Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Stoney Breyer" <stoneyb AT touchwood.net>]

-----Original Message-----
The problem here is that repetition means different things to different 
target audiences, largely but not entirely dependent on language. It had

a certain purpose in Hebrew which Alter no doubt describes. But when 
read, for example, in a particular language of central Asia (and to some

extent in English) it is a mark of very poor style and an ignorant 
author who doesn't know the language well enough to use a variety of 
synonyms. Do we want our translations to communicate that message?

[SB:] You might be interested in looking up Bernard Shaw's
correspondence with his German translator, Siegfried Trebitsch. (My
Shaw's all in storage, or I'd quote it - it's in Volume I of the
Collected Letters.) Shaw took Trebitsch to task for translating the same
deliberately repeated phrase three different ways, and scornfully
attributed Trebitsch's "variety of synonyms" to his desire to be
"literary". 

I would never agree that a translation should be made to 
express literary features of the original if it is then an inaccurate or

meaningless translation. But I would accept a modified version (though 
omitting "certainly"): "it should... be done in every case where it can 
serve to express literary features of the original" *without 
compromising the accuracy and clarity of the translation*.

[SB:] But doesn't failure to express literary features of the original
compromise accuracy and clarity, too? For that matter, what features of
the original are *not* literary? I hope you're not suggesting that
structural features are merely ornamental, while all the meaning that
matters is conveyed at the local level.


Stoney Breyer
Writer
Touchwood, Inc.
314 421-9878