Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 24/12/2004 08:07, George F Somsel wrote:

> ...
>
> > Sorry George, I meant Jim.
> >
> > Karl W. Rnadolph.
> >    
> _____________
>
> In the spirit of "the last shall be first" (and since it's quickly gotten
> out of the way), was my name mentioned and I didn't notice?  Well, it
> doesn't matter so long as you didn't insult my parentage or ethics, but
> you did pique my curiosity.  
>  

He only confused you with Jim, which I hope is rather less of an insult :-)

> That something should be called "periphrastic" seems somewhat different
> from saying that it is a paraphrase.  One is "in  the style of a
> paraphrase" whereas the other is the thing itself.  There are many
> translations which might be called periphrastic which are in reality
> translations. ...

I think you mean "paraphrastic", not "periphrastic". At least, Karl 
wrote "paraphrastic", which means "Of, relating to, or having the nature 
of paraphrase" (according to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the 
English Language: Fourth Edition.  2000).

Yes, I can reluctantly accept "paraphrastic translation" in the sense of 
"non-literal translation", although I note that a paraphrase can 
actually be highly literal, e.g. a word-for-word update of KJV to modern 
English. This avoids the misconception that these versions are not 
translations but something less. But there are several other words 
generally used to describe non-literal translations, such as "free", 
"dynamic equivalence", "functional equivalence", "meaning-based", 
"indirect" - see my article (sorry about the period). I don't think it 
helps anyone to have yet another new term introduced here, unless it has 
a clearly defined distinction from the other terms.

I am sensitive about this one because I see "paraphrase" and sometimes 
"paraphrastic translation" being used as pejorative terms, often by 
those who understand neither the translation method nor its justification.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



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