.
If translation is inherently creative, then why do most LSPs claim that transcreation is not translation? This is because the word “translation” is polysemic, and unfortunately, most LSPs take the narrowest sense that translation is a word-for-word transfer, possibly to contrast with their concept of transcreation to boost sales. This is also what some LSPs have called “straightforward” or “traditional” translation.
The polysemic word “translation” can refer to: 1) the discipline (Munday, 2004; Gambier and Munday, 2014); 2) a process, that is, the activity that the translator performs; or 3) the product of the translation process, that is, the translated text (Szasz and Olt, 2018). When the industry sees translation as a word-for-word transfer, it is a type of translation process that was the focus at the start of the translation studies discipline and has long since become obsolete (Gambier and Gottlieb, 2001; Gambier and Munday, 2014; Benetello, 2018). As seen in Section 2.1.1, translation practice in the 17th century was already beyond transferring words.
When translation is seen as a process of linguistic transfer or, as well put by Torresi (2021, p. 4): the general consideration as “mainly connected to the word and to the transfer of concepts from one language to another”, it can be termed “the prototypical translation”. This term was developed by Dam and Zethsen (2018) from Halverson’s (2000) concept of “prototype” in translation. The concept of prototypical translation is used in discussion among non-scholars (translators and translation project managers) to compare to the concept of transcreation in Dam and Zethsen’s (2018) study. The application of this term is useful in the discussion of transcreation because it acknowledges that translation as a whole is creative and highlights that this type of translation, usually seen as non-transcreation or even the opposite of transcreation, is generally linguistic-oriented translation. As Halverson suggests, the “prototype will relieve our discipline from a lot of unnecessary discourse and dissensions [on the defnition of translation] that can never be resolved” (1999, p. 20; addition in Jiménez-Crespo, 2018, p. 40). The term “prototypical translation” is used in the subsequent discussion of transcreation and its relevant concepts in the following sections.
2.2 Decluttering the Academic Discussion: The Concepts of Localisation and Adaptation
If translation is creative and encompasses transcreation, then creativity is not the determining factor to distinguish translation from transcreation (also see Gaballo, 2012). Because of this, in academia, the concept of transcreation is positioned and compared against other similar concepts such as localisation and adaptation. This is when the discussion becomes cluttered because frst, the views of whether and how transcreation resembles or difers from these similar concepts vary. Second, the discussion of these similar concepts usually situates in a particular feld, such as video gaming (e.g., Bernal-Merino, 2006, 2008, 2014; Mangiron and O’Hagan, 2006; Mangiron, 2010, 2012; O’Hagan and Mangiron, 2013), flms (e.g., Chaume, 2016, 2018; Esser et al., 2016), or marketing (e.g., Munday, 2004; Valdés and Adab, 2004; Rike, 2013; Valdés, 2013, 2019; Benetello, 2017, 2018), and the meaning of these similar concepts changes when the feld changes.
As Bernal-Merino (2006, p. 35) states, despite the many defnitions, there is no one clear defnition of transcreation because the term is used by diferent felds diferently. Because of this, this section combs through the diferent meanings of localisation and adaptation associated with transcreation in diferent felds and develops a refned defnition of transcreation in the marketing genre by adopting the most appropriate meanings of localisation and adaptation.
2.2.1
What is Localisation?
The discussion of localisation in academia started in the late 1990s. As many scholars already pointed out, the discussion at that time was primarily focused on software programs (e.g., Esselink, 2000; Parra, 2000; Pym, 2004, 2014; Mazur, 2009; Rike, 2013). With technological advancement, the discussion of localisation has been extended to other digital texts, such as video games (O’Hagan and Mangiron, 2013; Bernal-Merino, 2014), web pages (Jiménez-Crespo, 2013), and smartphone, or tablet apps (Roturier, 2015; Serón-Ordoñez, 2017).1 While some scholars, like Achkasov (2017), oppose the use of localisation to refer to processes that involves non-digital genres, such as comic books, news, or theatre plays, this development in translation studies has become inevitable as what digital texts are has become blurred, with genres like news or advertising texts available on the internet. “‘Localisation’ is thus no longer used specifcally in connection with digital material” but also for the translation of other genres (Dam and Zethsen, 2018, p. 216). Amid this current discussion of localisation, there are essentially three views on localisation: 1) localisation is part of translation, 2) localisation includes translation (i.e., translation is part of localisation), and 3) localisation is adaptation. To understand what localisation is and eventually what transcreation is, these three views are examined, or decluttered, in Sections 2.2.1.1–2.2.1.3.
2.2.1.1
Localisation is Part of Translation
Localisation can be understood as a small part of translation when translation is seen as a discipline (Hurtado, 2000; Hatim and Munday, 2004; Chesterman, 2009; Pym, 2010; Gambier and Munday, 2014) (See the three senses of translation in Section 2.1.2.). With many new terms emerging through the development of translation studies and localisation being one of them, the discipline has long moved beyond “the ideal of a defnitive Translation [or prototypical translation] to the exploration of multiple Translations” (Halverson, 2010, p. 378). As Jiménez-Crespo (2018, p. 31) afrms: “localisation could in principle represent one of those ‘translations’”. While this view is not false, it does not necessarily add to the
understanding of what localisation is. As O’Hagan and Mangiron (2013) point out, the position of localisation is rather separated from than integrated in translation studies. Localisation is often seen as a business model rather than a translation phenomenon (ibid.). This brings in the second view in Section 2.2.1.2: localisation is a process that includes translation.
