Lexical Pragmatics: Implications for Translation

It’s time now to look at some implications for translation. This is based on the paper “Lexical Pragmatics and Hermeneutical Issues in the Translation of Key Terms,” which has a lot more detailed discussion of the ideas in this brief introduction.

One of the typical challenges in Bible translation is finding an appropriate way to handle key biblical terms. As an example, consider προφήτης in the NT. We could say that there are two basic uses of this term. One is in passages which refer to what Old Testament prophets said or wrote and the second is the reference to those who prophesied in the early church.

Translators will typically study the uses of a term like this in the different contexts where it occurs and then look for an appropriate term to use in the translation. This is what happened as the Mapuche team considered the best term to translate prophet. In early stages of the translation project, it was assumed that the Mapuche term werken would be the best translation. In traditional Mapuche society, werken were messengers sent to speak on behalf of a local political leader. Werken seemed to have the right components of meaning.

In the final version of the Mapuche New Testament, the decision was made to use a Spanish loan pürofeta rather than werken. As I’ve considered the reasons why this decision was made, I’ve found that Lexical Pragmatics offers some helpful ideas. For example, what is the relationship between words and concepts? Is the search for an appropriate or equivalent term the best way to approach the challenge of key terms? Would it be more helpful to think in terms of key biblical concepts instead of terms?

These are the kinds of questions discussed at more length in the paper referred to above. Further examples will be discussed in the session on Lexical Pragmatics at NSBT.