Featured Two Approaches: Linguistics and Exegesis

Actually, all translations are based to one extent or another on exegesis. This thread is trying to ask the question: which is more important in the final rendering, the exegesis, or the linguistics involved in getting to the target text?

 

The old time translators (Ulfilas, Jerome, Luther, Judson) did not have the benefits of modern linguistics, but still produced some awesome translations. However, there are areas of linguistics that are important and helpful to a modern translator: phonology, morphology, semantics. We teach these to our students. (One of our profs is finishing up an M.A. from SIL) What I'm asking is about some modern theories that are being pitched as necessary for good Bible translation: transformational grammar (Nida and James Price), code theory (Nida and Larson), propositional analysis (Larson), etc.

To put it another way, can a person with very little linguistic training but a God-given gift for languages do a good job on a Bible translation?

 

I certainly agree that the poorest translation, even a paraphrase, is better than no translation in the heart language of a given people group.

 

I've been listening to this, and overall, it is helpful. I think it's great that an actual translator is addressing some of these issues.

Having said that, he shows some lack of research in a couple of areas already at under 10 min. First of all, "formal equivalence" was not invented in answer to dynamic equivalence. It is a term invented by Eugene Nida in the unveiling of his theory of dynamic equivalence.

Secondly, "warmhearted" is an idiom, and I don't know any genuine translators in the literal camp who would translate it literally without regards to the meaning of the target language idiom. I certainly would not. So "warmhearted" meaning "angry" in his example is inadequate as an illustration of what's wrong with "formal equivalence."

I also note that he mixed up the words "manuscript" and "text" at 15'55". I'll stop there.

 

Oops. Replied to the wrong one. Sorry.

 

Still reading Larson, I'm almost done with the long section on propositional analysis. I've been learning. When I started reading this section, I did not realize where she was coming from. However, noting the multiple usages of the term "encode," I see that her propositional analysis is part of code theory, a linguistic theory that I knew about but have not studied. So just to learn about code theory, Larson's book is helpful. However, as I believe I mentioned above, Nida used code theory, but nowadays many translators prefer something called relevance theory. Ernst August Gutt in a 1992 book by that name. Gutt was with SIL, but I don't know if he still is. You can see his dissertation here: http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1317504/1/241978.pdf

 

In what I just read in Larson's book, the point is made that many languages do not have a form of indirect address ("He said that...), so all indirect address statements must be made direct (He said, ""). The thing is, Greek also does not have a plain "direct" and "indirect" distinction. So she is actually speaking about translating from English here, not the original languages. In fact, I was surprised that the whole book is more about translation in general than Bible translation, which is seldom mentioned in the book.

 

I just finished the chapters on "Propositional Structure" (pp. 205-295), and have learned a lot. Nida talked about the code theory of communication as valid for translation, but I never quite figured out what he meant by that, or even more than the basics of code theory. What Larson has done is given us a whole method of using code theory in translation. She often uses the term "encoded" in this section. The basic idea of code theory is that human speech is a code of some kind. The speaker encodes his propositions in appropriate grammatical and semantic forms, and then the listener has to decode those propositions according to his own forms.

The problem as I see it at this point is that Larson's method is too complicated. This is the same problem I see with the usage of transformational grammar (Nida, Price). Once the translator goes through the whole recommended process, he or she is too mentally exhausted to do the translation work! In my thinking, the transformations or decoding (take your pick) is done automatically in the mind of the translator with his or her God-given linguistic gifts.

By the way, I don't mean by this thread to parade my knowledge. Please don't think that. I often do threads here on the BB to test out my own thinking. Feel free to debunk what I've said all you want. I'm learning here.

 

Hmm. Okay.

Thanks for the interaction. This is an interesting point, and I'll address it. Definitions of "idiom" differ. Here are two quotes about this.

“idiom: an expression consisting of several words and whose meaning cannot be derived from the meaning of the individual words, e.g. kick the bucket for die; also called exocentric expression.”
(Eugene Nida and Charles Taber, The Theory and Practice of Translation, 203.)

Furthermore, the Handbok of American Idioms and Idiomatic Usage, rev. (Harold Whitford & Dixson) says, "An idiom...consists of more than one word."

So both of these sources think that an idiom must be more than one word. However, the "Handbook" then gives many one word idioms: backfire, globetrotter, etc.

Getting back to "warmhearted," it is only one word, but definitely an idiom (not a metaphor, which is usually one word). So again, as a so-called formal translator, I would certainly not translate this as is into a language that did not have the same idiom. I would have no trouble translating it as "warm kidneyed" if that was the equivalent metaphor.

 

Before DE was invented, non-literal translations were called "free translations." Here is a definition from 1954: “free translation: the rendering of the meaning of a statement, expression, text, etc., in another language, without following the original accurately” (Dictionary of Linguistics, by Mario Pei and Frank Gaynor, 1954, 77).

This term is still used in the secular translation world. Here is an example from 2009:
“Free translation is usually taken to concentrate on conveying the meaning of the ST disregarding the formal or structural aspects of the ST” (Key Terms in Translation Studies, by Giuseppe Palumbo, 49).

This definition is close to what Mildred Larson teaches, except for one thing, which is what sets apart DE. In DE (including Larson, who carries on Nida's theories), the response of the reader or hearer ("receptor") is paramount. This is called "reader response." However, if we are depending on our exegesis instead of doing a linguistic analysis and seek to transfer only meaning (and not form), then reader response won't matter so much. We must depend on God to produce a response in the heart of the reader (conviction and/or growth).

 

The difference is that idiom actually does not carry literal meaning. Obviously, "raining cats and dogs" translated into almost any language would make no sense! In that case, there are three possible strategies: (1) give the actual meaning of the idiom in non-idiom language (It's raining a lot); (2) Find an idiom in the target language that means the same, though not the same wording (in Japanese, "Ame ga zuu zuu futte iru"); (3) if the idiom actually makes sense without causing confusion, it may be literally translated into the target language. One example is the Hebrew idiom "kick against the goads."

On the other hand, a metaphor keeps its literal meaning and usually makes sense in the target language. The Word of God as "seed" is one example of that. Problems in translating metaphors only come (in my experience) when the target language does not have a word for the word being used symbolically: "snow" in a equatorial tribal language, "lamb" in a tribal language where the animal is unknown. In these cases, one can (1) change the metaphor (only when there is no theological issue, IMO), or (2) transliterate and use a footnote.