A comparative study of the Afrikaans and Zulu translationsof "South Africa's Suspended Revolution: Hopes and Prospects"by Adam Habib

In 2013 Adam Habib published South Africa's Suspended Revolution: Hopes and Prospects. Habib approached the Wits Language School and asked for the translation of a condensed version of the book into Zulu, Northern Sotho and Afrikaans. The translation brief requested that the translations should be very close to the original in as far as the use of terminology was concerned to ensure that the original argument remains shrewd and convincing. The language was to be as plain possible, and the title catchy. In this article the Zulu and Afrikaans translations are compared and it is shown how the two translation teams, due to differences in their respective target audiences, but primarily due to the differences in the possibilities and limitations of the languages into which they translated, made use of different translation strategies resulting in the final products differing from each other substantially. As a result of zero equivalence, the Zulu translators often had to make use of translation strategies such a paraphrase and explitation which resulted in a more accessible text as what was the case with the Afrikaans text. The Afrikaans team was not confronted with zero-equivalence. However, the use of standardised terms made the text less accessible and the Fog Index rating of the final text is 14,2. In terms of the translation brief, the Afrikaans text probably did not succeed in its goal.