Nida & De Waard, From One Language to Another

DE people do use the term "reader response," and Nida taught the concept (though secular translation studies scholars almost never use the term). For example, in The Theory and Practice of Translation, Nida (with Taber) said, "To measure dynamic equivalence we can only rightly compare the equivalence of response" (p. 23, footnote). So in DE the response of the reader is all important. However, DE aims for the same response in the modern reader as the original readers had, rather than granting freedom for any response at all, so I don't think reader response criticism can be blamed on Nida. At least I've found no smoking gun.

In an article in the January 2009 The Bible Translator ("The Way I See It," p46 as a Paradigm for Reader Response Theory, by Edgar Ebojo), the writer says, "The three significant movements that have great influence upon Reader-Response include: structural semiotics, poststructuralism, and deconstruction--movements largely associated with Roland Barthes, Umberto Eco, and Jacques Derrida" (p. 23). So Nida is not listed as an influence.

 

You forgot Young's Literal, Darby's, Berry's Interlinear....

 

Chapter Three—Basic Issues​

This chapter is helpful and practical, discussing such things as what translations are already in existence in a language, what dialects there may be, trade languages, the level of education of the readers, etc. The authors even ask concerning the presuppositions of the target culture, “Do people…insist that a translation be more or less word-for-word and that any departure from this is a mere paraphrase and therefore theologically unacceptable?” (p. 45). This material calls to mind the term “norms,” from secular translation studies, in particular Gideon Toury and his skopos theory: “a norm is a social notion of correctness or appropriateness, one that states (or expects) what acceptable translations should look like, thus influencing the decisions taken by translators” (Key Terms in Translation Studies, by Giuseppe Palumbo, p. 78).

One helpful point the authors make here is to distinguish between three dimensions of language level: present day/archaic, literary/common/substandard, and formal/informal. This is one issue which the Bible translator ignores at his peril. The target audience must accept the language of the translation or the thousands of hours of work needed to translate the Bible are largely wasted.

In the section on “Text,” the authors discuss briefly the transmission of the text. Unfortunately, they once again show great prejudice against the Majority/Byzantine text, calling it the “so-called ‘Majority text’” (p. 53). You’ll remember that previously they called it the “so called Byzantine text.” This shows a lack of knowledge of textual criticism, where it is generally agreed that there are four text families: Alexandrian, Byzantine, Western and Ceasarean. So for Nida and De Waard to call it the “so-called Byzantine” (or “so-called Majority”) is to fly in the face of the evidence.

This brings up a pet peeve of mine. Why do books on translation insist on discussing textual criticism? This goes for both sides: those defending DE and those defending literal translation methods. Textual criticism and translation studies are two very different disciplines, though connected. A translator will probably not be expert in textual criticism, and vice versa. Also, the principles of a translation theory or methodology will remain the same no matter what text is translated.

To continue, this chapter of Nida/De Waard ends with a short section on the translator with a good point and a good story. The point made is, “Verbal facility, intelligence, creativity of expression, and knowledge, however, are not adequate if one does not possess intellectual honesty and integrity. Unless a translator is willing to let an author speak for himself, the results are inevitably going to be skewed. A translator who feels that one must embellish or jazz up a text will certainly distort the true implications of divine inspiration” (p. 59).

The good story appears in the last paragraph, in which the authors teach that a translator must learn to work with others. “On one occasion a member of a translations committee was so adamant about his superior knowledge of Hebrew that he insisted that when the committee did not follow his advice, he would have a heart attack. Fortunately, this person became so discouraged with his role in the committee that he resigned after a few days” (p. 59).

 

Chapter 4: Translating Means Translating Meaning​

This would seem to be a self-evident statement, but DE advocates do not consider it to be so. They like to talk about "meaning-based translation." In fact, that is the very title of the textbook by Mildred Larsen. This is becoming a pet peeve to me. It insinuates that those who do not translate by DE thus do not translate meaning, which of course is nonsense.

