Content and Process in Bible Translation
Extracted text from JChungNidaPaperIdeologyProcessProductOfBT.pdf:
Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation Jeremiah Chung 16th March 2011 Abstract The ideology of content, (i.e. religions and values) and the ideology of process (i.e. politics and methods) coexist in translation, and these two ideologies interact with each other. There is nothing value-neutral or ideology-free in the content and process of translation. Translation is a process of inter-lingual communication, the purpose of which is to make a difference. Whether the process is destructive or constructive, manipulative or transformative, it depends on the values and points of view of the participants of the process. The process is not necessarily one-sided, and methodologies are no longer prescriptive and normativeespecially in the contemporary and post-colonial context. Therefore, the translation process should include broader participation of non-experts. This can take place only if the process is within the acceptable range of the presumed initial core values, and the result will be a synergy of various core values forming new ideologies in a contributive way. There is always a risk that the new ideology can go beyond what was anticipated. Integrating both scientific method and artistic intuition are essential. Participants should adopt the appropriate inter-disciplinary methods within the continuum of two poles based on context, nature, and function in order to produce a more relevant and quality-enhanced outcome. The purpose of this presentation is to encourage a broader sphere of non-experts participating in and reinventing the process of Bible translation in order to transform others and be transformed themselves. This transformation comes from the assumption or faith that the values of the content of the Bible can bring about a positive difference. In UBSs Triennial Translation Workshops in 2003, there were four key questions in the keynote speakers presentations. These questions are: What should we translate? For whom should we translate? How should we translate? Why should we translate?(Pattemore in Noss 2007:250) In any kind of translation, the ideology of content and ideology of process coexist. The purpose of translation is to deliver a message from one language group to another language group (Jacobson in Venuti 2000:114). Gutt sees translation as interlingual interpretive use. (Gutt in Venuti 2000: 376) Since the ideology of content and ideology of process coexist in translation, there is no ideologically neutral message. (Lefevere 2004:39, Arduini in Noss 2007:189) The ideological values may be different depending on the points of view of the receiver, sender, or both. The receivers of the translation with a
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation new ideology are able to make choices and respond accordingly. Ideology is totalizing. But resistance is possible. Cheung also comment that readers response is not predictable. (Cheung in Hermans 2002:144) The process of translating and drafting can be very different depending on what and why should we translate. As the senders or deliverers look at the the response of receivers, they evaluate the methods used to communicate their message and make adjustments for a more effective translation --and sometimes make adjustments to their own ideologies. Thus, the ideologies of process and content interact with each other. Some content is more relevant in altering the process of translation; some processes are more relevant in altering the content. Overall, though, the content determines the process rather than the process determining the content. It used to be the translator who determined both what was to be translated as well as the process for rendering the translation in interlingual communication. (Yan 2007)[cf. Nords translation profile]
- TRANSLATORS POWER AND ETHICS Translators are communicators between two language groups as the groups exchange ideologies of content. Such communication interweaves different ideologies from the source language group, the target language group, and the translator. How can a translator be an ethical deliverer of ideologies and exercise power appropriately? Translators can come under political influence from either side and/or have the accountability of their own ideologically related identities, but their bilingual competency and ability to communicate in more than one language allow them to alter the political ideology of the target community and feedback to the author, if applicable. The translation process confronts the translators with conflicts and choices, which can be ethical, ideological, or political. It seems to me that translators in some sense can be more powerful than the political authority as they can make the choice of the availability of foreign ideology in the target language community. Yan mentioned that ideology not only makes great influences on text selection and translation strategy, but also on the control of spreading certain translated texts. (Yan 2007:64) However, what controls the spreading of foreign ideology from the translated text is the authority or the ideology behind the authority. Once the ideology of the translated text is locally available, what the authority can do is to control an ideology spreading. In such case, there is not much difference between an ideology from translated text or from a local source. Furthermore, the local authority can be the filter or censor about what can be translated and they
