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Is Dynamic Equivalence a Bad Thing?

Discussion in 'Bible Versions & Translations' started by Bro Tony, Jun 9, 2006.

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  1. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    Sorry, Trotter, as I said before, this example is not DE but is an example of swapping an idiom in the original language for one in the receptor language, something that is done all the time by professional translators who do not use DE.

    Doesn't anyone on this thread know what an idiom is, and anything about properly translating them? Are any of you so-called DE advocates actually bilingual, or actually translators??? :p
     
  2. Phillip

    Phillip <b>Moderator</b>

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    The TNIV/NIV have always been listed on the far right of the DE/literal charts. With TNIV's gender neutral translation this would definitely fall under the definition of DE.

    John, you are right, of course, but there is a fine line when discussing these among people who have not studied translation and I think it is fair to allow a certain amount of latitude without being so picky about specific terminology. IMHO.:thumbs:
     
  3. Rippon

    Rippon Well-Known Member
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    When I said that the Message and Living Bible were way out there on the other side of the ledger that did not mean they are in the realm of DE ( FE ) . But John mistakenly misinterpreted that . They are in the unduly free zone .
     
  4. Rippon

    Rippon Well-Known Member
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    In a past thread I had quoted from the book : " The Challenge Of Bible Translation " . I had cited D.A. Carson's chapter on " The Limits Of Functional Equivalence " . But it bears repeating here .

    At its best , functional equivalence , far from jeopardizing good translations , is essential for fidelity in translation -- fidelity in conveying not only meaning but also tone , emotional impact , naturalness/awkwardness , and much more .
    Inevitably , some have abused "dynamic equivalence" and "functional equivalence" to justify poor translations , or even to justify entire theological agendas . I hasten to add that the most careful scholars in this field do not err in such ways ... ( pages 92,93 )

    Kenneth Barker in his chapter " Bible Translation Philosophies With Special Reference To The New International Version " quoted Moises Silva :

    Translators who view their work as pure renderings rather than interpretations only delude themselves ; indeed , if they could achieve some kind of noninterpretative rendering , their work would be completely useless . ( p.51)

    [ Barker quotes Ephraim Speiser on page 52 ]

    The main task of a translator is to keep faith with two different masters , one at the source and the other at the receiving end ... If he is unduly swayed by the original , and substitutes word for word rather than idiom for idiom , he is traducing what he should be translating , to the detriment of both source and target . And if he veers too far in the opposite direction , by favoring the second medium at the expense of the first , the result is a paraphrase .
     
  5. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    Sigh. You are probably right, Phillip. However, at the least it would be nice to get some kind of definition we could work from, and I haven't seen that. I've given two quotes from Nida, but other than that everyone seems to be simply using DE to mean paraphrasing, and that to me is not even good Internet debating!

    Do any of you who do not want to follow Nida's definition that I gave have any kind of authoritative definition of DE?
     
  6. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    I don't think I "mistakenly misinterpreted" (sic: this phrase would mean I interpreted correctly). Here are your actual words:

    After saying that all versions use DE, you then discussed The Message and the LB. If you don't want me to "mistakenly misinterpret" then please be more plain in your statements.
     
  7. TCassidy

    TCassidy Late-Administator Emeritus
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    Time for me to weigh in and definitely settle this matter! :D

    There is no doubt in my mind that Dynamic Equivalency (note initial caps), as an overall translation methodology was the invention of Nida. However, dynamic equivalency (note small case) meaning "characterized by change" was something that occurred in isolated spots in virtually every bible ever translated.

    I agree with John of Japan (gasp!) that using the term Dynamic Equivalency to identify occasional translational colloquialisms (reflecting a well-known spoken phrase) may be somewhat confusing.

    The point is, of course, that such changes away from a literal rendering of the original is not as uncommon as some strict literalists would suppose.
     
  8. Ransom

    Ransom Active Member

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    John of Japan said:

    As for how the term DE is used in this forum, simply because others use it inaccurately doesn't mean that they should, and it doesn't mean that I will. Frankly, I think it is sloppy thinking to use the term DE to mean "a looser method of translation that deviates from strict literalism in favour of increased readability or understanding."

    In that case, I guess I wasn't talking to you. So what's your problem?
     
  9. Bro Tony

    Bro Tony New Member

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    The last sentence speaks of my intent in starting this thread. Now lets go with the good doc's explanation and keep it with the small case of dynamic equivalence and continue the discussion from here.

    Bro Tony
     
  10. Rippon

    Rippon Well-Known Member
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    John you really are opposed to calling a rendering de when de is being used in a more formally equivalent version .

    It is admitted by almost everyone that de is used in almost all translations .