At any rate, in this chapter Nida and De Waard begin by discussing code theory once again. They say, "The study of codes considers why languages seem to be structured the way they are, how verbal signs are related to though processes, and the isomorphic relationships between utterances and the referents of which the utterances are signs" (p. 60).

For the next few pages, the authors discuss differences in languages and why a word in one language may have a different range of meaning than a similar word in another language. This is pretty standard stuff, and translators of all stripes have similar stories.

On p. 61 one thing said here that once again appears to be based on existentialism: "Nothing in language usage is ever hard and fast, fixed for all time." What the authors should have said is that truth is fixed for all time, and every language can express that truth. In fact, there are words in various languages that hold their meaning for literally thousands of years. For example, because of the static nature of Chinese characters I can read a Chinese statement literally 3000 years old, and understand it as if it were written yesterday.

One example the authors give of how words change is the word demon: "The term demon is essentially a conceptual deduction from a series of events" (p. 62). I could not disagree more. The term demon in the Biblical sense describes a real creature, with which the writers of Scripture had actual contact with, not a concept. This is a word that has retained its meaning in many languages for centuries.

The authors go on to discuss isomorphs, a term borrowed from algebra by the authors. I won't try to describe the whole discussion except to say that the authors are using the concept to present their doctrine of equivalence. Along the way they do criticize the Living Bible for changing the original isomorph (one might just say "sentence"), "qualifying the law in John 1:17 by adding 'rigid demands and merciless justice'" (p. 65).

There are further sections on "Meaning and Mind" and "The Automatic Nature of Verbal Processing." The interesting thing in these sections is that the authors appear to be describing something more akin to the relevance theory of communication of Ernst-August Gutt rather than their favorite, code theory.

The final section in the chapter is, "A Sociosemiotic Approach to Meaning." They continue the apparent conversion to relevance theory with statements like, "A sociosemiotic approach to the meaning of verbal signs always indicates the total communication of an event within the social context" (p. 73). This is a necessary thought for any theory of translation, not just DE. For example, you cannot translate accurately into Japanese without understanding the social mores of Confucianism and what the Japanese call their "vertical society" (as opposed to the American horizontal society, where all are said to be equal).

 

Chapter 5: "Rhetorical Functions"​

This chapter is fairly innocuous. The authors deal with what they list as eight rhetorical functions: "wholeness, aesthetic appeal, impact, appropriateness, coherence, cohesion, focus and emphasis" (p. 80).

The obvious meaning for a DE translator is to try to reproduce the same effect in the "receptor" language as the original "receptors" felt when they read or heard the original document. The authors give various illustrations of these concepts, such as how the aesthetic appeal of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew differs from that of Luke.

They also rightly give examples of how the translator should not add to the text to reproduce the original impact: "Since many persons in the so-called scientific or sophisticated Western world do not share this same world view, there are problems for translators, some of whom feel that the text must be changed so as not to violate present-day ideas. For example, some translators wish to make the days of creation into eons of time and others want to add psychosomatic explanations to miracles of healing" (p. 82) What the authors do not say here is that both of these translation errors stem from a liberal view of Scripture. A translator who believes in verbal inspiration would not add to the text in such a way.

This brings up the subject of a book I'm reading by secular translation scholar Lawrence Venuti, The Invisibility of the Translator. In Venuti's thinking, the translator has a choice of producing a translation with fluency or a foreignizing translation. These are not analogous with literal and free, formal and dynamic, etc. Fluency and foreignizing can be done with either literal or free translations.

To Venuti, the fluent translation violates the original author by making the translated document sound as if it were written in the target language. The ethical translator will "foreignize" the translation, making it obvious that it was originally a foreign document, and the astute reader will read the document seeking to understand the original cultural influences.

This is all fascinating, and I'm still working on understanding Venuti's theories, but I think the meaning for a Bible translator is obvious! The Bible is an ancient document, not a 21st century one. We do a disservice to the reader if they don't end up understanding that.