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation can also be the decision maker of what translated text can be spread further. Since individual response to a new ideology is indeterminate, the social or corporal acceptance of the ideologies is even beyond our prediction. Thus, the powerful side can manipulate the process but not the exact outcome of the ideology. Thus, we can see the influence towards ideology shift from individual to social/cultural and the deliverance of ideology shift from authentic to heuristic. With the economic impact, the motivation of translation can also shift from being ideology-driven to market-driven. With the light of indeterminacy and game theory, all readers and participants of translation will share different degree of power in the network, influence each other and prepare for the risks of the consequence.(Pym 2010:6.4.5) Team translation and machine translation are trends of contemporary translation and are shifting the choice of the content and the ownership of the translation project away from the traditional single translator. When the translator or the translation-receiving community is not aware of the ideological implications of the translations initiator, the translation team memberswho are aware of the significant ideological impactshould inform the affected parties as a matter of ethics. If translators become only economical and commercial instruments, without concern for their social responsibilities, translation will only accelerate the tragedies of spreading harmful ideologies among mankind. The translator works under a political framework that may affect what to translate and how to translate. On the other hand, translators can bring in new ideologies that may affect the political framework. While translators are usually not the policy-makers, their advice and their translation decisions can influence the language groups response to foreign ideology. Because of this, the translator bears the ethical responsibility to make a different ideology available to the target language community. When translation introduces a new ideology, such as Christianity in the case of Bible translation, the ideology becomes an asset to the target language group by empowering and enriching the knowledge base of that language group. The translator has the power to equip the language group with global value, enhanced understanding, and expanded ways of thinking.
- IDEOLOGY OF PROCESS TRANSLATION AS AN INSTRUMENT OF TRANSFORMATION Translation is a form of communication, and this communication is a flow of information from a knowledgeable side (more powerful) to a less knowledgeable side (less powerful). Recently scholar of
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation the manipulation school realized that all translation implies a degree of manipulation of the source text for a certain purpose. (Hermans 1985:11) Translation process is political since power is involved and can be understood as something between manipulation and transformation depending on the value of the translated content, motivation and perspectives of author, translator, owner of the translation project and translation receivers.(cf. Bassnett, in Gentzler 1993:ix) And the value can be religious, political, economical, social, aesthetic, etc. In a translation team different values and opinions can bring added insight, though it is important to maintain the balance between unity and diversity. Within a translation project conflict among the different members can happen before, after and in the midst of the actual translation process. Concerning the methodology of the translation process, since we have ample experiences of prescriptive methodologies that have been practiced in the past, we should learn from this and engage in a more descriptive approach by studying our experience in the past and keep try to describe what we are doing and design what we are going to do based on the outcomes. The prescriptive framework can still be helpful in providing guidelines or rules of thumb, but it should not be considered the only approach, especially in the contexts of post-modernism which with the premises of inter-discipline concerns and multidirectional dialogue. Translation is a very powerful tool to communicate ideologies. One way to ensure that it does not become a form of manipulation is to maintain the exchange of translations in both directions from both language groups..(Lefevere ??, Bassnet) For a culture without much literature, we should try to humbly learn their culture and help them to record their cultural traditions and values, and even translate their literature into other languages, if they wish. During the process of understanding the source text, the translator may encounter ideological change. We can consider this change as transformation if the outcome is positive or desirable according to the target language group. At this stage, the translator can decide whether to do the translation and how to do it. The major European translations of Bible had great impact on the reformation and the spread of ideology in modern Europe then America. The translation process is not complete until people understand the text and respond to it. Thus, translation of an ideology is not enough; it is important to see that ideology implemented and coming out as something good, true, and relevant to the community and mankind. Functional approach of translation may help us to move towards that direction as we are focus on the purposes and outcomes
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation that translation could bring. (Nord 2001) As people are being transformed and living in the community, they start introducing the new ideology through their behavior along with the translated text, but there are always risks of unpredictable consequences, with new ideologies emerging as a result. The response of the target language group can also affect the source language group. Its not uncommon that some missionaries have sentiment against their home country after they are transformed by their host culture or at least they can see the value of both sides. That is an advantage of being multilingual.
