Translation without meaning

August 5th, 2007 · 16 Comments · Translation

Browsing the Summer Institute of Linguistics site, I came across this diagram.

Now, I have no expertise in this area, and I assume that the SIL translators would acknowledge from the start that this overview is an oversimplification designed to clarify the process, rather than an exact description. But I also assume that something like this diagram is pretty much the picture that a great many people carry around with them of what translators do.

But I have to confess that I think it is simply misleading, if not actually wrong. When I read this diagram, I see the existence of a capital M “Meaning.” But what is this strange Platonic form, this independently existing hypostasis that hangs there between the texts, the ghost in the linguistic machine? Meaning is not, and I think, cannot be, an extra-linguistic entity of this nature, to be dug out of one textual flower-pot and repotted unaltered in another.

Surely a better diagram would look like this:

This removes an abstract “meaning” from the idea of translation. The translator is then seen as essentially both reader and writer, discerner of meaning and tradent of meaning. Translators are voices in the transmission of tradition (see this post of John Hobbins, and this previous post of mine) and meaning is discovered and shaped in the art of faithful reading, and handed on and articulated in the art of trustworthy writing. But there is no meaning hovering as a benign extra-linguistic entity over the process. The logos is God’s speech with us, not an infusion of ideal meaning.

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16 responses so far ↓

1 Peter Kirk // Aug 5, 2007 at 10:05 pm

Doug, as a former member of SIL I can confirm that this kind of picture was and presumably still is used, indeed I have taught from it myself. This kind of picture is central to the dynamic equivalence approach to translation pioneered by Eugene Nida. And it is teaching the important point that what needs to be common between the original and the translation is not the form of the text, but its meaning.

But I am sure that everyone, at least now, recognises this to be a simplified picture. Some people have tried to take it more literally than it deserves, and have even tried to encode the meaning of the text in an artificial computer-type language, as a step towards automated translation. But I think it is generally agreed that such attempts have failed, because indeed the meaning of a text is not just something abstract which can be encoded apart from real human language. Yes, you are right that the central point in the process is not the meaning in the abstract, but a real human translator, who has to read and understand the text in one language and then re-express it in another.

Where I might differ from you is on “Translators are voices in the transmission of tradition”. I would hold that in theory translators should translate the text as it stands and not according to any tradition of interpretation, although in practice I realise that is impossible to do perfectly. Ideally each language group should be able to come to the Word of God afresh and clear for themselves, not concealed by the accretions of centuries of tradition in an alien culture.
2 doug // Aug 5, 2007 at 10:58 pm

Thanks for commenting from the viewpoint of an actual translator. I found that very helpful.

I think I would question whether anyone comes fresh to the scriptures for themselves, however. I don’t think tradition can be (or should be) avoided. It has to be taken into account and named, but the relationship between fresh and inherited readings is always a complex one. Surely a language group shouldn’t spend three centuries having to work out for themselves whether the fresh readings of their culture lead them to Trinitarian doctrine, for example?
3 scott gray // Aug 6, 2007 at 6:46 pm

are the members of this translating body all christians?

translating can sometimes be about ‘gate keeping,’ or ‘holding hostage,’ or ‘bragging rights.’ we can expect christians to associate, deliberately or not, christian meanings to original texts, and to the process of translating itself.

the wider the experience of diverse meanings of the translators, the more likely, i think, that the (concesus-derived)translation is ‘truer’ to the original text.
4 Peter Kirk // Aug 7, 2007 at 12:18 am

Scott, if you are asking about members of SIL, yes, they are all Christians, and in fact evangelicals. However, as a former student and teacher at the SIL British School (now called the European Training Programme), I can assure you that we were taught to avoid as far as possible adding Christian interpretation to the text.
5 scott gray // Aug 7, 2007 at 12:39 am

i’ve been ‘taught to avoid’ a lot of biases, but i’m often taught something interesting by an outsider whose ‘meanings’ are not my own.

how might some of the groups’ meanings as effected in translation have been different if you had a roman catholic, a zen buddhist, and an agnostic translating with you toward consensus?
6 Eddie // Aug 7, 2007 at 8:02 am

In practice, Bible translators involve as many different people as practical in a project. In the project I was involved in in West Africa the actual team doing the drafting were drawn from the different churches in the area but everything that they produced was checked and reviewed by as wide a range of people as possible.