 

Chapter Six: Rhetorical Processes​

With this chapter the authors continue with their discussion of rhetoric. They begin by saying, “To accomplish the rhetorical functions of wholeness, aesthetic appeal, impact, appropriateness, coherence, progression-cohesion, focus, and emphasis, various rhetorical processes are employed. The principle ones are: (1) repetition, (2) compactness, (3) connectives, (4) r4hythm, (5) shifts in expectancies (primarily order, syntactic structures, and semantic content), and (6) the exploitation of similarities and contrasts in the selection and arrangement of the elements of a discourse” (p. 86).

With this explanation, the authors put themselves squarely in the camp of those seeking fluency in translation as opposed to a foreignized translation, in Venuti’s terminology. In fact, Venuti is not kind to Nida. He writes, “Nida’s theory of translation as communication does not adequately take into account the ethnocentric violence that is inherent in every translation process — but especially in one governed by dynamic equivalence. In view of this violence, how can a translation possibly produce an effect on its receptors that is equivalent to the effect produced by the foreign text on its initial audience?” (The Translator’s Invisibility, p. 17).

Under the section “Shifts in Expectancies,” the authors discuss ambiguity in the original text, using as an example John 3:3—“The ambiguity of anothen, ‘from above’ or ‘again,’ sets the stage for the initial misinterpretation of the meaning by Nicodemus and the later explanation by Jesus” (p. 105). Nida and De Waard thus show that they do not understand the play on words in the text. It is not possible in English to preserve this play on words, but in some languages it is possible. And in many other passages, the ambiguities of the original can and should be preserved. This preservation of the ambiguity of the original puts the task of interpretation squarely in the court of the reader rather than the translator, and that is how it should be.

It is in this chapter that the authors mis-define the word idiom, saying that “Full idioms consist of two or more words….” (p. 111). As I have mentioned elsewhere, there are many one word idioms in English. It may be that Nida is trying to rectify the error in the glossary of The Theory and Practice of Translation where an idiom is described as “several words” (p. 202). But with this new definition we are left to ask what a full idiom is and why it differs from a partial idiom.

 

I figure it was John's play on words, thus my wording "in the text." The usual interpretation is no doubt "again," but personally I think the play on words is there, since "from above" is clearly the meaning of anothen elsewhere.

 

Chapter Seven: Grammatical Meaning​

This chapter points up a very important difference between the literal methods and DE, or functional equivalence as the authors are calling it here. That difference is that DE downplays meaning that depends on the grammatical form of the original. Thus we have Nida’s term for literal methods of translation, which is “formal equivalence,” meaning not that you have to dress fancy when you translate, but that literal methods seek to translate the form of the original as much as possible. DE translators on the other hand believe that while meaning is conveyed by the grammatical form of the original, the form does not have to be preserved in the target language to convey the original meaning.

Thus the authors write on the first page of this chapter, “As will be found throughout this chapter, it is essential to recognize the fundamental differences which exist between underlying semantic relations and surface forms, or what are called by some linguists, the underlying structures and the surface structures” (p. 121). The terminology here refers to transformational grammar, one influence in DE, and I’ll not try to explain that here because it would take too long. To put it simply, the authors believe that the semantics (word meanings) of the original text are more important than the grammar that connects the words together.

Grammar is structured. It has rules that grammarians discover and write up in books to try to help students talk right (speak correctly!). However, as I’ve pointed out before the authors of this book depend to an extent on existentialism, which does away with rules. (Thus, in existential theology, or neo-orthodoxy, the Bible is not the Word of God but becomes the Word.) To illustrate this, consider what the authors say about one word: “The word prophet identifies not only an object, the person involved but also specifies a particular kind of activity” (p. 123; the lack of a comma after “person” was in the original—JOJ).