- IDEOLOGY OF CONTENT WHAT AND WHY As we noticed before, whether the translation process is manipulating or transforming depends on the decisions of what and why to translate. Another question is who should make these important decisions. (Pym 2010:1986/6713) This question and the decision mentioned above make the ideology of content more political and power-oriented. As translators continue working, they will continue to redefine their values, and we should anticipate this potential risk during the course of translation. Hopefully, we can learn more from the
process and result especially through empirical and descriptive studies. Thus, translation is a process that transforms the target text receiver, but it is also a process that transforms the practitioners, with the possibility of inspiring the author and the translation studies community. The translated product of this transformative process can and should be revised over time to be relevant to the contemporary context and accommodate the change of language. Nowadays, with the technology of communication and publication, in some cases the authors may revise the original text based on the feedback from the readers of the translation. It is not just to getting consensus or acceptance in the ideology as in consensus theory (Pym 2010:6.4.2), but the author can also learn something from the readers. We humans are bounded by time, space, and our own experiences (including cultural, economical, socio-political, and linguistic). Students are trained to be translators within a particular cultural setting.(Nord 2001:124) Literature and different forms of media for recording and/or representing human behavior have been helping people to understand others in different time and space. However, translation is the main tool (if not the only) that enables us to communicate across the linguistic and cultural barrier. Translations can offer people more ideological choices. During the globalization
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation process during the last few decades, translation rose to its current role and connections with other disciplines to create a new platform of cultural interaction of human minds and a political stage for power of knowledge and information in the new era. The translators and scholars who are studying translation theories and practices are playing a more important and powerful role in either transforming or manipulating, either helping people of different languages and cultures understand each other better or generating more conflicts. In embracing global, common goals in spite of diversities of culture and language, the real issues are not necessarily the differences between the cultures but the understanding and tolerance of the differences. The issue is the fact that there are consequences when translators intentionally or unintentionally alter the ideologies or the image of the source language group they are translating.
- IMPLEMENTATION ENGAGING THE LAITY WITH TRANSLATION AS TRANSFORMATION Power and tools should be used for the good of others, including sharing the power of knowledge and valuable ideologies. Translation is a good tool for doing that. People who have more opportunities and more choices should enable others to have more as well. Engaging more laity and non-experts to participate in translation work is a very object-oriented training program. The laity is a huge resource base, and we should develop more work or recreation opportunities for laypeople to be involved in. Translation matter with valuable and transformational ideology can provide meaningful employment and enjoyable experience, which are the desires of this generation.
4.1 Insight from Translation Theories As the principle uncertainty ensure us that human are not able to perceive the whole picture of reality, indeterminacy shattered our ideal of knowing exact reality, but we still experience our daily life with a practical perception of proximal reality. There is a continuum between one extreme of omniscience (knowing exactly the truth and reality) and another extreme that everything is relative and has no reality. What is the acceptable range for a practical perception of reality and ideology? Deconstructionism or absolute relativism needs a vehicle or a structure to be deconstructed in order to communicate/carry the idea of deconstruction. Indeterminacy determines the principle of its own validity. These are the dilemmas of deconstruction and indeterminacy. These dilemmas inspired us to
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation explore the paradoxical interdisciplinary methodology of dealing with the holistic, all-connected and real issues that we are facing today rather than the over simplified dichotomy issues. We can anticipate these issues getting more complicated rather than getting simpler because of the language barriers in the trend of globalization. Deconstructionism and indeterminacy help us to see the vulnerability of the expert and ultimate authority. New perspective from the laity and grassroots movements can contribute significantly to the discipline of social and cultural studies. Without knowing the exact reality, there is less difference between the expert and non-expert, and modesty becomes an asset of the global team. Experts working with and training the majority of non-experts or laity can direct our human resources to the cycle of positive deconstruction and reconstruction. The Skopos/functional theory and pragmatic approach seem very promising. Skopos theory can be applied beyond the domain of translation, and having a purpose or searching for a purpose is part of the reality of human life. We need to have faith or belief either in our religion, our theory, or our ideology and the ideology of process or methodology. We should explore the Skopos theory more as an ideology of process and be aware that the ideology of process does not offer us the answer to the question, What is the purpose? We need to have an initial or preliminary purpose in place, before we start applying the process. Seeking purpose of life is certainly not just for the expert. Non-experts should seek more opportunities to engage in translation projects or a similar purpose searching journey. The structure of Skopos theory also allows the potential development of machine translation or machine-aided translation. As a result more non-expert or people from more different disciplines can contribute to translation endeavourer. Different theories have their own strength in their own time and show the true nature and practice of translation from different perspectives. The pragmatic and heuristic approach of poly-system sounds promising. (Noss 2007:261) However, the eternal or final results and consequences are still indeterminate.