2.2.1.2 Localisation Includes Translation
When localisation is seen as a process that includes translation, translation here is in the second sense mentioned in Section 2.1.2: the activity that the translator performs, a sub-process within the process of localisation. Translation is just one of the many steps within the localisation process (Sprung, 2000; LISA, 2003; Hatim and Munday, 2004; Dunne, 2006; Gouadec, 2007; Schmitz, 2007; Schäler, 2010; Van Doorslaer, 2018), and scholars start to realise and acknowledge that the localisation process also includes non-translation activities: adding graphics, addressing legal requirements (Szasz and Olt, 2018), pre-translation management, text processing, integration of text and encoding, testing, quality analysis (Pym and Windle, 2011), multilingual management (Schäler, 2010), the use of technology (Jiménez-Crespo, 2018), and so on.
With the concept of localisation being applied to more genres, as mentioned in Section 2.2.1, the main point of discussion is the increasingly fne line between translation and non-translation activities; that is, what type of translation is the translation in the localisation process? In the early research on localisation, when it was only about computer software, translation in this genre was primarily seen as a linguistic equivalence process (JiménezCrespo, 2018), that is, prototypical translation. Non-translation activities, as mentioned at the end of the last paragraph, are easier to distinguish as beyond the responsibilities of the translator. However, when it comes to other genres, the translator is assumed to take on more responsibilities, and the defnition of translation within localisation is thus expanded.
Localisation essentially means taking a product and making it appropriate to the target locale where it will be used and/or sold (adapted from LISA, 2003, p. 13). The “locale” here is not only about the language but also includes any information tied to that particular geographical region, like cultural, legal, ethical, technical, representational, ideological, and political elements (Pym, 2004 in Jiménez-Crespo, 2018, p. 28). Scholars have diferent views on which and how much of these elements the translator should take on.
In video game translation, Mangiron and O’Hagan (2006) state that the purpose of game localisation is to produce a target version that keeps the “look and feel” of the original to the extent that the target version should be able to be passed of as the original itself. As long as the target players
share the same enjoyment as the source players, game localisers can make any modifcations, omissions, or additions (ibid.). In Mangiron’s (2012) later work, the localisation examples include both linguistic and nonlinguistic modifcations. For non-linguistic modifcations, they include the style of the graphics, the game environment (see the example of Tokimeki Memorial in Mangiron (2012, p. 11)), and the gender of a character (see the example of Final Fantasy XII in Mangiron (2012, pp. 13–14)). In the meantime, the roles “translators” and “game localisers” are interchangeable in Mangiron and O’Hagan’s (2006) depiction of localisation. Surely the translators (or game localisers) may not have the skills of a graphic designer to execute a change in the style of the graphics or the game environment. However, translators are expected to have the cultural awareness to understand what in the source version may pose issues in the target market, report these issues, and suggest possible solutions to the localisation coordinator (Mangiron, 2012, p. 12).
The skopos of translating marketing texts or, sometimes more specifcally, advertising translation, is akin to that of video game translation. Instead of enjoyment, the target text of an advertisement should achieve the same intended efect – persuasion – as the source text (Ho, 2021; Torresi, 2021), and it should also read like an original on its own (Humphrey et al., 2011; Sattler-Hovdar, 2019). Marketing translation is never a purely linguistic operation, that is, prototypical translation (Benetello, 2018; Valdés, 2019). In fact, like any translation, marketing translation, including advertising translation, is an intercultural communication, which is context-dependent (e.g., Katan, 2016; Valdés, 2019). In video game translation, the context is gameplay, so the communicative purpose, or the skopos, is to create an enjoyable game experience. In advertising translation, the context is product selling, so the communicative purpose is to convince that the product is appealing. If translators in game translation are expected to ofer solutions to non-linguistic aspects to achieve the skopos, translators in advertising translation should be expected to do the same. In audio-visual texts, another type of creative texts, translators should ensure harmony between linguistic elements and other multimodal elements in the target version. Similarly to these two creative genres, context-dependent cultural awareness is required of the translator of marketing texts.
Other than language skills and cultural awareness, translators of marketing texts also need copywriting skills and local market understanding (Benetello, 2018). Here, I would like to extend what Benetello means about these two skills because it is not only pivotal to the discussion about persuasion in Section 2.4 but more importantly in this section about whether localisation is more than marketing translation, that is: does it include marketing translation and other activities, or is it marketing translation?
Copywriting has gradually and more commonly become part of the marketing translation process. As Benetello (2018, p. 41) shares as a practitioner in the feld, the target copy of the marketing texts used to be produced by copywriters in the target-language country, but now it is increasingly delivered by freelance copywriters-translators. The roles of copywriters and translators have become blurred in marketing translation.