Do you understand the significance of this statement? The authors in their semantics are ignoring the difference between a noun and a verb! They are telling us that the noun includes action, which is inaccurate. For example, what if a prophet is not prophesying at the moment? Does he then cease to be a prophet? Of course not! The word “prophet” describes what he is, not what he does. When he “prophesies,” then we use a verb, and we don’t use a noun and say “He is prophet today” meaning he said something prophetic. All languages have nouns and verbs (if not all the same parts of speech), so we can usually (not always) translate a noun with perfect confidence into a parallel noun of another language.

Later in the chapter we learn how this would work in an actual translation. They say, “For example, Romans 1:5, literally ‘we received grace and apostleship,’ contains the phrase kharin kai apostolen, which is formally coordinate but semantically subordinate, since apostolen is essentially the content of kharis, the gift of God, that is, Paul’s apostleship was a gift from God” (p. 134). The authors then suggest this translation: “I received the privilege of being an apostle” (ibid). However, there is a perfectly good verb in the Greek for Paul to have used to say “give the privilege” if he had wanted to, carizw, a cognate of kharin (carin).

In this example the authors did not translate meaning, they invented it! Thus in the DE method you can make a verb into a noun and a noun into a verb, and that’s how you get the right meaning. It’s all very subjective, as if you can fiddle around with the words and grammar of Scripture until you get the meaning you think ought to be there.

 

Chapter Eight: Lexical Meaning​

This is the last and longest chapter of the book, over 40 pages, though the appendices both merit a look. Because of the length of this chapter, I’ll have to divide my review into sections.

First of all, the authors their term: “Lexical meaning can probably be best described as the meaning of parts of words, words, and combinations of words. This last category consists of so-called fixed phrases, idioms, and ‘sayings,’ the meaning of which cannot be determined merely by adding up the meaning of the constituent parts” (p. 138). There is more, but this will get us started.

After the definitions, the writers consider “Basic Factors Relevant to Lexical Meaning.” In this section they begin by discussing context, which is very important. Any translator or lexicologist will agree with some of the information here. Context is basic to determining meaning. Simply looking up a word in a dictionary and choosing which meaning you like will not cut it for the earnest translator. If the meaning is not clear, he must search out other usages of the original word, then look at the context to determine which meaning is the correct one.

On p. 140 the authors surprised me. They write, “A third important assumption, which can also be recognized as a principle of interpretation, is that the literal or ‘unmarked’ meaning of a lexical unit (they mean a word—JoJ :smilewinkgrin should be assumed correct unless the context points to some other meaning.” Then at the end of that paragraph they write, “This principal constitutes a warning for persons who are always looking for hidden meanings in a text, but who are more likely to be deceived by their own desires for novelty.” Unfortunately, though, the authors clobber this principle later in the chapter.

It is very true that meaning must be determined according to context. However, it is a mistake for a translator to look only to the context for meaning. The normal meaning of a word can be translated most of the time. Unfortunately, there are those nowadays who believe the context can overrule the normal meaning. For example, Moises Silva wrote, “The context does not merely help us understand meaning—it virtually makes meaning” (emphasis in the original; Biblical Words and Their Meaning, p. 139). As good as Silva’s book is otherwise, this statement is nonsense. Context determines meaning according to a word’s normal usage, it cannot invent meaning.

We have camp coming up next week, so I might not get back to this review right away. If I can I'll continue the discussion of Chapter 8 before camp, but if I can't find the time I'll still get back to it. I hope you're enjoying the review.

 

Lexical Meaning (cont.)​

I'm back! We had a great camp and special meeting.

In the rest of this chapter the authors continue to discuss their view of semantics. They talk about "Changes in Meaning" (that words morph over time); "Designative Meaning" (the basic meaning or meanings--usually plural--which a word has); "Associative Meanings" (meanings acquired in a culture--such as that Christians in a Muslim country do not want to call Jesus by Isa, the Islamic name for Him); how to determine designative meaning; "Determining Associative Meaning" (how people react to certain words).