4.2 Cognitive and Adult Education Theory Parallel to the development of translation studies, there are significant developments in cognitive science and studies of human behavior. The skill and knowledge of cognitive science and human behavior studies (including politics and education) can be very powerful for either manipulating or transforming. Translators, communicators, and educators, along with politicians, have been aware of
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation this and the significance of interdisciplinary studies among these disciplines. Knowledge is power, and different kinds of knowledge will have different kinds of power depending on the historical context. (e.g., compare the knowledge-based power held by the clergy during the time when Christianity was dominant in the West and the power of present- day athletes and rock stars who are taking positions of influence within the market-driven ideology in the current, commercialized society.) In theories of semiosis, the translator as interpretant played an important role in delivering the message and the ideology behind it and translation is a form of transformation.(Pym 2010:6.4.6) Moral representations and modeling of a certain ideology can be very appealing, even though it is not necessarily theoretically and logically accurate. The world operates primarily by political and social-economic influence, which can also happen to translation. If translators have the power to bring about change, one way is to share the power with the caution of the corrupted nature and biases of human nature. People often make decisions based on their opinion rather than the facts. And translators take a significant role in painting the image of the culture of the text being translated and such impression can alter opinions, then decisions. 4.2.1 Translation as Education An educational system is a power structure; the content is political and restricted in different degrees on different matters, usually decided by the government. Apart from these, the tolerances of different ideologies cause relativity and confusion of ideology. Translation allows individuals and communities to choose their own ideology and material of their needs to be translated. The nature of the formal education system that I experienced seems to be very prescriptive, focused on testing and screening people rather than teaching them. The system teaches the curriculum but not the people. I have seen a bit of change in Hong Kongs educational system due to the influence of multi-national educational theories developed during the past couple of years. In the academic circle, there is a kind of hostility against research in critical thinking. Is this a kind of class struggle? I wonder whether translation as transformation, with multidirectional evaluations or interviews and displays of appreciation through advice and comments, can provide alternatives to existing modes of education. Translation projects can provide timely training and lifelong learning opportunities to address the needs of communities. Hands-on translation experiences provide opportunities for developing valuable and intuitive skills such as problem-solving, decision-making, troubleshooting, and self-teaching, especially in the light of social constructivism.(Pym 2010: 6.4.4 3539/6713.)
