A recurring theme in contemporary missiology is the need to provide Gospel presentations and ministry strategies which resonate in "shame cultures." The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that writers are using the term "shame... more
A recurring theme in contemporary missiology is the need to provide Gospel presentations and ministry strategies which resonate in "shame cultures." The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that writers are using the term "shame cultures" in two distinct ways. One understanding of "shame culture" is a culture in which a person's primary emotional response to a transgression is a deflated sense of self-worth, whereas another understanding of "shame culture" is a culture in which people are sensitive to and seek to avoid negative social judgements. The conflation of these two distinct understandings leads to confusion in the identification of "shame cultures" and also to a deficiency in our missiological models.
...In this paper I will give a summary of some parts of Nida’s scientific theory of translation and then summarize and elaborate what Gentzler has discussed on his Contemporary Translation Theories (1990); some elaborations on Nida’s... more
...In this paper I will give a summary of some parts of Nida’s scientific theory of translation and then summarize and elaborate what Gentzler has discussed on his Contemporary Translation Theories (1990); some elaborations on Nida’s theory and Chomsky’s generative transformational grammar that helped Nida form his scientific theory. In his book, Gentzler is both critical of Nida and appreciative of the influence he has had on translation studies...
By Dr. Andy Cheung (who has kindly given permission to post this dissertation for personal study and research purposes) ABSTRACT: This thesis considers the practice of Bible translation from the perspective of contemporary translation... more
By Dr. Andy Cheung (who has kindly given permission to post this dissertation for personal study and research purposes) ABSTRACT: This thesis considers the practice of Bible translation from the perspective of contemporary translation studies and provides a fresh translation and accompanying commentary of aspects of Paul's Letter to the Romans. The emergence of functionalism, particularly skopos theory, in the latter part of the 20th century is seen as a key moment in the development of translation theory. The thesis argues that it has significant advantages over source text orientated approaches which have traditionally dominated Bible translation practice. An essential history documents this evolution of theoretical developments in translation study. The advantages of skopos theory over equivalence-based approaches are discussed with particular reference to Bible translation theory and the work of E. A. Nida. The functionalist approach increases the range of possible translations, with this thesis adopting a foreignising purpose in a new translation of Romans 1:1-15, 15:14-16:27. The foreignising approach owes its origins to F. Schleiermacher (popularised more recently by L. Venuti among others) and involves rendering a text so as to preserve or heighten the sense of otherness of the source text, thereby retaining something of the foreignness of the original. An accompanying commentary is provided to explain the translator's choices.
This paper, which I wrote as part of my Ph.D. study in Bible Translation at the University of the Free State (South Africa), provides an up-to-date historical and theoretical survey of the important notion of "equivalence" as used in... more
This paper, which I wrote as part of my Ph.D. study in Bible Translation at the University of the Free State (South Africa), provides an up-to-date historical and theoretical survey of the important notion of "equivalence" as used in contemporary translation studies, with special reference to Bible translating. The recent perspective of "complexity theory" is applied in a concluding comparative evaluation of the equivalence approach as applied by Eugene Nida and Christiane Nord.
Slides about the american translator and linguist Eugene Nida and his Principles of Correspondence Theory. I made these slides for an English course of the University of Pisa.
By Jonathan M. Watt -- The contributions scholars make to a field are of distinctly different types. The seminal kind involve the creation of new concepts and terms by pioneers. The auxiliary kind broaden the collective database, offering... more
By Jonathan M. Watt -- The contributions scholars make to a field are of distinctly different types. The seminal kind involve the creation of new concepts and terms by pioneers. The auxiliary kind broaden the collective database, offering confirmation of recognized phenomena. The reforming kind originate with iconoclasts who forge paradigm shifts that compel scholars to recast existing frameworks, while the integrative kind bring together thinkers from different fields so that seeds developed in one region can germinate in distant academic cantons. In a career spanning more than six decades, Eugene A. Nida has made all of these kinds of contributions and, in reference to sociolinguistics, particularly the last. His integrative contributions pertain to a field in which he never specialized and, regrettably, whose most prominent exponents show little if any acquaintance with his writings. Nevertheless, those who have nurtured particular concern for biblical exegesis and translation, couched in the context of missionary outreach, have been the greatest beneficiaries of Nida' s labors. Thanks to the fact that his early efforts in the nuts-and-bolts of language structure would be eclipsed by publications relating to culture and ethnography, translators in the field have been treated to his trademark dynamic equivalence approach. His networking across what were already cross-disciplinary fields led to a significant body of linguistic contributions, many of which are laced with sociolinguistic implications.
