New Translation Theories

Discourse Analysis

And now, something on hermeneutics for Gold Dragon:​

Discourse Analysis​

Discourse analysis (also called text linguistics) is not a translation theory per se, but a linguistic tool or research method. It was actually invented way back in the 1950s by secular linguistic scholar Zellig Harris as “a method for analyzing samples of connected speech or writing that were entire texts rather than individual sentences” (An Introduction to Transformational Grammar, by Diane D. Bornstein, p. 18). This then led to the idea of transformation, defined by Harris as “a grammatical process that changes the order of constituents within a sentence and can delete, substitute or add elements” (ibid). When Noam Chomsky added the concepts of kernel sentences, deep structure, etc., this became transformational grammar and influenced Eugene Nida greatly in his development of dynamic equivalence.

David Alan Black gives discourse analysis a whole chapter in his excellent book, Linguistics for Students of New Testament Greek. He calls it simply “the study of larger units of language” (p. 170), and again, “Textlinguistics operates on the principle that a discourse—the book of Philippians, for example—must be viewed as a whole and taken as the primary object of interpretive scrutiny” (p. 172). Black is very positive about its use in hermeneutics.

On the other hand, some conservative scholars do not agree that discourse analysis should be used in Biblical hermeneutics. Robert L. Thomas calls it “hermeneutical hopscotch” that chooses subjectively how it approaches a text (Evangelical Hermeneutics, p. 485), and points out that Moises Silva and David Alan Black each came to very different conclusions about Philippians using discourse analysis (ibid, 228).

Among Bible translation scholars, Stanley Porter is using discourse analysis as a tool to evaluate translations, not necessarily as a tool to help translate. “A core tenet of discourse analysis is that meaning and communicative function and intent result not from the combined meaning of individual words, but from a complex of features that make up a single discourse” (Translating the New Testament, p. 187). Concerning using it in translation, he writes about one possibility, “If the passage is determined to be a parallel, and if indicating such is important, then the discourse-based translator would need to render this appropriately. If the passage is determined to be something else — some have taken it to be a historically/theologically based account — then appropriate adjustments need to be made” (ibid, p. 133).

I don’t think that Porter is very clear about how it might be used as a translation tool, and am still pondering Porter’s use of it to evaluate translations, since I only recently read his book. Therefore, in my mind the jury is still out on discourse analysis. I’m not ready to use it to guide my translating.

 

Lawrence Venuti

Lawrence Venuti​

I’m done explaining theories unless someone wants to ask questions or interact with me. But I would like to mention one last recent translation scholar, Lawrence Venuti, since he has some ideas very relevant to Bible translation. Gentzler calls him “perhaps the most influential translation studies scholar of the last decade in North America” (Gentzler, p. 36). An American scholar, he doesn’t seem to adhere to any of the theories I’ve delineated, but rather has his own ideas that don’t add up to a theory per se. Rather, Venuti writes about the ethics of the translator and his translation.

Palumbo explains Venuti’s thinking: “Showing particular affinity with hermeneutic and poststructuralist approaches to language and translation, Venuti has set himself the task of elaborating an ethically committed approach to translation, arguing for the adoption of forms of translating capable of providing increased visibility to the work of translators and thus aimed at overcoming the marginality of translation observed both in North-American academic circles and in the larger Anglo-American cultural scenario” (Palumbo, p. 182).

Venuti’s primary concern is with what he calls the “foreignization” of the text into the target language to such a degree that the translation no longer shows its origin. He writes, “Seen as domestic inscription, never quite cross-cultural communication, translation has moved theorists toward an ethical reflection wherein remedies are formulated to restore or preserve the foreignness of the foreign text” (“Translation, Community, Utopia,” by Venuti in The Translation Studies Reader, ed. by Venuti, p. 483). So Venuti believes it is unethical to produce a translation that is completely adapted to the target language so that the reader loses sight of the document’s origin.

Gentzler explains Venuti further: “By rewriting the text according to the prevailing styles of the receiving culture, and by adapting images and metaphors of the foreign text to the target culture’s preferred systems of beliefs, translators are not only severely constrained in terms of their options to carry out their task, but also forced to alter the foreign text to conform to the receiving culture’s forms and ideas” (Gentzler, p. 37). While Venuti doesn’t make a point of demanding either literal or free translation, this shows that he opposes the reader response theory of Eugene Nida. (For an essay discussing Venuti and Nida see: http://www.tinet.cat/~apym/on-line/translation/2008_Nida_and_involvement.pdf)

I may have oversimplified Venuti’s thinking, but hopefully I’ve aroused some interest in his work. He has two books out that I plan to buy when I can afford them: The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation, and The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference.