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A Flow Chart for Bible Translation (a Relevance Theory Approach)

One of the current theories behind modern translation work is Relevance Theory.[1] Here is a flow chart that explains the process often used to produce a draft when using such an approach:




*Make sure your translation committee makes the decision as to what kind of translation they want.

A domesticated translation is one that submits to dominant values in the target language[2] whereas a foreignized translation is one that is happy to import foreign terms and ideas from Hebrew, Greek, or the language of wider communication such as the Greek term baptizo.

The chart looks something like this:

Text                                   Communicated Ideas                  Context
A sower went out to sow  A farmer went out to sow grain   People scattered/threw seed
etc.

The text has very little information, but behind it is the idea that seed was scatted by throwing it from a bag carried round the farmer's shoulder. This could be explained in the para-textual helps if you are in a project that is more foreignized than domesticated.

Actually the above is a little simplified, in that you could, in theory, have a domesticated translation which also has para-textual helps, or a foreignized translation without such helps, like so:

Option
Foreignized
Domesticated
Without para-textual helps
1
2
With para-textual helps
3
4

Hopefully very few audiences will choose option 1!

[1] Sperber and Wilson, Relevance: Communication and Cognition; Gutt, Translation and Relevance - Cognition and Context.
[2] Wilt, Bible Translation - Frames of Reference, 24.



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