I have some time this week before starting teaching on Monday, and one of our translation students is interested in the translation philosophy of Dynamic Equivalence (DE) in the Good News Bible, often the source text (ST) for Wycliffe people and other Bible translators. (DE, invented by Eugene Nida, was later renamed functional equivalence because of misuse of the original term, but we'll use DE.) So to help me with that, first I'm going to define and describe DE, then go through the GNB John 3.
First of all, it is important to note that Nida was neoorthodox, so his translation theory is based on the neoorthodox view of the inspiration of Scripture. Nida wrote, “Neo-orthodox theology has given a new perspective to the doctrine of divine inspiration. For the most part, it conceives of inspiration primarily in terms of the response of the receptor, and places less emphasis on what happened to the source at the time of writing” (Eugene Nida, Toward a Science of Translating, 1964, p. 27.).
Therefore, the goal of a DE translation is the experience of the reader in the target language, more so than the authorial intent of the original document. The term “receptor” is very important in DE, so I avoid it in favor of "target." It refers to the reader of the Bible translation, who is assumed to react to Scriptures in an existential way, experiencing something which is not necessarily eternal truth but merely subjective truth for the immediate present.
Nida wrote, “Dynamic equivalence is therefore to be defined in terms of the degree to which the receptors of the message in the receptor language respond to it in substantially the same manner as the receptors in the source language” (Nida and Tabor, The Theory and Practice of Translation, 1982, p. 24). This is called "reader response."
So, why don't I like DE, other than the fact that it is based on neoorthodoxy?
1. It often misses the nuances of the original language by making the target language primary.
2. It usually seeks to make ambiguity explicit, therefore defeating the purpose of the ambiguity used by the original divine and human authors.
3. It often adds material that the translator thinks necessary to make meaning explicit.
4. It sometimes leaves out what it considers to be repetition, meaning some of the character of the original is lost ("Verily, verily....).
5. It actually looks down on tribal people, thinking they are not bright enough to understand the meaning without extra words being added.
6. Etc. etc.
First of all, it is important to note that Nida was neoorthodox, so his translation theory is based on the neoorthodox view of the inspiration of Scripture. Nida wrote, “Neo-orthodox theology has given a new perspective to the doctrine of divine inspiration. For the most part, it conceives of inspiration primarily in terms of the response of the receptor, and places less emphasis on what happened to the source at the time of writing” (Eugene Nida, Toward a Science of Translating, 1964, p. 27.).
Therefore, the goal of a DE translation is the experience of the reader in the target language, more so than the authorial intent of the original document. The term “receptor” is very important in DE, so I avoid it in favor of "target." It refers to the reader of the Bible translation, who is assumed to react to Scriptures in an existential way, experiencing something which is not necessarily eternal truth but merely subjective truth for the immediate present.
Nida wrote, “Dynamic equivalence is therefore to be defined in terms of the degree to which the receptors of the message in the receptor language respond to it in substantially the same manner as the receptors in the source language” (Nida and Tabor, The Theory and Practice of Translation, 1982, p. 24). This is called "reader response."
So, why don't I like DE, other than the fact that it is based on neoorthodoxy?
1. It often misses the nuances of the original language by making the target language primary.
2. It usually seeks to make ambiguity explicit, therefore defeating the purpose of the ambiguity used by the original divine and human authors.
3. It often adds material that the translator thinks necessary to make meaning explicit.
4. It sometimes leaves out what it considers to be repetition, meaning some of the character of the original is lost ("Verily, verily....).
5. It actually looks down on tribal people, thinking they are not bright enough to understand the meaning without extra words being added.
6. Etc. etc.
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