[B-Greek] Poythrees on BDAG and translation theory
Iver Larsen
iver_larsen at sil.org
Thu Jan 29 01:15:46 EST 2004
Dear Kenneth,
While I am not going to re-enter the debate between the two opposite
extremes represented by Ann and Poythrees, I agree with your sentiments and
I'd like to make a comment on one of your comments.
> Poythrees critiques BDAG for failing to give the
> semantic meaning of three words, PATHR, ADELFOS and
> IOUDAIOS, and instead giving extended "meanings" and
> glosses for ideological reasons, in spite of Danker's
> disapproval in the introduction of doing this exact
> thing . The point at issue, which is why I'm posting
> this, is that there is a vast difference between what
> a word's semantic domain is for its original
> author/hearers/readers and what might be appropriate
> as a "translation" (a slippery word at best) in a
> target language in a different time period and
> culture. It appears that BDAG has not observed this
> distinction.
Yes, it is very difficult to talk meaningfully about "meaning" without also
talking about cultural presuppositions and inferences drawn from the text by
different audiences and at different times in history. One can try to
differentiate between semantics and pragmatics, but that is inadequate to
solve the issue.
Does PATHR "mean" father or parent? That depends on what you understand by
those two terms in English. Is a PATHR always a parent? No, because the word
has extended senses of "forefather" and "originator" that are not part of
"father" or "parent". Is a parent always a father? Obviously not. The
semantic range of PATHR in the GNT is apparently not the same as the
semantic range in the papyrus corpus of secular Hellenistic Greek nor the
same as the semantic range of either "father" or "parent" in modern English.
In addition, the same English word "father" can have positive connotations
for some people and negative connotations for others. Those of us who are
professional translators sometimes joke about the frustrating impossibility
of pleasing everybody in a translation and say that in order to make a
translation that clearly communicates the original message (as the
translator understands it) we would need to make a different translation for
every reader.
Another point that you also hint at: language is interwoven with culture.
Not separating the two creates confusion and misunderstandings (and part of
that confusion is seen in people's various interpretations of the glosses
and definitions in BDAG.)
Within the last 100 years the English and generally Western culture has
changed from basically patriarchal to basically egalitarian. Such a drastic
cultural change forces a linguistic change, but language changes more slowly
than culture. In Danish the word for "parents" (foraldre) used to have no
singular form. With the modern break-up of traditional family structure, the
society HAD to invent a singular form meaning "parent" (foralder). It sounds
funny and strange for years until it is finally adopted.
This cultural change is forcing a change of usage for words like fireman,
chairman, mankind etc. and it is also forcing the secondary sense of "man"
as referring to "human being" to gradually become obsolete.
These kind of changes in English also mean that we need to change how we use
English to speak about the meaning of words in another language, including
Greek.
Iver Larsen
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