Featured A Glossary of Translation Terms

Well, of course they mean the same thing. The nuance is different though.

 

As long as we're on DE terminology, here are a couple more:

reader response (a DE term): Nida defined the goal of translation as a rendering which will evoke the same response from the modern reader as it did from the original readers of the New Testament. This is a foundational concept in DE. Nida put it this way: "response (of a receptor): the sum of the reactions of a receptor to a message in terms of understanding (or lack of it), emotional attitude, decision and action" (The Theory and Practice of Translation, Nida and Charles Taber, p. 206). Here is how they defined receptor, as per linguistic code theory: "a person receiving or intended to receive a message" (ibid, 205).

formal equivalence (a DE term): Eugene Nida’s word for literal translation or word-for-word translation, which aims at carrying the form of the original as much as possible into the target document in both grammatical forms and lexical units.

 

I don't know how they put it, so I can't agree or disagree. I certainly wouldn't put it as "form = meaning" if indeed that is how Ryken and others say it.

In typical semantic theories the lexical units carry the main meaning. Syntax is the sentence structure that allows the meaning to be carried. Depending on the syntax, nuance can change, so to the extent that nuance carries meaning, then grammatical forms are important to meaning.

Grammatical form, depending on the language, may vary in direct equivalence, but equivalence can be found. For example, Chinese has no verb tenses per se, so the nuance of a Greek or Hebrew tense has to be expressed with various time hanxi (汉字) in Chinese (a good example of nuance as I mean it here). Again, Japanese has no gerunds, so the equivalent nuance (adjectival usage of the verb) must usually be carried with the plain present tense modifying a noun.

 

back translation: a literal retranslation from the document in the target language back to the source language, usually for the purpose of checking the TL translation. This technique is common in tribal translation work, especially when a translation consultant is being used.

computer translation: using computer software to produce a translation. This method shows promise, but is still in its infancy. Even the best software cannot yet mimic a translator’s knowledge of syntax in the SL and TL, his intuition and his ability to do transformations in the two languages.

machine translation: an early word for computer translation. Eugene Nida devoted the last chapter of his book delineating his new theory to this subject (Towards a Science of Translating, 1964, Chapter 12).

 

Here is a definition from Nida that is on target (I don't reject everything he wrote):

"literary language: that form of language, sometimes but not always written, in which texts are composed and transmitted which are intended to be esthetically pleasing; characterized by careful, often elaborate use of words and grammatical and stylistic devices; in unwritten languages, most closely resembles the formal level of spoken language; often not understood by uneducated persons."
(The Theory and Practice of Translation, by Eugene Nida and Charles Taber, 1982, p. 203.)

 

ambiguous: having more than one meaning. If there is ambiguity in the original text, literal methods seek to preserve it in the translation.

 

“archaism: an expression which was used at an earlier period but which is no longer current in the language” (Nida & Taber, 197).

 

The concept of "historical distance" is interesting. This is the first time I've heard of it. If I have it right, Fee and Stuart are talking about what is called transparency, the idea that in reading the translation, the less the reader realizes that the document is translated, the more transparent the translation is. Lawrence Venuti calls this "the translator's invisibility" in his book by that title, and he opposes complete transparency.

 

In the secular field of translation studies, transparency is defined as a translation that doesn't seem to be a translation, "giving the appearance that it reflects the foreign writer's personality or intention or the essential meaning of the foreign text -- the appearance, in other words, that the translation is not in fact a translation, but the 'original'" (The Translator's Invisibility, 2nd ed., by Lawrence Venuti, p. 1).

For the record, Venuti generally opposes this, calling such a translation "domesticizing," or a translation that tries to make the document in a foreign language into one in the domestic language. He is for "foreignizing," or using techniques and vocabulary in the translation that make it clear the target document is originally foreign.

 

One of the hardest words (and concepts) to define is idiom. The definition differs depending on the scholar. The main problem is that some describe an idiom as being more than one word, but others point out one word idioms. Here are some definitions:

“Idiom: (1) Any expression peculiar to a language, conveying a distinct meaning, not necessarily explicable by, occasionally even contrary to, the general accepted grammatical rules.—(2) The idiom is a term denoting the general linguistic or grammatical character of a language” (Dictionary of Linguistics, Mario Pei & Frank Gaynor, p. 95).