They next discuss "Literal and Figurative Meanings." This is an area where I've found Nida's books to be lacking. He defines "idiom" poorly, he paints all literal translators as coming up with ridiculous renderings of figurative language, etc. For example, the authors say on p. 157, "Literal translations of 'dead to sin' are usually quite meaningless. I find this to be not true. The phrase is actually quite shocking and paints a meaningful word picture. I once preached on the subject to a Japanese church when I was young and foolish, and the concept was so shocking (or the way I described it) that a young lady gasped loudly, then never returned!

In the next section the authors describe "Inadequacies in Traditional Approaches to Biblical Lexicography." They then set up the straw man of etymology as being a mistaken way to determine meaning. However, they fail to prove that translators do so--though "word studies" often make this mistake. Also, they fail to mention that etymology may be the only way to determine the meaning of a word occurring only once in the literature (the dreaded hapax legomena). Again, it is interesting to note that most Chinese characters by their very nature include their etymology within the radicals of the character--so many Chinese and Japanese words have retained their basic meaning over 1000s of years!

On p. 160 the authors make what I believe to be a crucial mistake. They say not to translate
filosofia (philosophia) in Col. 2:8 as "philosophy," but rather suggest "human wisdom," saying that "Paul does not reject philosophy as such, even if it remains true that...early Christianity wanted to be understood as a sophia 'wisdom' and not as philosophia.'" This is in spite of the fact that Colosse was a Greek city, and all Greeks would have known the whole mess of Greek philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, epicureanism, stoicism, etc. etc. So the authors are here injecting their prejudices into the translation, a mistake with any method of translation!

Another key mistake is on p. 173 when the authors list three "principle sources of information (to determine lexical meaning--JoJ) which are particularly relevant to Bible translators," yet leave out the most important one: contemporary usage in other koine or Hebrew documents!

I'll stop here concerning the final chapter (I'm sure it's too long already), and hopefully can get to the rest of the book soon.

 

Appendix A—Diverse Theories of Translation​

This is a very interesting section, though outdated. (There have been many developments in translation theory since this book was written in 1986, such as skopos theory, polysystem theory, Venuti’s views on foreignization, etc. For a good, basic review see Contemporary Translation Theories by Edwin Gentzler.) Nida and De Waard list four “basic theories” on p. 182: “philological, linguistic, communicative (communication theory) and sociosemiotics.”

First of all, to the authors, “The philological approach to the problems of translation focuses on the literary character of the source text” (p. 182). They give the famous quote from Schleiermacher, “The translator can either leave the writer in peace as much as possible and bring the reader to him, or he can leave the reader in peace as much as possible and bring the writer to him.” This recognition by the authors that the literal method has a valid theory behind it is a welcome change from the criticism Nida usually hurls its way.

I believe the authors mislead on the next page when they say, “Jerome, taking his cue from the more enlightened attitudes of his day, produced the Vulgate translation in a form of Latin which was regarded by some as so free as to be even heretical.” One of these days I’ll do a full study myself of the Vulgate to see how free it really is. When I’ve read from it in the past, it looked pretty literal.

In the meantime, note the following quote from Bruce Metzger: “In general the translation technique of the Latin Bible is very literal; nevertheless a certain freedom is maintained. The translator does not always render the same Greek word by the identical Latin word. On the whole, the development in the Latin goes from a freer translation to an ever closer correspondence to the Greek” (The Early Versions of the New Testament, p. 369).

Concerning a linguistic based approach to translation, the authors say, “Basically the linguistic approach to translation involves a series of rules of correspondence, which prove to be particularly important in developing machine translation” (p. 183). This describes well Nida’s first book on DE theory, Toward a Science of Translating, which even includes a chapter on machine (read computer) translation. They then criticize linguistic approaches with, “Rules of correspondence based on contrastive linguistics are too dependent on surface structures and do not deal adequately with the underlying semantic relationships” (ibid).