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation Existing education systems focus on and invest the majority of their resources in the elite minority and the advantaged group. While the United Nations and many developed countries are making education more affordable and popular, we have to be careful about the statistics and figures: having an education does not mean someone is educated, just as going to school does not make the school-goers scholars. At the same time, the ideology of content to be taught has similar issues as the ideology of content to be translated. The question about purpose should be asked both in education and translation. Some poverty alleviation programs in rural areas were advertising education, especially tertiary education, as a ticket to better employment and prosperity. While there are some instances where this promise is realized, it is certainly not fulfilled in most cases. Something else to consider is whether the existing education systems of the world is market-driven. Can we offer people employment and meaning in their work through translations rather than asking them to pay the hardly affordable tuition to send their children to just sit or learn something that is not relevant to their culture, at least at the first glance? Resources for education in some countries, especially in rural areas, are a great concern. Learning from translated educational materials helps them to actually earn an income, rather than simply paying tuition for the fantasy of employment opportunities after graduation. Some people drop out of school very early. Translation offers education again to the adult community, and Vellas twelve principles of adult learning sound very appealing when considering translation as an alternative mode of education. (Vella 1994) The twelve principles are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Needs Assessment: The First Step in Dialogue Safety: Creating a Safe Environment for Learning (Starting from mother tongue/first language) Sound Relationships: The Power of Friendship and Respect Sequence and Reinforcement: Knowing Where and How to Begin (Start with prescriptive methods and building confidence to get something done.) Action with Reflection: A Lesson in Leadership Learners as Subjects of Their Own Learning (Here all are learners) Learning with Ideas, Feelings, and Actions Immediacy: Teaching What is Really Useful (When people are translating something as requested, it has probably already been determined to be useful and valuable.) Assuming New Roles for Dialogue: The Death of the Professor
- Teamwork: How People Learn Together (One cannot translate something for oneself. There must be a team in this sense. Team translation is a trend.) 11. Engagement: Learning as an Active Process 12. Accountability: Success is in the Eyes of the Learner
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation 4.2.2 Translation as Meaningful sharing Translation experts should share their knowledge, skills and their passions with others and trust the non-expert to have more involvement and be trained in translation. Translation raises the status and cultural dignity of the disadvantaged, as they are the lay experts of minority languages. Bi-directional translation not only allows the disadvantaged language group to choose what to translate, what they want to listen to but also what they want to tell the global world. Along with the change from prescriptive/normative to descriptive and social-cultural oriented approach, translation tends to involve team work and collaboration of different kind of skills. Laity could be involved more in collaboration and contribute to a translation project. Translation studies covers different disciplines, languages keep changing and society keeps changing with more focus on the Anthropological, Social-cultural aspect and the target oriented approach in translation work. Globalization requires more connectivity between languages group, so laity is going to play a more significant role in interlingua communication. It is true that there are limitations of resources, market and the tools for them to translate into other languages, but encouraging and acknowledging their gift of culture and language adding meaning and cultural diversity to the global village is essential.
4.3 Generate Global value and diversity As mentioned before, having consensus of common values is not easy. However, every common global value in the beginning is very important. So it is important to start with the value of interlingua communication, or else there is no way to discuss cultural diversity and unity. There are other common instrumental values about the ultimate power is peoples will: the ability of acquiring knowledge, making choice and communicating. The value of inter-lingual communicators or translators is to help different language groups to understand each other. The content of the value is promoting positive ideology family, health, equality and fairness and translation provides options of other ideologies. For example, Chinas development was able to go much faster as she learned from outside China. Translation and bilingual elites played a very important part in this. It is also very important that we learn from the history and other cultures.
4.4 Readiness with Technology and open source Traditionally translations of religious materials were only done by religious experts, such as gurus, clergies, priests or monks, in source language, target language and the subject matters. For some minority groups in remote areas, the translators were either the native speakers of the target language or the expert of language and culture living among the minority communities.
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation Non-experts or laymen did not usually engage in these kinds of traditional cross-cultural works because of time, geographic, cultural and educational limitations. Now with technology, communication, and better transportation, we should redeem this technology for our valuable task. There is open source software and internet connectivity providing self-education opportunities with the best universities enabling the laity to learn and to serve more effectively. We are moving toward a post-missionary era. With the expansion of the global village, the cultural and linguistic gap may be smaller than before. However, a believing culture can be very different from an unbelieving culture. Thus, the challenge to reach people effectively is shifting from cultural, linguistic, and geographical differences, due to post-modern indifference to our message and a wider gap between transformed and pre-transformed cultures, even in our churches. **Dealing with the gap between the poor and rich in the developed countries. Shift labour workers to knowledge workers(Peter Drucker).
