Visualizing Culture-Specific Terms: Multimodal Paratexts in the French Translation of Things Fall Apart

Abstract

Culture-specific terms in literary translation pose challenges because their meanings extend beyond language into material form, ritual practice, sound, gesture, and symbolic associations. In translated texts, explanatory footnotes are often concise and verbal, risking semantic reduction when culturally dense concepts are compressed into linear prose. While scholarship has examined culture-specific terms and paratextual mediation, less attention has been paid to how multimodal semiotic resources might supplement verbal explanation where perceptual and iconographic dimensions are central. This study investigates the French translation of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, focusing on five Igbo culture-specific terms: egwugwu, ekwe, udu, ogene, and ikenga. Drawing on social semiotics, multimodality and paratextual theory, it explores whether concise footnotes adequately mediate culturally embedded meanings and considers the interpretive potential of multimodal supplementation. Methodologically, the research combines qualitative paratextual analysis with targeted visual complements designed to redistribute explanatory load across verbal and visual modes. Findings show that French footnotes often shift interpretation toward broad functional categories, reducing distinctions tied to materiality, ritual significance, and symbolic form. The textual analysis is supplemented by an exploratory reader-response exercise involving eight French-speaking Master's students in translation. Preliminary responses indicate that verbal-only footnotes frequently encouraged broad categorical approximations, whereas visual complements supported more differentiated descriptions. Given the limited number of participants, these observations are treated as indicative rather than generalisable and constitute the exploratory phase of an ongoing reader-response study. It argues that paratexts actively shape the framing of cultural difference in translation. By foregrounding modal asymmetry as a source of opacity, the study positions multimodal paratextual design as a context-sensitive strategy for mediating culturally dense texts.