Untranslatability in Traditional Poetic Discourse: A Case of Chagga “Mbia”

Abstract

An analysis of the poetic content, meaning and form of the didactic discourse Mbia will show that the words of the discourse are fraught with transitional impediments due to their restricted lexical code and cultural semantics. The SL and TL texts exhibit no interchangeability of concepts and situational features which are relatable for full translation equivalence to be realised.