4.5 Post-colonialism - Top-down power delegating movement In spite of the negative impact of colonialism, the intense encounter of multiple cultures brought some positive influences to local cultures. The fact is that some bilingual elites were trained. While we need to learn from the history, it would be better to turn our negative energy of hatred and grief into positive contributions. How can we do this in order to contribute positively to local communities? Translators may abuse their power or release power in translation by engaging and training the laity for cultural exchange. UNESCO has a digital library on-line with one hundred and twenty thousand free download documents from 1943 in English, French, Spanish and documents published after 2003 in three other languages: Russian, Arabic and Chinese. This digital library provides a knowledge base in major languages that used to be associated with the patrons of colonialism and imperialism. In this postmodern generation, people would like to be involved more and have better connection to the global world and the field where the message is needed. Many laymen have already been praying, advocating and donating for religious material translation work. Laity involvement in other technical aspects can help people to have a stronger sense of belonging to each others culture. I think it is especially important during this time of globalization. If knowledge is power, and educators, politicians, capitalists
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation and translators are the distributor of the power, what are our roles? We need to ask ourselves the question, How can our countries and fellow citizens bless others in this post-colonial context?
- REFLECTION BY CHURCH AND BIBLE TRANSLATION ORGANIZATION Concerning Bible translation, Pym makes clear that Bible translation requires an unusual approach and the epistemologies of translation can be non-representational, that translator can only get the meaning to the source text through enlightenment, or representational, that the translation presents an understanding of the text.. (Pym in Arduini in Noss 2007:190-192)
5.1 Making Bible the only literature In many places in the early stages of missionary work, there is a high priority on introducing the Bible as the first literature. Making the Bible the only literature, however, can be problematic. BT practitioners do not exclude the translation and creation of literatures other than Bible. However, all people are bounded by their experiences, ideology and and individuals have the preference and value for using their time and resources. On the other hand, I think translators and especially Christian translators should give higher priority to the study and understanding of their own culture and the culture of others different viewpoints. For Christian believers, the Bible is inspired by God, just as for other religious believers their religious texts are of divine origins. Then, how is Bible translation different from translation of other religious material? One of the unique things about the Bible is that it already has been translated into thousands of languages with hundreds years of translation history. It is valuable to keep adding new versions for the knowledge base contributing to studies of translation and languages. This uniqueness can contribute to the studies of translation e.g. the historical epistemologies (Pym in Noss 2007: chapter 9) and language/culture. Regarding the ideology of translation, one might ask what is wrong with changing ones political and religious views. Since translation or communication is to exchange ideas/ideology for change, there should be nothing wrong with change. However, we have to ensure that receivers of the message have the freedom to make their own choice. The process of translating the Bible should be done in an ethically, socially and culturally appropriate way.
5.2 Bible Translation associated with missionaries, then colonialism In human history, imperialism, war, and colonialism have been the tragedies of mankind.