Copywriting skills, according to Benetello (2018, p. 41), are writing skills that make the target text “as punchy as the original and consistent with a specifc advertising strategy”. If “punchy” means a forceful way of expression, like the examples Benetello suggests in her 2018 article, this is covered in Chapter 6. Chapter 6 demonstrates changes in the level of forcefulness from the source text to the target text to achieve persuasion in the target culture. Advertising strategies can difer depending on the preferred inducement of persuasion in a certain culture (detailed in Chapter 7). Because of this, copywriting skills from Benetello’s perspective specifcally refer to skills of producing writing that achieve persuasion in two particular dimensions: the force and the inducement. In this book, the realisation of marketing transcreation is explained through the three dimensions of persuasion (the third being the presence of persuasion). In this sense, copywriting, even in another language, is not entirely marketing transcreation.
The other attribute proposed by Benetello (2018), local market understanding, refers to awareness of what is used by a brand’s competitors: images, wording, and so on. It can be extended to the awareness of the other “locale” elements mentioned in the third paragraph of Section 2.2.1.2: legal, ethical, technical, representational, ideological, and political elements (Pym, 2004 in Jiménez-Crespo, 2018, p. 28). For example, claims like “the best performance” may be legally acceptable in the source market but not in the target market due to legal implications, hence the renowned slogan by Carlsberg: “Probably the best beer in the world” (emphasis added). In an ad, the colours, the font type, or even the celebrity can have diferent representational values in the source and the target markets. For example, in Pepsi’s 2000s campaign, the slogan “Ask for more” is the same in the US market and in the Greater China region, but the campaign was fronted by Janet Jackson in the US ad but changed to Jay Chou, a famous Taiwanese pop singer and songwriter, in the ad for the Greater China region. Similar to game localisers, translators of marketing texts should step up if they detect something that does not work in the target market and ofer solutions or suggestions if possible (Torresi, 2021). No set aspects or steps in the localisation process translators should or should not be involved because every product being localised is unique, and what the experience and cultural knowledge of each translator can contribute to a particular localisation job is diferent.
Translator is an intercultural mediator (Vermeer, 1989; Katan, 2004, 2016; Rike, 2013; Torresi, 2021) and in the advertising feld a full-fedged consultant (Benetello, 2018). This consultancy role is not only advocated in academia but also in the industry by end users. In Risku et al.’s (2017, p. 69) study of client expectations on marketing translation, even though none of the survey participants consider the adaptation of layout and artwork in any specifc ad the task of the translator, they concur that translators should assume a consulting role and inform the clients of any necessary changes for the target market.
Admittedly, no one is expert of all trades. It is unreasonable to expect translators to possess knowledge of all locale elements. Similar to the localisation process in video game translation and the fndings of Risku et al. (2017) mentioned previously, translators of marketing texts are not expected to execute or make the fnal call on non-linguistic changes, such as changing any elements of the graphics in the ad or deciding who will endorse the product. These are the job of a graphic designer and the marketing manager. Because of this division of labour, translators are not the only agents in the localisation process, that is, taking a product and making it appropriate to the target locale where it will be used and/or sold (adapted from LISA, 2003, p. 13).
In other words, localisation is more than marketing translation, even though the “translation” here includes cultural adaptation, copywriting in another language, and suggested changes based on awareness of other locale elements. As a corollary, localisation is more than translation of any genres because there will certainly be tasks in the localisation process that cannot be completed by translators. While localisation is marketing translation plus all other tasks that cannot be completed by the translator, localisation is not automatically marketing transcreation, as shown in Section 2.2.1.3.
2.2.1.3 Localisation is Adaptation
The concept of localisation is closely related to the concept of adaptation. The two terms appear together frequently in the discussion of transcreation. Sometimes the two terms are used interchangeably, that is, localisation is adaptation; other times localisation is seen as translation plus adaptation. To add another layer of complication, adaptation is not only used in the discussion of localisation and transcreation, but it is also used to explain the translation phenomenon of a variety of genres other than marketing: flms, television, theatre, music, dance, and other media (Milton, 2010). Due to the diferent senses of adaptation in diferent contexts, the term embraces “numerous vague notions” (Bastin, 2009, p. 3), and the use of this term in translation studies is “extremely confusing” (Milton,
2010, p. 3). This convoluted discussion of adaptation will be decluttered in Section 2.2.2 by exploring three degrees of adaptation currently presented in translation literature: 1) cultural adaptation, which contributes to the notion that translation is adaptation; 2) adaptation of all non-linguistic aspects, which contributes to the notion that localisation is translation plus adaptation; and 3) adaptation of all aspects, which contributes to the notion that localisation is adaptation.
2.2.2 What is Adaptation?
2.2.2.1
Cultural Adaptation
As discussed in Sections 2.1.1 and 2.2.1.2, translation has never been a pure linguistic transfer but is an intercultural communication. An intercultural communication means that an interpretation is required to decontextualise the source culture and reconstruct in the target culture, and this is Venuti’s (2007) defnition of adaptation. In this sense, translation is adaptation.
