[B-Greek] Understanding, translating, and understanding translations
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Oct 13 09:32:26 EDT 2007
Once again I must call attention to John Hobbins' excellent blog,
"ancient hebrew poetry" (lower-case is his usage). The item I find of
particular interest in this instance is dated Oct.11, 2007 and
entitled, "Is Literary Translation Possible?" (http://tinyurl.com/
25brlf)
Although the focus would appear to be on "literary" versus "dynamic"
translation, I don't think it's so much a question of translation
theory as it is a question of how well one understands what the
original text is intended to communicate. He makes a point not
unrelated to what Iver just noted (October 13, 2007 4:16:23 AM EDT)
about Relevance Theory: "Most, if not all, translators agree with the
basic idea of RT, and it is especially relevant when the originally
intended audience is very different from the new audience as is the
case in bible translation, not only in terms of language, but in
terms of culture, history, environment, presuppositions etc."
It seems to me that what Hobbins has to say in this blog has a
bearing on lots of the short-cuts adopted by those who are
endeavoring to develop some level of competence in Greek, including
interlinears, parsing guides, quick-fix glossaries, quickie reference
grammars, all designed to pave the way to a grasp of Greek, to which,
as Euclid reputedly told the first Ptolemy about geometry, "there is
no royal road." The nicely-turned formulation at the end of this blog
says, "A literary translation, in order to be understood, will push
the reader beyond the limits of his or her already acquired
knowledge. It may have to be read and reread, perhaps with the aid of
explanatory notes. A dynamic translation aims to be instantly
comprehensible. Fine. But make no mistake: with fast food, you get
what you pay for."
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Ret)
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