Translation and Religion



By


Obododimma Oha


***



Religion is one important force to consider in exploring translation. Why?


Some reasons for considering religion in exploring translation:


-- Religions have featured prominently in theorising and doing practical translation projects.

-- Religions have participated in translation in order to promote their evangelical work.

-- Religions give hope to local languages, creating an impression that they are helping to develop them through translation.


In this lecture, we discuss how religions have actually treated translation and what translation has gained from religion.


Translation or Transgression?


Perhaps, one of the key issues to consider is the fact that many religions , especially Islam and Christianity, have not really liked translation but have had to stick to some languages as the languages used by the creator in making revelations or in communicating with humanity. To turn to another language is to go against the Maker and to transgress! Catholicism (Christianity) privileged Latin, while Islam privileged Arabic, until recently.


The Role of Religious Myths about Language:


There are also myths in these religions about language, which adherents believe literally. The myths, when translated, put the religions at great disadvantage. They not only subject the religions to ridicule but may also lose meanings important to the faith.


Translations and Doctrinal Values/Ideology:


Translations in religion may be geared towards promoting doctrinal interests. In fact, skpopos could come in here. Even within one religion, we could have doctrinal quarrels and these may be exhibited in the translations. In fact, a good example is King James Version of the Bible and any Catholic Bible or Jehovah's Witness Bible and the Living Bible.


Dispute over whether religious translated text is still sacred:


This is another very controversial issue and one reason that religious persons sometimes look at translation of sacred texts with great suspicion. As a controversy, it is far from being resolved by humanity. It has probably been left to God to resolve.


But religious translation is going on, in fact, as part of the competition over followers.


Religion, Translation, and Morality:


Morality and its expression cannot be overlooked in any meaningful discourse on religion and translation. Religions show that they are after the good life and this must be seem in their discourses. Thus religious translation tries to filter out what it considers "bad" discourse. Its translation presents what is seen as edifying. This means that the values of the religion are paramount and strategies like euphemism may be used to mask offending parts of the ST. An example of euphemization and mentioning things as could look to us today is the Living Bible translation as against the Revised Standard Version. Where this masking is not strictly observed, there could be a problem in the interaction, as could be illustrated by this story.


There was a day that I attended a church service at Chapel of Resurrection, University of Ibadan. Before the commencement of the main service, we were to hold a Bible study in groups. So, we started with a Bible study. We were asked to read portions of our Bible and I had the Living Bible version. We were on the circumcision of Abraham.


When it came to my turn, I started reading and my being a visitor that Sunday probably made other participants pay extra attention. I got to a point and stopped reading like someone suddenly raptured or struck by lightning. Our coordinator was surprised and had to come to me.


"What is the problem?" he inquired.

"This word," I said, showing him a word in my Bible. He read it and laughed.

The word was "penis." How would this visitor vocalize the word in a church? Wouldn't other participants in the Bible study think that I needed a spiritual deliverance? I thought and was uncomfortable.


But the coordinator was a fellow lecturer. He understood my problem and quickly completed reading the passage from his own Bible. Thank God he did so!


Maybe I was conscious of attitude to language and morality in that setting. I could afford to talk about penis and vagina in my class, but not in church. Translation was really reschooling the teacher!



***

As one can see, translation is useful to religion but it has its many headaches. In fact, some see it undermining the foundation of the religion. It is understandable.

Furthermore, although religions just want to serve their own interests, they have helped a lot in theorizing and explaining translation.


***


See:


https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0048721X.2019.1635332

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Some Grammatical Problems in Translation

By Obododimma Oha Grammar is not the use of big or difficult words in a language but the appropriate combination of structures to form sentences and texts. We have been taught that these combinations have to comply with rules  for language is generally rule-governed. Another thing is that although there are universal linguistic issues to be considered. One is that the grammars of the SL and of the TL may converge in some respects and diverge in some. In other words, some problems may be language-specific. In addition, the appropriateness of combination depends on competence. Thus translation inevitably has to deal with grammar in at least two languages and we have to find equivalents for structures. *** Equivalents for Structures : This is a big issue for translation. It is easier to find equivalents for words but not for larger structures. Moreover, structures of meaning have to be accounted for. What it means is that some syntactic structures may be skipped as problematic, e...
Read more

Language and Translation of African Literature

By Obododimma Oha *** One big issue that arises here is literary translation and how to handle it. African Literature already has a controversy over language. Added to that controversy is the translation of what is called African literature. On this interesting topic, therefore, one has to discuss (1) Literariness of the translation (2) Language choice and use in the writing of African literature (3) The writing of African literature in colonial languages (4)The existence of some African literature in translations The Literariness of the Translation : It is not easy to translate literary texts, what more second-language literary texts. In such a translation, one is challenged not only to capture the context of the ST, but also the style of language used. So, it is not just a matter of looking for equivalents or replacements. The translator becomes a second author of the text or a clone, a proxy, to be less problematic! As a proxy author, the translator has to imagine what t...
Read more