2.2.2.2
Adaptation of All Non-Linguistic Aspects
As mentioned in Section 2.1.2, LSPs see translation as prototypical translation in the localisation process and localisation as translation plus adaptation. To them, “localisation supposedly entails the translation of texts with an added level of adaptation” (Jiménez-Crespo, 2018). Here, adaptation refers to modifcations of all non-linguistic aspects, such as cultural, technological, and legal (Jiménez-Crespo, 2018). This view is supported by some scholars. For example, Szasz and Olt (2018) say that translation difers from the language localisation process because the latter includes a comprehensive study of the target culture so the product can be adapted to a local market. Valdés (2019) also contends that in the case of advertising, translation is not enough, and adaptation should be used. Seeing adaptation as modifcation of only non-linguistic aspects, however, is problematic because while cultural awareness is non-linguistic, cultural adaptation is part of the translation process, as corroborated at the end of Section 2.2.1.2. Because of this, localisation is not translation plus adaptation.
2.2.2.3
Adaption of All Aspects
If localisation is not translation plus adaptation, is localisation adaptation? Localisation as adaptation is a notion that is supported by many scholars. For example, localisation means “adapting a text to a particular audience or local market” (Cronin, 2003 and Sprung, 2000 in Rike, 2013, p. 73). The “text” here includes both verbal and visual elements because
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Bang vir die lewe
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Title: Bang vir die lewe
Author: Henry Bordeaux
Translator: Jan F. E. Celliers
Release date: December 6, 2023 [eBook #72345]
Language: Afrikaans
Original publication: Cape Town: Nasionale Pers Bpk, 1925
Credits: Kobus Meyer, Emmanuel Ackerman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Bang vir die Lewe
Bang vir die Lewe
Uit die oorspronklike Frans van Henri Bordeaux ná die 137e Franse uitgaaf vir Suid-Afrika vertaal en bewerk
deur
JAN F. E. CELLIERS
(Derde Druk.)
Die Nasionale Pers, Beperk, Drukkers en Uitgewers, Kaapstad, Stellenbosch, Bloemfontein en Pietermaritzburg. 1925
VOORWOORD AAN DIE LESER.
Hierdie verhaal het, as vervolgstorie, in „Die Brandwag” verskyn, van die allereerste nommer af.
Baie boeke van die buiteland, en veral romans, behandel toestande, persone en insigte wat vir die gewone Afrikaanse leser vreemd en dus onverstaanbaar en ongenietbaar is. Dit kan van hierdie boek nie gesê word nie: wat hier aan ons vertoon word, is algemeen-menslik—sulke persone en hartstogte en gevoelens en kontraste tref ons by ons net so aan.
Sonder dat die outeur as sedemeester optree, gaan daar ’n sterk morele invloed van sy boek uit, deurdat hy ons op meesterlike wyse die teëstelling laat sien tussen swakkelinge—ryk en bedorwe sywurms wat bang is vir die lewe en stryd en strewe daarvan—en ’n famielie van staatmakers wat sout en krag in hulself het.
Die sentrale figuur is ongetwyfeld die brawe ou moeder Kibert—vir haar vergeet ons nooit weer nie as ons die verhaal gelees het. En ons dink daarby aan die talryke Afrikaanse moeders en dogters wat agtien jaar gelede op so treffende wyse aan die wêreld getoon het hoe min hulle vir die lewe bang was—en vir die dood. Hulle rus daar op ons velde vandag, dog die dag sal kom dat Afrikaanse skrywers ook uit hul lewe stof sal haal vir roerende en opbouende verhale.
Dog die gewone lewe lewer daartoe al stof genoeg op; hierdie skrywer—soos elke goeie skrywer—maak die gewone vir ons interessant en het geen kunsies, soos intrigue en sulke goed, nodig nie.
Hierdie verhaal is goed inmekaargesit. Die skrywer gee nie onnodige praatjies en beskrywinge nie; ook sy natuurbeskrywinge is net van pas op die toestande wat voorgestel word en nie plesiertuintjies waar die outeur in verdwaal en die verband van sy storie versteur nie.
INHOUD.
Hoofstuk. Bls.
D I.
I. Terugkoms van Marcel Kibert 1
II. Broer en Suster 17
III. Die Blommefees 31
IV. ’n Agtermiddag op Chenée 39
V. Die Geheim van Alida 55
VI. Meneer en Mevrou Delourens 70
VII. Die Huweliksaanvraag 86
VIII. Planne 101
IX. Afskeid 113
X. Vertrek 121
D II.
I. Dertien aan Tafel 130
II. Die Boodskap van die Veldwagter 148
III. Haar Laaste Kind 154
IV. Roubeklag 162
V. Jan 173
VI. Isabella 187
VII. Die Geheim van Paula 201
VIII. Mevrou Kibert 214
IX. Haar Laaste Kind 223
X. Kalme Berusting 233
Bang vir die Lewe.
Uit die oorspronklike Frans van Henri Bordeaux na die 137e Franse uitgaaf vir Suid-Afrika vertaal en bewerk deur Jan F. E. Celliers.
I.
