...
When I studied applied linguistics, the following book was a part of the
curriculum: P: Newmark (1988). "A Textbook of translation". This book was
awarded the British Association of Applied Linguitics“prize in 1988. For
the benefit of the list I quote Newmark, p. 36 (you have seen this quote
before on another list):
"Many translators say you should never translate words, you translate
sentences or ideas or messages. I think they are fooling themselves. The SL
texts consists of words, that is all that is there, on the page." Newmark
shows that translation is done on different levels of the text, but he
stresses that to deny the importance of the word is to fool oneself.
I assume that you accept that the word is the basic translation unit in
technical translation (e.g., a description of an engine). If you do that,
then you accept that the word *can* be the basic translation unit - but you
deny this as regards Bible translation. So your judgement is your personal
viewpoint regarding the translation of the text of the Bible, and not based upon translation theory. It is your privilege to have this viewpoint, but you do not recommend yourself as a balanced scholar when you deny that other approaches (e.g. a literal approach) is possible as well.
When Newmark speaks of the basic function of the word, and I do the same, weWell, why did the NWT translators always render nephesh and `olam for example with the same English word, when these Hebrew words have a wide range of meaning?
do not opt for an interlinear translation. Neither do we insist that most
Hebrew words should be rendered by one English word. It simply means that we
realize that each Hebrew word has a mening without a context, and to
ascertain as much as possible of the meaning of each word is the first step
in the translation process. I would guess that the NWT translators had about
the same view.
...Of course you struggle. For this is the fundamental falllacy of the
literal translation method used in NWT, the presumption that there is a
single English word, or even a short phrase, which corresponds even
approximately to the full range of meaning of a Hebrew word. In general
there is no one word in language B which corresponds to all the senses
of a word in language A; language simply does not work like that.
Wrong again! I have at least two times pointed out that the NWT uses the word Sheol. Did the translators think that this is an English word corresponding to "the full range meaning of a Hebrew word"? Not at all! And that proves your words above to be wrong, at least in this case. ...
... I am also quite sure that the translators did not view "time indefinite" as "a short phrase, which corresponds...approximately to the full range of meaning of " (WLM. Here you show your ignorance of the basic principles of literal translation. The point is that "time indefinite" is an English phrase that can be used to represent the core of the concept signaled by the Hebrew word (WLM. In a way "time indefinite" is a catalyst that Bible students can use to expand their understanding of the *concept* signaled by (WLM, when they look at the contexts in which "time indefinite" occur. So even though the word is the fundamental translation unit, the literal translation does not attempt not convey words but to conveys concepts.Well, my response here is twofold:
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