Analysis of Roberto Saviano masterpiece "Gomorra. Viaggio nell'impero economico e nel sogno di dominio della camorra" and of the challenging German translated version created by Friederike Hausmann and Rita Seuss. Diving deeply into... more
Analysis of Roberto Saviano masterpiece "Gomorra. Viaggio nell'impero economico e nel sogno di dominio della camorra" and of the challenging German translated version created by Friederike Hausmann and Rita Seuss. Diving deeply into foreignization & domestication translation methods, into the well known translation theories of Sapir, Whorf, Benjamin, Berman, Lotman and Zohar, here is the attempt to discover the translators' paths to ensure the cultural transfer of foreign realities as well as the Fortleben of novels and respective authors.
The aim of the paper is to analyze the lexical fields of adjectives FAT and THIN in English and Serbian using the method of contrastive linguistic analysis. The analysis is limited to 22 English adjectives which are compared and... more
The aim of the paper is to analyze the lexical fields of adjectives FAT and THIN in English and Serbian using the method of contrastive linguistic analysis. The analysis is limited to 22 English adjectives which are compared and contrasted with adjectives in the corresponding lexical fields in Serbian: DEBEO and MRŠAV. English adjectives were analyzed by means of isolating their diagnostic features and comparing the meanings. Their Serbian correspondents or translation equivalents were established using bilingual English-Serbian and monolingual Serbian dictionaries. In both lexical fields in English it is possible to find formal correspondents of 9 out of 11 English adjectives, although there are cases when meanings can be characterized as similar rather than completely identical. Also, translation equivalents are suggested for the remaining 4 adjectives.
Children’s literature has been ignored in academic settings since it is categorized under popular culture. The translation of children’s literature is a delicate issue which has been overlooked as well for so many years, till it started... more
Children’s literature has been ignored in academic settings since it is categorized under popular culture. The translation of children’s literature is a delicate issue which has been overlooked as well for so many years, till it started to attract the attention of scholars in the past thirty years within the framework of translation studies. Translating children's literature is not a daunting task due to considering children’s cognitive and linguistic abilities; translators are also required to transfer the culture of the Source Text (ST) in a way which does not result in any cultural gaps in the Target Text (TT). My argument is that Eugene Nida’s (1962) theory of Functional Equivalence is useful in assessing the Arabic translation of Oscar Wilde's short story, The Happy Prince.
Since the era of Eugene Nida, Evangelical Bible translation has been revolutionized by his notion of dynamic or functional equivalence. Powerful theological and theoretical concerns, however call into question its usefulness and its... more
Since the era of Eugene Nida, Evangelical Bible translation has been revolutionized by his notion of dynamic or functional equivalence. Powerful theological and theoretical concerns, however call into question its usefulness and its catholicity. This article explores and questions the usefulness of the equivalence model of translation in Christian mission from the stand point of incarnation.
An evaluation on historization and modernization methods within the context of the concept of time in translation: The case of the translation into Turkish of Balzac’s The Physiology of The Employee
The present volume brings together several contributions to the question of establishing a dialogue between scholars of premodern translation and some current proponents of translation theory. It is hoped that this will mark an important... more
The present volume brings together several contributions to the question of establishing a dialogue between scholars of premodern translation and some current proponents of translation theory. It is hoped that this will mark an important step in what we believe is a badly needed yet mutually beneficial and enriching exchange between these two groups of specialists.
Dr. Eugene A. Nida, the father of the theory of Dynamic Equivalence that reshaped much if not most of the world of Bible translation, held to a view of language antithetical to Scripture.
This paper examines Eugene Nida’s dynamic/functional equivalence theory both in its making and in its application. It discusses the foundational premises and methodology of Nida’s translation theory and provides an example of how the... more
This paper examines Eugene Nida’s dynamic/functional equivalence theory both in its making and in its application. It discusses the foundational premises and methodology of Nida’s translation theory and provides an example of how the theory is applied to the translation of Eph 1:7 in the Filipino language from its kernel sentence in the English language. The objective is to highlight the fact that an effective Bible translation theory is one that takes into account the relationship between language and culture, an important component in a translation theory that Nida himself had both embraced and developed.