This illustrates how DE/FE has developed over the years from Nida’s first book. Communication theory is now more of a basis for DE than the linguistic/scientific approach, though both are part of Nida’s theory. The authors describe this method thus: “In this communicative approach to translation issues, the focus is on the extent to which the meaning of the source text is transmitted to receptors in a form that they can understand and appreciate” (p. 184). They then discuss the limitations of this method, saying it “lacks adequate breadth” (ibid).

This brings us to the sociosemiotics approach, which we’ve discussed already in this review. The authors’ brief discussion of it here approaches the relevance theory of communication (See Relevance Theory, by Ernst-August Gutt). The difference is that Nida and De Waard appear to prefer including societal data in the translation, and Gutt discusses strategies to use along with a Bible translation to reach a people for Christ.

The authors close this section with the revelation that their method is based on “a number of scientific disciplines, including psychology, linguistics, communication theory, anthropology and semiotics” (p. 185). Thus, DE/FE will continue to be classified by scholars such as the aforementioned Gentzler as a science-based approach.

The remaining section in this appendix is titled, “Special Problems Involved in Bible Translating,” and discusses such things as the great gap between the present day and Bible times, and various theological issues.

 

Appendix B—Procedures in Publishing Bible Translations​

Appendix B is the most practical part of the book, discussing such things as the structure of the translation team, support personnel, procedures, etc. Unfortunately, though, this appendix starts out with criticism, a slam at what the authors call the “naïve translator,” an ignorant person with little training who, nevertheless, tries to translate the Bible into another language with a literal method. (Sounds like William Carey!) They then take a shot at a certain mission (we don’t know which one, but can guess): “There have even been some mission boards which have encouraged new missionaries to spend their second six months of language study in a program for translating the Bible. This practice is justified as an advantageous way to learn the foreign language” (p. 189).

In “Preliminary Procedures,” the authors recommend some preliminary translation work which will produce a set of rules and principles to guide the translation work. I think this is wise.

The next section, “Team Structures,” is also useful. It lists five forms a team may take: “(1) a translation team of three to five persons. (2) a drafter with two to four close collaborators (my team here in Japan takes this form—JoJ) (3) a team of joint drafters (usually only two), (4) stylist-scholar teams, and (5) a translation team with a resource person” (p. 190).

“Review Structures” is a short discussion of the review team, then “Supplementary Personnel” discusses translation consultants, coordinators, secretaries, editors, etc.

The longest section in the appendix is “General Procedures in Translating,” which of course discusses the practical aspects of the methodology of the translators’ functional equivalence method. In the middle of this section is a very strange statement we find when the authors discuss languages that distinguish between older and younger brothers (Japanese is one such language): “If one understands the brothers of Jesus in a literal sense, then the use of a term for ‘younger brothers’ may deny the tradition of the perpetual virginity of Mary” (p. 198). The translators do not discuss this issue any more, so we are left with the feeling that they believe we should fudge the translation if any Catholics might be offended!

The next section is about “Special Procedures in Translating.” Here the authors discuss such things as when to refer a problem to a consultant. For example, this may be necessary when “there are special problems which result in more heat than light on the subject” (p. 202). This is wise advice, and it is what we do in my committee when we leave other possibilities in parentheses to be checked by my son (the Ph. D. ABD in Greek linguistics who grew up in Japan—proud papa here).

“Testing” is the next subject, and it is an important one. If at all possible, a pilot version should be printed of an important book or two such as John or Romans. This is a crucial stage. One translation committee in Japan brought out a pilot version of Mark which was so roundly criticized that the effort then foundered. But the translation team must humbly prepare for criticism and be ready to change.

The final two sections are “Proofreading” and “Postpublication Efforts.” The authors leave us with an admonition to translators themselves: “It simply is not enough to translate the message of life into words; it must also be translated into life by those engaged in the process of translating. This becomes the best guarantee of intellectual humility and inspired creativity in making the message of life come to life” (p. 209).

Writing this review has challenged me and taught me. I hope you’ve enjoyed it!