Cultural Issues in Anisul Hoque’s Ayeshamangal and its Translation

Anisul Hoque’s Ayeshamangal (2010) has been a text of quite critical acclamation in Bangladesh due to its presentation of acourageous village woman, Ayesha- who struggles in the context of post-independent political turmoil in Bangladesh insynchronization of a legendary figure in Bengali folk myth, Behula. This study provides a reading of Ayeshamangal’sEnglish translation, The Ballad of Ayesha (2018), in order to find out the cultural implications in the source text (ST) and thetarget text (TT). Translators face the problem of treating the cultural aspects of a ST and then its appropriate transfer to theTT and target language (TL). In this novel, the translator faces such a dilemma on various occasions. The ST extensively usesa certain dialect of the source language (SL). This paper investigates the transfer of this dialect of Rangpur region to thetarget language (TL).The paper examines the techniques used by the translator to successfully convey the aspects of Bengaliculture into the TL of the novel. This study also focuses on translations of certain lexical contents, ways of life and the mythof Behula. Thus, the current paper investigates the translation strategies and procedures used in the TT from certaintheoretical perspectives in translation studies and argues that the translator attempts for an overall equivalent effect in the TT,though he fails to provide the taste of important cultural aspects of Bangladesh to the TT readers.

Traditional Law and Discriminatory Customary Practices against Women in Cameroon: A Critical Perspective

This article highlights the cultural and traditional practices that continue to discriminate against women in Cameroon, given that gender equality has been recognised and guaranteed in the Constitution of Cameroon and all international human rights instruments which Cameroon has ratified, notably the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and its Optional Protocol, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, and all other international and regional conventions and covenants relating to discrimination against women. The article points out that the status of a woman under traditional law is far less than that of a slave. A woman is regarded as an abominable object and subjected to harmful customary practices. Some customs still continue to affect the physical and psychological development of the village woman. It is suggested that the village woman should be empowered financially, economically and socially to fight against customary practices that violate their rights.

Chronicle of Dream in Amitav Ghosh’s Novel “Sea of Poppies”

Sea of Poppies is a historical novel based on human being's survive and fulfilment of dream. The novel is divided into three main parts, first one is land, second one is river and third one is sea, in which the whole novel is chronologically weave with the fulfilment of dream. The chief character in this novel is Deeti, a village married woman of India, who dreamed to travel in an ample vessel, quenched her desire in an unprecedented situation. One day, she saw a big ship sailing on the ocean, which she had never seen earlier even in her dream. Sea of Poppies is a meditation in the guise of a novel, but such is the author's meticulousness in matters of research, and so firm is his grasp of the unexplored underbelly of the British Empire. Ghosh is the author of ten highly acclaimed works of fiction and non-fiction which include the booker- prize shortlisted Sea of Poppies. The novel, Sea of Poppies, told the history of Indian society, opened in 1838, on the eve of first opium war, the novel divided into three parts, Land, Water and Sea. The first part narrated the condition of the protagonist that made able to reach near the ship. The first part also described the economic and social states of the Indian society. The second part invited the characters to join the ship and being ready for their voyage to abroad. The third part, allowed the characters to sail for their new life in Mauritius. Sea of Poppies, shows the chronicle of dreams through the eyes of an Indian village woman, named Deeti, in a different circumstances. The novel depicted the nascent desire of female protagonist, to fulfill her dream. She lived her life as a common Indian house lady, and left her village in an unpredicted situation that visualized the 19th and 20th century’s condition of Indian society. The novel, breaks the doors of caste description and colonialism, and reveals the new way of life, seeking freedom in a different condition.

Russian Village Magic in the Late Soviet Period: One Woman’s Repertoire of Zagovory

This article gives a succinct introduction to the Russian verbal folk genre of the zagovor (spell, charm, or hex) and provides a set of seventeen zagovory given to the author’s informant in the early 1980s by an elderly village woman, accompanied by translations into English. The zagovor is at the heart of Russian folk healing, though it was suppressed in the Soviet period. This individual repertoire reflects the sources and uses of folk healing in the Soviet period and beyond.

Japan’s Civil Registration Systems Before and After the Meiji Restoration

This chapter traces the evolution of Japan's systems of household and land registration from c.1600 to the period of early Meiji reforms in the 1870s and 1880s, with due attention to the distinction between a system designed by the state and local forms of registration practice. In the section on the pre-Meiji period, one such local practice of having people ‘disowned’ and its consequence — registerlessness — is examined. The section on the Meiji reforms and the section that follows turn to the issue of continuity and discontinuity, and the question of whether any progress was made by those reforms. In order to illustrate the actual changes that took place at the local level, the chapter begins with an eighteenth-century story about a peasant woman and ends with a case of a family dispute that another village woman brought before the court some 120 years later.