    That does not mean that those translations were guided by that translation philosophy throughout .

    The usage of "God forbid" is de in action -- like it or not . ( Even though the term wasn't coined yet .)

    Here is a dictionary meaning of the word idiom:

    An idiom is a group of words which have a different meaning when used together from the one they would have if you took the meaning of each word individually . For example , ' to give someone the cold shoulder ' is an idiom meaning to ignore someone .

    This is a quote from Nida ( and Tabor ) in the book : "The Theory and Practice of Translation " .

    Dynamic equivalence is therfore 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 . This response can never be identical , for the cultural and historical settings are too different , but there should be a high degree of equivalence of response , or the translation will have failed to accomplish its purpose . (p.24 )

    The following is from Nida's : " Toward a Science of Translating . "

    A translation of dynamic equivalence aims at complete naturalness of expression and tries to relate the receptor to modes of behavior relevant within the context of his own culture ; it does not insist that he understand the cultural patterns of the source-language in order to comprehend the message . Of course there are varying degrees of such dynamic-equivalent translations ...
    Between the two poles of translating ( i.e. between strict formal equivalence and complete dynamic equivalence ) there are a number of intervening grades , representing various acceptable standards of literary translating . (pages 159,160 )
     
  11. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    Me?? I have no problem. I cause them. :smilewinkgrin: :tongue3:
     
  12. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    Ooooh, how nice. The good Doctor is agreeing with me! :love2: And of course since I asked for an authoritative definition of DE/de, I have to go with what Doctor Cassidy says now. :smilewinkgrin:

    Concerning how common divergence from a literal rendering is, my wife and I met our co-workers at Starbucks yesterday. Frank is a NT translation committee member, and just in case anyone doubts his bonafides, he was an Air Force linguist before becoming a missionary, has plenty of undergrad and grad credits in Biblical languages, and has been over here for 35 years.

    At any rate, I asked Frank what percentage of our work requires interpretation rather than strictly literal translation. His view was 10%, and that sounds about right to me. So what kind of interpretations do we do?

    (1) We do have to adapt sometimes to the Japanese culture. For example, Japanese has about 5 levels of politeness, and if we did not incorporate some of this polite language into the text it would read very strangely to the Japanese.

    (2) While we do our best to preserve the ambiguities of the original in our translation, thus allowing the reader to make his own exegesis (as per the optimal equivalence method, as opposed to DE), sometimes you simply have to make a choice about how to translate a certain word. For example, anothen can be translated either "from the top, from above" or "from the beginning, once again." There is no comparable single word in Japanese, so sometimes we just have to choose one meaning or the other.

    (3) As discussed above, we replace a Greek idiom with a Japanese one if the original doesn't come across in Japanese. So, in the case of me genoito, discussed in this thread, we have gone with a Japanese idiom, danjite chigau, which means in literal English "It is simply different," but that doesn't quite get across the impact in Japanese. Now this type of rendering may be de (small letters) as defined by Dr. Cassidy, but it is not DE in my view (contra Rippon), but simply common sense translating. :type:
     
    #32 John of Japan, Jun 13, 2006
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  13. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    Are you saying DE or de here? At any rate, if DE, yes I am opposed. If de (as per Doc Cassidy), no I'm not.


    I still disagree, but you are entirely entitled to your opinion.

    Here is a better definition, a linguistic one: "Any expression peculair to a language, conveying a distinct meaning, not necessarily explicable by, occasionally even contrary to, the general accepted grammatical rules" (Dictionary of Linguistics, Mario Pei and Frank Gaynor, p. 95).



    This is pretty close to Nida's definition I gave previously, and no one responded to my objections then.


    In between these two quotes you give by Nida, he mentions and praises as good DE Phillips' rendering of "greet one another with a holy kiss" as "give one another a hearty handshake all around." This is exactly what I was talking about before when I said that this type of rendering looks down on the reader. If I were to do a similar rendering in Japanese as, "Bow politely to one another," I would be assuming that the typical Japanese is too dumb to realize that in other cultures, including the ancient one of the NT, they didn't bow! :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
     
  14. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    Back to the start

    Bro Tony, you must be a little frustrated that your OP has not really been answered, and the technical stuff has interfered. So I am going back to your OP, and I hope I can at least help you think through this some.

    Here are the times when I oppose a more free rendering (what is now called de, small case, in this thread).

    (1) I think it is wrong when the rendering is "thought for thought" rather than "meaning for meaning." I can't understand why anyone would not want to know the literal meaning of the original.