In practice, it can be very hard to get people who do not have a direct interest in reading and using the Bible for themselves to get involved in its translation - but most translation teams do try.
7 scott gray // Aug 7, 2007 at 11:13 am

peter:

what was one of the thorniest consensus problems you had? (i hope it was a greek one you want to tell us about, if it’s a hebrew one, i’ll be lost!) how did you break the log jam? if there was consensus with dissent, how did you handle the dissention?
8 Peter Kirk // Aug 7, 2007 at 9:51 pm

Scott, we do try to get people from a variety of backgrounds involved, but it is hard. We have a reviewer who is an academic expert on his language, who is not a committed Christian although sympathetic. But he doesn’t get involved in exegetical decisions. Probably the best guarantee of exegetical neutrality is that we have expat team members from a variety of backgrounds, including a Translation Consultant from the Bible Societies with an academic theological background who, although personally Christian, is committed to ensuring a theologically neutral translation.

I don’t want to tell you about specific issues in our own project, which is private. I can tell you that in another nearby project the most contentious issue was about 1 Timothy 2:15, the same verse and the same issue Doug mentions in a comment on his next post. The evangelical team members wanted to translate it in accordance with Paul’s theology as a reference to the birth of the Son, i.e. Jesus. The consultant would not allow this because he apparently believed that 1 Timothy was not written by Paul and so the team should not try to make the theology consistent, but rather frankly let it say that woman can be saved only if they give birth to a child. Is that the kind of issue you had in mind? But this was primarily an argument between expats, not within the target group.
9 scott gray // Aug 7, 2007 at 11:48 pm

peter–

thanks! that is exactly the type of issue i wondered about. i’m jealous of your sympathetic consultant–what a wonderful experience this must be! if you ever need a moral hedonist, call…

interesting that you talk about exegesis as an integral sibling to translation.

after i gather my thoughts on this, i will comment again.

what documents have you detailed, and where, about the methodologies you used?

peace,

scott
10 David Gray // Aug 8, 2007 at 10:32 am

Doug, I think you are right to question whether we can get to a Platonic ‘meaning’ separated from the text and its translation. It is probably better to think of it as communication situation. The narrator communicated a message to an audience. The translator has to communicate the same message to a different audience located in a different culture and time. To get at what the narrator was communicating requires all kinds of analysis - textual, grammatical, literary and discourse, historical etc. The translator also has to know the culture of the receptor language group, which will need some anthropological analysis. With all these skills there is some chance of success. I recommend Beekman and Callow’s book ‘Translating the Word of God’ as a start. They were both SIL consultants. Also de Waard and Nida’s ‘From One Language to Another’, which takes things further.
11 doug // Aug 8, 2007 at 1:03 pm

Peter and Scott, I’ve enjoyed reading from your exchanges here.
David, thanks for your info. I think I was essentially stressing the role of the person/people engaged in translation as a reader and expresser of meaning in an active work of communication. That doesn’t mean that all sorts of skills aren’t necessary, it does, I think mean that when all the “scientific stuff” has been done, there’s still an artist who needs to go to work.
12 scott gray // Aug 8, 2007 at 6:35 pm