TERUGKOMS VAN MARCEL KIBERT.[1]
Klaar om te vertrek, in haar een hand haar sambreel, alhoewel dit mooi weer is, terwyl die ander die swart kripsluier wegskuiwe wat van haar hoedjie afhang oor haar gesig, staan mevrou Kibert te wag in haar voorkamer op Maupas, moeite doende om geduldig te bly. En nadat sy al verskeie kere na die horlosie gekyk het, staan sy op en loop met langsaam, swak stappies deur die kamer; dan gaan sy meteens weer sit, nie op een van die lekker sagte leuningstoele nie, dog op ’n rottingstoel, waarvan sy gou kan opstaan sonder alte veel moeite. Mevrou Kibert is al taamlik oud, kort en dik, en haal langsaam asem. Haar gelaat vertoon sagtheid sowel as beslistheid. Haar oë is helder-blou, en sy kyk daar so teer en droefgeestig uit, dat dit lyk of daar trane in is—getuiende van ’n skroomvallige en liefhebbende geaardheid, wat maklik skrik aan te ja is deur omgang met die wêreld; maar haar vierkantige ken en haar gesette, stewige postuur, gee weer ’n indruk van geeskrag en weerbaarheid. Haar wange het, ondanks haar jare, nog fris gebly, duidende op edel bloed en goeie gesondheid.
Na ’n bietjie aarseling, besluit sy om ’n deur oop te maak en te roep:
—Paula, kom jy nou? Dis tyd om te gaan.
’n Helder en suiwer stem gee antwoord:
—Ag, ma, ons het nog baie tyd.
—Dis al sewenuur op die horlosie, sê die ou vrou, maar sonder haarself op te win.
—Ma weet dat die horlosie drie-kwartier voor is.
—Ja, maar hy kan miskien meteens agtergebly het, hy is so vol nukke.
Die jongmeisie antwoord met ’n skaterlag, maar uitlag is dit darem glad nie. Spoedig laat sy daarop volg:
—Ek sit nou my hoed op, ma, en ek kom.
Getroos gaan mevrou Kibert weer sit. Sy laat haar oë gaan deur haar voorkamertjie (hulle woon buite die dorp), oor die wit gordyne, onlangs skoon gewas en gestryk, waar die lig dowwerig deur val, reeds versag deur die nuwe somergroen van die groot bome buite. Die meubels is oud en stemmig, en daar is nie onnodige opskik nie.
Dis die roostyd, en sy sit ’n vaas met rose aldag daar, as ’n offerande aan die portrette van die geliefdes aan die muur—oorsaak van al haar vreugde en smarte; die vergrote portret van haar man, dokter Maurits Kibert, gestorwe die jaar vantevore as slagoffer van sy plig gedurende die koorssiekte wat geheers het; en die portret van haar dogter Thérèse, ’n klein meisie van twaalf jaar, na God geroep in die daeraad van haar jeug en skoonheid. Daar is ’n groepie van haar kinders op één portret bymekaar: Etienne, haar oudste seun, ingenieur in Tonkin; Marcel, offisier; Magreet, pleegsuster; Frans, by sy broer in die verre Oos; dan Paula, die laaste wat nog vir haar oorgebly het. Ag, hoeveel maal het sy al moet afskeid neem—en vir altyd—in sestig jaar tyds! Maar dit lyk of hulle haar toelag vandag—’n feesdag in haar huis van rou.
Haar twede seun, Marcel, is terug in die land. Hy het deelgeneem aan die oorlog in Madagaskar tot onderwerping van die inboorlinge. Op agtienjarige leeftyd was hy reeds kaptein. Hy het die erekruis gewin en kom nou terug, fris en gesond, na afwesigheid van drie jaar. ’n Telegram, vanmôre ontvang, wat sy al gelees en herlees het, lê nog oop op die tafel, en het haar te kenne gegee dat hy sal aankom op Chamberie vanaand met die trein van half-ag. En dis daarom dat mevrou Kibert haar vandag twee ure te vroeg klaar gemaak het om na die naburige dorp, Chamberie, te ry en haar seun by die stasie te ontmoet. Haar gedagtes loop haar al vooruit op die treinspoor waar hy langs moet kom. Maar sy voorsien by die ontmoeting ’n ontroering wat al haar moed sal verg. Daar ver in die vreemde land het Marcel gehoor van sy pa se dood. As die dood in die verte diegene tref wat ons liefhet, hoe bitter en wreed is dan sy slae! Met die eerste oogopslag sal Marcel haar rouklere sien en die vermeerderde tekens van haar ouderdom. Daar sal ’n skaduwee van
die dode oprys tussen haar en haar seun. Sy beproef haar kragte, en sê by haarselwe:
—Sy kinders het nog nooit teruggekom met die trein van hier of daar nie, of hy was altyd self by die stasie om hulle te verwelkom. Ek sal nou daar wees in sy plek.
Paula kom nou die kamer in. Haar fraai blinkend-swart hare omlys haar ronde dofkleurige gesig. Haar swart klere laat haar dun lyk, maar sy lyk nie swak nie. Uit haar fiere houding en vaste uitkyk straal beslistheid en dapperheid. Hierdie kind van twintig jaar het al geweet wat lye is, op ’n leeftyd dat die lewe sy hoogste geur en fleur het. Om nie ’n swakkeling te wees nie, het sy haarself skrap gesit, en die gevolge van die stryd kom uit in haar houding.