“idiom A set expression in which two or more words are syntactically related, but with a meaning like that of a single lexical unit: e.g. ‘spill the beans’ in Someone has spilled the beans about the bank raid, or ‘put one’s foot in it’ in Her husband can never make a speech without putting his foot in it” (P. H. Matthews, Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, 183).

“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).

Harold C. Whitford, in Handbook of American Idioms and Idiomatic Usage (1973), says in the preface that "An idiom...consists of more than one word." However, in the book he gives many one-word idioms, such as "arms" (weapons), "axe" (used when firing someoen), "baloney," etc.

There is also such a thing in linguistics as an "idiom chunk": “’idiom chunk’ A part of an idiom separated from the rest by a syntactic process. E.g. in The beans were by then pretty well spilled (meaning that some secret was out) the beans is a detached chunk of the idiom ‘spill the beans’" (Matthews, 183).

 

Here are several more definitions from linguistics:

sociolinguistics: the study of language as it relates to society. The value of this discipline for Bible translation is that it helps us consider how the style of a translation relates to the projected readership of that translation.

Transformational grammar: A theory of grammar from linguistics used in various translation methods which emphasizes the way meaning is expressed by relating various “transformations” that can be done to an original, “kernel” sentence. Example: for the kernel sentence “I drive,” we can have a negative transformation (I don’t drive), a passive transformation (I am driven), an interrogative transformation (Do I drive?), etc. In Bible translation, both Dynamic Equivalence and Optimal Equivalence use this tool.

syntax: that branch of grammar that deals with how a sentence is constructed.

 

denotative meaning: the normal meaning of a word as it relates to the object in the world which it represents. In Nida-Taber this becomes "referential meaning."

"referential meaning: that aspect of the meaning of a term which most closely relates the term to the portion of the nonlinguistic world which it symbolizes, and which can be defined by componential analysis; also called denotation; opposed to connotation" (Nida & Taber, p. 205).

connotative meaning: the emotional meaning attached to a word, whether good or bad. In English, swear words have a negative connotative meaning, so they are not used in polite discourse or normally in Bible translations. (Paraphrases such as The Living Bible are sometimes criticized for using words with negative connotative meanings.)

"connotation, connotative meaning: that aspect of meaning which concerns the emotional attitude of the author and the emotional response of a receptor. It can be good or bad, strong or weak; words with very strong connotations, either good or bad, often become taboo" (Nida & Taber, p. 199).

When we had not been in Japan many years, I used a particle in a sermon which I had heard used by two cute little boys in a TV commercial. Afterwards Mrs. Wakamatsu came up to me an said in a shocked voice, "Pastor Himes, we don't use that word. It's not polite!" Serves me right for getting my education from the TV. There was nothing I could tell wrong from the word itself, but the connotative meaning in Japanese was clearly negative, meaning that the writer of the commercial had used it for its shock value, and I fell for it.

The worst thing you can call a Japanese person translates in English to “foolish country bumpkin.” Its connotative meaning is so insulting in Japanese that I’m not even going to tell you what the word is!

Going the opposite direction, there is a Japanese drink called by the English word "Sweat" and a coffee creamer called "Creap"!

 

equivalence: the property of a word or phrase in the target language carrying the same or a close meaning to a word or phrase in the original language. Beyond this simple definition, the word is hotly debated among translation scholars.

(This is my second definition for this word.)

 

Correction: the term "machine translation" is still quite common among translators, as I learned from a very interesting, brand new 2012 book I just finished, Found in Translation, by Nataly Kelly and Jost Zetzsche. This is a book about secular translation in general for the layman.

 

There are two theories of communication in linguistics which are currently being used to understand and shape the process of Bible translation.

1. The first theory is called code theory.

code theory: a linguistic theory in which language is thought to be a type of code, requiring the speaker or writer to frame his speech in symbols in the original language, which after being translated are then decoded by the listener or reader into his own language. Eugene Nida used this linguistic theory to delineate his dynamic equivalence theory of translation.

code--"Fundamentally, a code consists of symbols organized into a system. Language, which is precisely such a code, consists of words (or other units) which are organized, according to 'the rules of the grammar,' into particular types of combinations" (Toward a Science of Translating, Eugene Nida, p. 30).

2. The other theory is called relevance theory, and is not compatible to code theory, making it a rival in the field of translation studies. Ernst-August Gutt is the primary advocate of relevance theory in Bible translation, especially in his book Relevance Theory.

relevance theory: a linguistic theory in which communication takes place successfully to the extent that the message has relevance to the cultural context of the receiver of that message.