    (2) I think it is wrong when the grammatical structure of the original is ignored in the translation. This does not mean that we have to keep the word order of the original, for example, since the meaning of the word order differs from language to language. For example, Japanese always puts the verb last. What I do mean here is that if the original verb is passive, the translated verb should also be passive. Of course, there are actually a couple of languages out there with no passive mode, making this hard sometimes! :eek:

    (3) I believe that when the original is ambiguous, it is wrong to make the translation definite. The translation should also be ambiguous. That way the reader is allowed to interpret instead of the translator, according to the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer. However, as I said in a previous post, there are times when the translator simply has to interpret.

    (4) I believe that the culture of the original language should not be abandoned or exchanged for the culture of the receptor language. Therefore a high priest should be a high priest and not a "religious leader," a kiss should be a kiss and not a handshake, and a knight should not be a samurai. (Okay, so there are no knights in the Bible. :D )

    (5) I believe that when an idiom is used in the original language, it is wrong not to translate it literally if the translation makes sense. If the translation does not make sense, then the idiom in the receptor language that is closest in meaning to that of the original language should be used.

    Having said all of this, I read the NIV through twice shortly after it came out and was very impressed. What the translators of the NIV did right is the same thing that is right about the KJV: the literary quality. The NIV translation committee submitted the draft to English experts for smoothing out, and that was a very good step which insured it would be more popular than the NASV, and would remain popular. This step is something that can and should be done without sacrificing accuracy. Unfortunately, as I read through the NIV I found many places where it was not faithful to the Greek due to its DE translation philosophy, and so I put it aside, leaving it on my shelf just for consulting occasionally. I have a deep desire to know exactly what God has for me in the Word of God, not what some translator thinks would sound better or read better.

    I hope this helps. God bless! :type:
     
    #34 John of Japan, Jun 14, 2006
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  15. Bro Tony

    Bro Tony New Member

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    Thank you John---your post does help and is right on point with my OP. I love the guidelines you shared in dealing with the matter of de and I agree with them.

    BTW--I was in Japan from 1977-1980 stationed at Camp Zama on the main Island of Honshu. I was a member of Zama Baptist Church which had both a American missionary (Dr. Ray) and a Japanese pastor... I loved Japan...Thanks for being there to share the good news with those special people.

    Bro Tony
     
  16. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    I've heard of the Zama Baptist Church--a good work.
     
  17. Rippon

    Rippon Well-Known Member
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    John , your simplistic put-down of the NIV was just that . You really don't believe that the NIV translators just wanted to have the text sound better , or read better do you ? Do you know any of them ? You have misjudged their intent and motives .
     
  18. El_Guero

    El_Guero New Member

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    Bro Tony

    Responding to your OP - no, a dynamic equivalent is not a bad thing. But, mistranslation is always bad. I think that your question should deal more with bad translation than with an equivalent concept being used to better communicate what was written. Does it kill a translation, if you translate hello instead of good morning? What if I translate "God be with you" instead of translating goodbye? These last two are literal identicals. We use these equivalent terms to mean divergent things in every day English. Goodbye does mean "God be with you".

    I have yet to funciton in ANY foreign language where "dynamic equivalents" were not normal practices.

    I believe that in Japan the proper translation of any language text into Japanese would require a reworking of 60 to 80 percent of the text just based upon the syntactical difference of how the honorific, politeness, and formality are addressed in their language. I believe that proper translation into Mexican-Spanish would require a reworking of 20 - 40% of any text because of their distinct usage of politeness.

    And if you are fixin' to translate into Texan - you are gonna learn that "dog won't hunt here" and that "fair to midland" is a cotton pickin' terms.

    So, IMHO (& experience), dynamic equivalent can be more accurate than literal. And literal can be more accurate than dynamic equivalent. The art of translation is to know when to apply which.

    I think our modern problem (about last 130 years) is actually two-fold. First, we are trying to make language translation into a mathematical model. And some folks have done a travesty in their translation of God's Holy Word - causing many of us to react to their error. Language is about communication. And great communication is usually more poetic than it is direct. Just look at the parables of Christ. Very few of them are direct. I would not make up a new story to communicate them, but I would be certain that a rice-based economy understood the differences in farming that are so evident in the parables.
     
    #38 El_Guero, Jun 15, 2006
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  19. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    :smilewinkgrin:
    Okay, I phrased that wrongly. I wasn't intending to insult the translators--just the translation method! :D
     
  20. John of Japan

    John of Japan Well-Known Member
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    I really don't know where you get this, El_Guero. Are you a Japanese expert? I've already said that in the judgment of my linguist co-worker, we only interpret about 10% in our Japanese translation, and I concur in that. And I know for a fact that Japanese has a lot more polite language than Spanish. Think it through again, and I think you will cut back your 20-40% figure for Spanish politeness.
     
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