Paula het ’n nuwe hoedjie in haar hand wat sy stilletjies klaar gemaak het die dag vantevore.
—Sit nou eers stil, ma. Ma moet mooi lyk as Marcel vandag kom. Kyk wat ’n mooi hoedjie het ek klaar gemaak; daardie een wat ma op het, is te afgedra.
Haar ma wil eers teënstribbel, maar laat haar dan begaan.
—Maar nou word dit darem regtig tyd, my kind.
—Ja, sê Paula, ek gaan Trelas roep.
Trelas is die kneg, wat sal leisels hou op die pad na Chamberie.
Paula kyk nog ’n keer op die horlosie en sê:
—Ons sal nog ’n uur by die stasie moet wag.
—My kind, ek sou tog nie te laat wil wees nie.
Met moeite klim sy van die stoep in die rytuig. Noudat sy sit, probeer sy te glimlag met Paula, en die onvoleindigde glimlag gee vir ’n oomblik aan haar gesig die frisse saligheid terug, wat die bekoring van haar jeug was. Paula spring vlugtig in die rytuig, en gaat naas haar sit.
—Laat loop maar, Trelas, en ’n bietjie gou, hoor; maar moenie alte baie slaan nie, en pasop by die afdraands.
—Tyd genoeg, sê Trelas drogies.
Hul ry onder die laning van swaargeblaarde kastaiingbome en plataanbome deur, verby die eikebosse. Die ou merrie begin haar bene te kry en so hard te draf dat mevrou Kibert bangerig word. Agter die bult is die son al ondergegaan, dog die blonde lig van die someraand verlig die velde nog lank.
—Ma, kyk tog na die berge, sê Paula.
In ’n groot sirkel lê die berge om Chamberie, hul rotsagtige toppe helder-rooskleurig getint, terwyl op hul voet, en langs hul kante, soos ’n fyn sluier die blouagtige waas hang, wat mooi weer voorspel. Maar mevrou Kibert is te besorg om na die sonnegloeie op die toppe van die berge te kyk; meteens kom dit uit waaroor sy sit en prakseer:
—Sê nou die trein was te vroeg! En hoewel sy dit mènens gesê het, is sy die eerste wat glimlag oor so ’n nuwe veronderstelling. Sy sien hoe die tere en ligte skaduwee stadig die berge uitklim, terwyl ’n oomblik die toringkruisie van die dorp helder daarteen afsteek. Sy wys dit aan haar dogter, as ’n beeld van stralende geloof. En nou daal dieselfde stille vrede neer op die hele natuur, en ook vir die eerste keer, sedert lank, op die gesigte van die twee vroue in rou.
Naby Chamberie kom ’n rytuig, met twee pragtige harddrawers bespan, hul agterop, en ry hul verby.
—Dis die rytuig van die famielie Delourens, sê Paula. Hulle het ons nie gegroet nie.
—Hul het ons seker nie herken nie.
—O ja, ma, maar vandat ons ons geld verloor het deur ons oom te help, groet hul ons amper nie meer nie.
Sy praat van ’n famielie-ramp wat voorgeval het kort voor die dood van haar vader. Mevrou Kibert neem die hand van haar dogter.
—Dis maar niks nie, my kind; dink tog daaraan dat ons netnou vir Marcel sal sien.
Maar na ’n oomblik stilte vra Paula;
—Was dit nie pa wat vir Alida Delourens gedokter en gesond gemaak het nie toe die koorssiekte so geheers het, waaraan pa ook self gesterwe het?
—Ja, fluister die ou vrou, en al haar plesier is weg as sy daaraan dink. En sonder klag voeg sy sag daarby:
—Ja, en hul het nog altyd vergeet om die rekening te betaal. So maak die ryk mense baie maal. Hul weet nie dat ’n mens geld moet verdien om te lewe nie.
—Dis omdat hul aan niks anders as aan tydkorting dink nie.
Mevrou Kibert sien ’n bitter trek op die nog jong gesig.
—Luister, my kind, ons moet hul nie beny nie. Onder die verstrooiing vergeet hul om te lewe. Sou hul selfs weet dat die lewe iets kosbaars is? Hul weet nie wat ’n mens se hart kan vervul en dit harder laat klop nie. Ek sal gou sestig jaar oud wees.—Ek kan my gestorwene en my opofferinge tel. Ek het my dogter Thérèse verloor, en my man, wat my krag was. Jou ouer suster, Magreet, is sendelinge, en ek het haar in vyf jare nie gesien nie. Etienne en Frans is in Asië, in Tonkin, en ek ken nie eens my kleinkind wat daar in die verre land gebore is nie. Marcel kom terug vandag, nadat sy afwesigheid my drie jare van onrus besorg het. Maar ek het darem tog ’n skone deel ontvang. Ek prys die Heer, Wat my beproef het nadat Hy my met weldade oorstelp het. Elke dag van my lewe het ek gevoel hoe goed Hy is. Selfs in my ellende het Hy my ’n steun gegee —en dis jy.
Met haar klein handjie, sonder handskoen, druk Paula die verrimpelde en gekerfde hand van haar moeder.
—Ja, dit is so, ma, ek sal nie meer kla nie.