meaning in translation:
i have to start out with my model of ‘truth’ and ‘meaning:’
an event takes place (for this example, jesus’ death and resurrection). the event itself i consider ‘truth.’ it is witnessed by ‘a.’ ‘a’ tells his/her story about the event to ‘b,’ and adds meaning in a variety of ways: tells the story to meet the expectation of the listener; tells the story to meet ones expectations of one’s self, or leaves out part of the story that is painful (i’ve done this as a hedonist), or makes up new parts in order to communicate a particular meaning. ‘a,’ even if his/her intention is to communicate the bare truth, cannot help but to add meaning, and has created a fictitious narrative.
‘b’ writes down the story, and no matter how he/she wants to communicate the truth, adds meaning and makes the narrative even more fictitious (author of gospel of mark, or q, or gospel of thomas). this written story is used in a faith community, influences the community’s world view. other events take place outside the community, are told about in the community in stories (more fictitious narrative), which influence the community’s world view as well. 
in addition to outside events, internal events are deliberately created/initiated within the community in response to the written fictitious narrative (these deliberate events i’ll call traditions), like rites (re-enactments of the event; celebration of the event), symbols (items which point to the event in a meaning-filled way), and contact with the outside world (social justice responses, for example). 
a few years, or decades, or generations later, a new player, ‘c’ leaves this community with a copy of ‘b’s written document in hand, joins another community (which has a different world view). ‘c’s story, plus ‘b’s written document, change the meaning of this new community’s world view. ‘d,’ a member of this community, writes a story (fictitious narrative) of the truth event (death/resurrection) with new, rich meanings (gospel of luke, matthew). same process, another new written story (gospel of john).
now i know this is a bit simplistic, and probably far from how the process actually happened, but i do think some of the pieces of the process happened in this way. as 20th century translators, you seek to restore, thru translation, the original texts. and in so doing, to restore the meanings of the original texts. would you agree?
so i think the sil model is indeed accurate for this restoration process—it is about the original meaning, as well as the original text. (that’s why i think exegesis is translation’s sister in what you are doing). but we can’t help but add our own meanings in the text, and make it a new fictitious narrative. and that’s where i think doug’s model comes into play. it’s also why i think outsiders are an important part of this restoration (as peter decribed in his timothy story).
i also think that our desire, in some way, is to get as close to the ‘truth’ as possible, is it not? and here’s where ‘translating-to-avoid-meaning’ is important. because in some way, we want our faith documents to be as close as possible to the ‘truth.’ this is why historical discoveries, that uncover both meanings that validate our world view, and those that challenge our world view, are so exciting.
in cases where getting as close to the ‘truth’ as possible is what is desired, a diversity of translators, with non-congruent world views, is doubly important. we want our world view to be based on, even if only a little bit, ‘truth’ free of ‘meaning.’ but i must also say that the richness of our traditions is not in the truth, but in the meaning. i personally, don’t care about the truth. i care deeply about our (and others’) meanings.
my thanks to kelly gorski, who was influential in my most recent conversion, thru her blog on fictitious narratives.
13 doug // Aug 8, 2007 at 7:02 pm

Scott, I’ve edited your most recent comment since you had a bad link for Kelly Gorski’s site, and corrected it so that it works. However, you take the particular debate about translation here into a completely different area. I may well post something on this idea of fictional narratives in the next few days, but I think that on this post thread it’s a red herring. I’d rather keep this thread to comments on translation, so please can I say to those you’ve invited over here on Gorski’s site to note that. Thanks.
14 scott gray // Aug 8, 2007 at 7:07 pm

i’m still getting this link stuff figured out….

kelly’s real link:

http://kellygorski.blogspot.com/2006/08/lunacy-of-fictional-narrative.html#comments

scott
15 scott gray // Aug 8, 2007 at 7:09 pm

doug–

sorry, should have looked up at the comment sooner…edit as you see fit.

do you have an ‘ash and trash’ thread where i can post off-topic questions and ideas?

scott
16 doug // Aug 8, 2007 at 8:06 pm

Sorry, Scott, I haven’t got such a miscellaneous thread. But a more-or-less relevant discussion will probably happen along sooner or later!

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