Quality in Translation
Quality in Translation
A Multi-Threaded Fabric
About the Book
The subtitle of this volume reflects the idea that quality in translation entails a multi-dimensionality, a multi-threaded fabric of sorts. Just as strong fabric consists in the warp and weft of opposing threads, so in Bible translation the multiple facets of translation should be brought together in a holism. This holism entails balancing the tension of the objective details of the Biblical text and the languages into which we translate, and the subjective framing of our aspirations for its Christian use among the peoples of the world.
The volume practices frontier science in the sense that the authors put forward ideas that are new, or ideas that are hypotheses that are not supported by years of scientific experience or theoretical reflection. This is in contrast to consensus science that refers to data, models, ideas, and laws that are widely accepted. Rather, authors employ ideas emerging out of the changing cultural contexts of the Global North and South and adapt them for use in pursuing quality in translation. They also engage with the issues around changing technology and how this will affect ways of measuring quality.
The need to adapt to changing cultural complexes has been a perennial challenge for Christianity beginning with its spread across the countries around the Mediterranean and into the countries of Europe. As it has engaged with the cultural complexes of its day, it has required much thought, writing, and scholarship. This is no less true in our day as we engage around the issue of quality in translation in the context of the interaction of the Christian faith and the emerging cultural turns in the Global North and South. This involves risk in part because we, as authors, do not have prescribed answers, and in part because the proposed solutions may invite disagreement. Nevertheless, we believe that engaging with the difficulty of the tension is part of the role of scholarship, and that by engaging with this tension we may extend the boundaries of our knowledge about quality in translation.
Table of Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Quality in Translation: The Warp and Weft of Subjective and Objective Threads
- Quality in Bible Translation
- Re-modeling quality: A comparison of implicit values revealed by translation metaphors
- “… And Behold, Angels Came and Ministered to Him.”4
- Scripture, or Translations of Scripture? Septuagint, Doctrines of Scripture, and Bible Translation Today
- Theology and Hermeneutics: From Translation Challenge to Unrealized Potential
-
Multimodality In Bible Translation: Could It Contribute To Quality Assurance?
- Introduction: the mandate of the ETEN Innovation Lab on Quality Assurance
- Recommendation 1: Multimodality and multimedia
- Defining multimodal translation
- Recommendation 2: An expanded role for the Church in Bible translation
- Recommendation 3: Different quality assurance tools and processes
- Conclusion
- References
- A Method for Exegeting Emotions in the Bible for Higher Quality Translation
- Euphony as a Central Component of Quality
-
Tacit Linguistic Knowledge is Not Enough: Participatory Methods to Improve Quality in Bible Translation
- Introduction
- Can you not just rely on native speaker intuition?
- Are there also mistranslations in oral Scripture?
- Won’t translators become aware of language structures through the normal translation process?
- Isn’t the Scripture adequate for the language communities?
- Won’t machine translation tools make Scripture adequate?
- Why is a study of the sound system key to developing a readable orthography?
- Why is the study of discourse key to making a natural, asthetic, coherent and accurate Bible text?
- In what ways have participatory studies on the part of the mother-tongue speaker actually improved the quality of the Bible text?
- Conclusion
- References
- African Access to a Quality Bible Translation
-
Translating the Bible with People for People: How Current Anthropological Insights contribute to Quality
- Introduction
- Anthropological theory and Bible translation
- Towards a theologically engaged anthropology
- Reflexive practice
- Questioning culture
- Organising Bible translation
- What is quality in Bible translation?
- Semiotics in Bible translation
- Language and semiotic ideologies
- Turning to ontology
- Ontonic words in northwestern Benin
- Awkward equivalence in translation
- Semiotic ideologies and media
- Conclusion
- References
- Artificial Intelligence Tools as Quality Assessment Copilots
-
Lost in Translation: Navigating the Intersection of Humanity and Technology in Bible Translation
- Introduction
- 1. What problem is the technology trying to solve? 2. Whose problem is it?
- 3. Who might be most seriously harmed by a technological solution? 4. What new problems might be created because we have solved this problem?
- 5. What sort of people and institutions might acquire special power because of this change?
- 6. What changes in language are being enforced by new technologies?
- Recommendations
- References
- Synthesis
- Appendix: Re-modeling quality: A comparison of implicit values revealed by translation metaphors
- Appendix: “… And Behold, Angels Came and Ministered to Him.”
- Appendix: Tacit Linguistic Knowledge is Not Enough: Participatory Methods to Improve Quality in Bible Translation
About the Publisher
This book is published on Leanpub by Pike Center
Pike Center for Integrative Scholarship is an initiative of SIL International that builds capacity for language development through scholarship. SIL works alongside ethnolinguistic communities as they discover how language development addresses the challenging areas of their daily lives—social, cultural, political, economic and spiritual.
One of Pike Center’s strategies for building capacity is to grow the needed bodies of knowledge through its Agile Publishing program. We are using this lean publishing platform to give our affiliated scholars a platform for developing and refining new contributions to growing bodies of knowledge that support the language development movement. Many of our titles are still in a preliminary stage of development. Others are finished but have such a narrow audience that we have not elected to turn them into print books. Still others have reached the maturity of becoming a print book; in such cases, this is indicated by a link on the landing page for the book.
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