SIL International Publications

Journal of Translation

Journal of Translation 7(1) (2011)

Editor’s Comments


by David Frank



Again we have three excellent articles on translation theory and practice in this issue of the Journal of Translation with a focus on Bible translation. Glenn Kerr’s “Dynamic Equivalence and It’s Daughters” examines the influence of Eugene Nida’s Dynamic Equivalence translation model, through Functional Equivalence, Meaning-Based Translation, and Optimal Equivalence, and compares this family of equivalence models with others including Relevance Theory, Skopostheorie, and the Frames of Reference model, and also the discipline of...

The Bible translation theory called “dynamic equivalence” from the middle of the twentieth century was more than what may be called the first definable theory of Bible translation. Indirectly or directly, it spawned or related to seven other specific theories: meaning-based translation, cultural equivalence or transculturation, complete equivalence, optimal equivalence, closest natural equivalence, functional equivalence, and skopostheorie. Even the term formal equivalence originated during this time. Later in the same period, the code model of communication on which dynamic...
In the context of Bible translation, the concept of implicit information has typically been constrained to cognitive information that was assumed to be known by the source language audience. In this article implicit information is expanded to include both source and target language contexts because the target audience also brings a wealth of information to the translation and interpretation of target language Scriptures. In addition, a prototypical model of culture is applied to more comprehensively explicate both surface and deep structural aspects of culture, i.e., knowledge, practices,...
One barrier to quality in Bible translation is a tendency for translators to translate literally from their primary source text. This is a hazard for any translator, but has particular relevance in the case of Mother-Tongue Translators (MTTs) with minimal training, who are bearing an increasingly larger role in new Bible translations around the globe. In this article, we first examine the problem of overliteralness, observing cases of RL structural adherence to the SL in direct speech, ungrammatical sentences, mistranslation of rhetorical questions, use of idioms, and neglect of discourse...