Hul is eindelik by Chamberie, na die rit van drie myle. Trelas laat die vroue afklim by die stasie en gaan opsy met die rytuig.
Paula kyk op die horlosie en sien met verbasing dat dit tien minute oor sewe aanwys. Haar ma sien dat sy verwonderd lyk:
—Het ek jou nie gesê ons sou te laat kom nie?
Die jongmeisie glimlag:
—Te laat, omdat ons nie meer as twintig minute sal moet wag nie?
Hul gaan na die wagkamer. Net soos mevrou Kibert die deur oopmaak, wil sy weer terugtree. Maar Paula druk haar saggies binne-toe. Die kamer is vol deftig aangeklede mense. Dis die hoë mense van Chamberie wat wag op ’n trein wat hul na die komedie sal neem. Paula en haar ma herken die famielie Delourens.
Mevrou Kibert voel ongemaklik en wil uitgaan; sy fluister in Paula haar oor:
—Laat ons in die wagkamer van die derde klas gaan: dis beter daar.
—Waarom? sê Paula.
Op dié oomblik verlaat ’n aansienlike jongman ’n klompie vroue wat daar staan, en stap na hulle toe. Hul herken in hom luitenant Jan Berlier,[2] ’n vriend van Marcel. Hy groet hul op die vriendelike manier wat ’n mens dadelik eie laat voel.
—U wag op die kaptein, is dit nie so nie, mevrou, want u hou tog nie van reis nie.
—O, nee!
—Hoe bly sal hy wees om u netnou te ontmoet!
—Vroeër, sê die ou vrou aan die jongman, wat sy al as kind geken het, was dit sy vader wat hom altyd ontmoet het, weet u!
—Ja, ek weet.
En om nou nie verder op ’n publieke plek oor die sterfgeval uit te wy nie, laat Jan Berlier daarop volg:
—Ek sal Marcel ook nog die hand kan druk, eerdat ons trem weggaan.
—Kom soek hom op by ons huis. Gaan u op reis?
—Vir vanaand. Ons gaan na die stad. Daar word vanaand ’n nuwe komedie-stuk opgevoer. Maar u stel daar nie belang in nie.
Altyd openhartig, antwoord mevrou Kibert:
—Ek is nog nooit in ’n komedie gewees nie. En om u die waarheid te sê, ek het daar ook nie spyt van nie.
Alhoewel sy saggies praat, het twee jongmeisies in ligte klere haar gehoor, en een van hulle, met bruin hare en brutale blik, bars uit van die lag. Dit kan wees dat ’n luitenant wat met hulle staan en praat, die lag verwek het.
Paula bekyk die meisie wat lag, veragtelik, van bo tot onder met haar swart oë, wat ’n snelle blits uitskiet.
—Moenie hier so bly staan nie, sê Jan.
Die ou vrou gaan sit in ’n donker hoekie, op ’n stoel wat naas ’n leë leuningstoel staan, net soos iemand wat hom nederig en bangerig voel.
—Maar neem dan tog die leuningstoel, ma, sê Paula ’n bietjie ongeduldig. Sy beantwoord drogies ’n groet van die ander jongmeisie van die twee—wat nie met haar saam gelag het nie, maar gebloos.
Die jonkman praat nog ’n paar woorde met hulle en gaan dan terug na sy eie geselskap. Paula kyk hom na en hoor hoe hy aan mevrou Delourens sê:
—Ja, dis mevrou Kibert. Sy verwag haar seun uit Madagaskar.
—Watter een? Sy het so baie.
—Maar die offisier, Marcel!
—Watter rang het hy?
—Kaptein—dié wat die eremedalje gewin het—beroemd, sê Jan haastig, ’n bietjie ongeduldig oor die uitvra, want die meisie met die bruin hare roep hom.
Maar mevrou Delourens wil nou meer hoor:
—Beroemd? Wat het hy gedoen?
—Weet u dan niks van die slag van Audriba, waar sy kommandoafdeling die oorwinning behaal het nie?
—Is jy seker daarvan?
—So seker as iets. Die hele land praat van Marcel Kibert.
Mevrou Delourens is dadelik vol belangstelling, en tree op mevrou Kibert toe. Tot selfs in haar verval word die ou weduwee nou belangwekkend, omdat haar seun so ’n naam gemaak het.
—Kom die kaptein vanaand tuis, mevrou? Ag, ons het hom almal met ons harte gevolg, daar in die verre land en in die vreeslike oorlog, waar hy sy land eer aangedaan het. In die koerante het ons gelees wat hy alles volbring het in die slag van Audriba.
Agter sy vrou staan mnr. Delourens, ’n baie onderdanige en hoflike klein mannetjie, en met ’n hoofbeweging bevestig hy al wat sy vrou sê.
Mevrou Kibert voel haar in dié omgewing baie ongemaklik. Hoe steek haar armoedige rouklere af (alhoewel deur haar dogter opgeknap) by hul deftige aandkleding; sy voel dat sy geen enkele gedagte gemeen het met hierdie mense van die wêreld nie. Almal kom rondom haar staan en wens haar geluk. Na mevrou Delourens kom mevrou Orlandi haar gelukwens. Laasgenoemde is ’n ou Italiaanse gravin wat stil lewe in Chamberie en gedokter was vir haar senuwees deur oorlede dokter Kibert. Meneer De Marthenay, ’n luitenantjie, kyk die ou vrou op ’n byna brutale manier deur sy oogglasie aan. Bangerig beantwoord sy hulle met enkele woorde; die bloed styg in haar wange op, haar dogter Paula merk dit, en kom haar te hulp. Paula is meer op haar gemak en, selfs ’n bietjie styf, ondanks die lieftalligheid wat die twee jong meisies haar betoon—die bruine Isabella Orlandi, wat in haar woorde net so aanstellerig is as in haar houding, en veral die ander meisie, die blonde Alida Delourens, wat van nature vriendelik is. Sy oorlaai Paula met beleefdheidjies en voorkomendheid, haar stem is sangerig en breierig, sy versag die hardklinkende woorde en praat met ’n aangename soetvloeiendheid.
—So, dan kom jou broer vandag? Jy is seker bly? Dis al jare gelede dat ek hom laas gesien het. Weet jy nog toe ons almal saam gespeel het in julle tuin by Maupas, of in ons syne by Chenée.
—Ja, sê Paula, en nou speel ons nie meer saam nie. Die tuin by Maupas lê woes, en dié by Chenée is weer alte mooi versorg.
—Maar waarom kom jy nie meer na ons toe nie? Jy moet regtig kom.
En Paula vra haarself af waarom haar vriendin van vroeër dae— deur lewensomstandighede van haar geskei—nou so vriendelik vir haar is. Sy kyk na haar eie swart rok, so eenvoudig en glad, en bewonder dan, sonder afguns, Alida haar ligblou lyfie, opgemaak met wit kant en ’n bietjie laag in die hals—’n wit, dun hals, wat lyk soos ’n tere blom. Paula beskou dan verder haar gelaat, waarvan die trekke fyn en suiwer is, en die ligrose gelaatskleur sonder ’n vlekkie. Sy kan nie help om te sê nie:
—Hoe mooi is jy tog, Alida!
Die fris wange word meteens purperrooi. Alida gaan opsy om iemand te laat verbykom, en Paula merk dat selfs haar slapsleperige stap iets bydra om haar dooierig-tingerige bekoorlikheid te voltooi: naas haar voel Paula beter haar eie jong krag. . . .
—Nee, Paula, dis jy wat mooi is. . .
Daar kom die trein aan en breek al die gesprekke meteens af. Almal storm die wagkamer uit. Die famielie Delourens en hul geselskap soek eersteklas rytuie in die trein, wat nou stilhou. Die mense wat uit die trein stap, loop al haastig na die uitgangsdeur. Die voorste van almal is ’n lang jonkman, skraal en regop; hy hou sy hoof fier omhoog. In sy hand dra hy ’n sabel, in groen baai. Net soos hy mevrou Kibert opmerk, hardloop hy na haar toe, en is in haar arms.
—My kind! sê sy, en ondanks haar besluit om sterk te bly, bars sy in snikke los.
En hy, hy rig hom weer op ná die omhelsing, en teer kyk hy sy moeder aan, wat die merke dra van haar beproewing. Sy songebrande, byna hardvogtige gelaat, vertoon ’n ontroering. ’n Naam wat hulle nie nodig het om uit te spreek nie, beef op hulle lippe, en een selfde eerbiedige nagedagtenis roer hul harte. Die
vreug van sy terugkoms gee iets treffend nuuts aan die smart wat hulle al lank gevoel het.
Met versagte blik kyk Paula haar groot broer en haar ma aan.
Voor die deurtjie van die trein draai Alida Delourens en Isabella Orlandi om, en sien die verwelkoming van die jong offisier; en Isabella kyk mevrou Kibert met spotlaggende oë aan, omdat sy so dik is en nog huil daarby.
Jan Berlier staan opsy en wag eerbiedig. Hy kom na Paula toe.
—Hoe gelukkig is hulle tog!
En met iets treurigs in sy stem voeg hy daar nog by:
—As ek van ver af terugkom, is daar niemand wat my verwag nie.
Marcel omhels ook sy suster.
Jan kom laggend nader:
—Ek wil nou ook my beurt hê.
—So, Jan, is dit jy?!
En as warme vriende druk die twee mekaar hartlik die hand. Jan is ’n oomblik ontroerd, dog glimlag nou weer:
—Tot weersiens. My trein gaat weg: ek moet hardloop.
—Waar gaat jy?
Al lopende draai die jonkman half om en sê:
—Ons gaan na die komedie in die stad. En hy wys met sy hand na die mense wat by die trein staan.
Marcel Kibert laat haastig sy oog oor die deftig uitgedoste mense gaan. Maar Paula draai nog ’n keer om en sien hoe Alida haar groet uit die treinraampie. Sy groet terug, haastig, en nie besonder vriendelik nie, net of sy ’n soort wantroue of bygelowige vrees voel vir daardie verleidelike verskyning. Haar jong vurige siel het, deur vroegtydige leed, ’n soort van trotse gevoeligheid oorgehou. Waarom was Alida so tegemoetkomend? dink Paula. Haar oë volg