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation Unfortunately, there are misunderstandings as well as inevitable but unnecessary associations with the ideology of the Bible. Christians are not necessarily supporting missions and missionaries are not necessarily supporting colonialism. Every individual is not necessary in agreement with all decisions made by the government of their home country. In the case of opium war, many missionaries were accused of being silent and not standing for justice. However, in Wongs book, A Fight for Humanity and Justice -- Missionaries Merits in Anti-opium Mission, there were records of some missionaries confronting and condemning the British government because of the opium trade and war. (Wong 2004) Christians are highly divided about the value of the Bible in quite different ways and to different extents. Sometimes the issue is not the ideology of the Bible, but the misinterpretation of the text and the very diverse theology and practice among different denominations. Their hermeneutics and exegesis of the Bible doesnt provide a final conclusion to many different issues among the churches. Churches and Christians can be over generalized or stereotyped by non-Christians, and even by Christians themselves. As Bible Translation practitioners, we are aware of how we can be misunderstood and how we can misunderstand others (Muslim, Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholic, etc). I also fear how much Christians (including myself) can misunderstand and misinterpret the Bible. Bible Translation practitioners are not necessarily believers but can value the Bible in different ways. Ideology of the Bible or other foreign ideology can be brought by students studying overseas, and immigrants. Some people are seeking their cultural or ethnic root returned to the homeland of their ancestors also bring unique ideology. Translators cannot make an ideology acceptable but may accelerate the process of understanding and response towards the ideology. However, the initial impact and trust is because of the consistence of the message and the behavior of the communicators. The continual impact is the consequence of reception of the message. In the context of post-colonialism and concerning the use of power, it is crucial to figure out who are the owners and stakeholders of the translation project and the role of the translator and to ensure that we can avoid being or associating with the neo-colonial patron by making the same mistake. The church has done wrong in being associated with empiricism and colonialism. However the impact of the missionaries is the consistency of the message and their behavior. Colonialism is definitively evil, but the result of the wrong motivation is that Hong Kong has become an international city and Hong Kong elites have become the key to connecting Chinese culture to western culture. Along with the hard work of previous generation and frontiers, some Hong Kong
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation citizens who hold the ideology from the Bible have also contributed significantly to the development of Hong Kong, especially in the field of medical service and education. The fact is that Hong Kong had been developed from fishing and farming villages to a prosperous cosmopolitan city under the colonial government and has been kept developing after going back over to China. On the other hand, post-colonial Hong Kong is unique with a transition of one nation and two systems. Thus, the evaluation of the colonial impact is still controversial and cannot be conclusive yet. Cheung sees the impact and power of the protestant missionary translator in colonial Hong Kong. (Cheung 1998) I think it is important to separate the power of the language competency and the power of translation, interpreters/translators from missionary, and individuals from the general missionary of that time. **At the same time, Atheist Government identity Christian community and viallage by their compliance, not causing problem, low crime-rate, no-drunkeness. Some people keep persecuting and tortured were converted and see the genuine faith. Value is not see by the input but the output. Certain faith were demonstrated by the input **An ideology will not be sustained if the quality or the reality of the ideology does not match with the adverstisment or propaganda, in either translation or other means. Actually, the more effective as communication and translator communicating the truth/fact in a faithful way. Good translation accelerate the process of the verification or validation of the ideology. Thus, translators and journalist are very important gate keeper to ensure ideology transmission. We may claim and believe that the Bible is infallible and/or inerrant, but we as the churches and Bible Translation organizations are not. We need to realize that we have done wrong in the past and we need to confess and apologize. And- quite likely - we are going to make mistakes in the future but, hopefully, were not going to make the same mistakes. Thus, documents that show our history of both right things to follow and mistakes to avoid can be helpful. Thus, we can see the significance of the work of Noss and others in A History of Bible Translation. (Noss 2007)
5.3 Fidelity of the Translator Translators will have different degrees of visibility in different cases. Bible Translators within a minority group can be more visible and the acceptance of the translation depends on the acceptance of the translator. The integrity and behavior of the Translator needs to be consistent, at least to a certain degree, with the ideology of the material they translate, if they claim to be believers or advocates of the
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation ideology. Translators should not force readers to change their ideology but should provide more options and choices by the translation and their models, consistent with what they claim to advocate. In this sense, the translator is very similar to a missionary, defined as a cross-cultural deliverer of message of good news. Unfortunately, the term missionary has negative connotations associated with colonialism, imperialism, foreignism, and proselytizing. In the article of Bible Translation in Africa: A post-missionary approach, Bessong and Kenmogne stated that Clearly, Bible translation in Africa is a child of missions (Noss 2007:352) but not necessarily the child of missionaries. I understand mission as a purpose and, certainly, Bible Translation started with a purpose. However, the claim is followed by a good question, Did the recent missionaries in Africa, in particular those involved in Bible translation, follow Christs lead? (Noss 2007:353) And Im glad to see that National Bible Translation
Organizations have been established in many different countries and the post-missionary trend of Bible Translation. (Noss 2007:360) Hopefully we can see this happen elsewhere. One of my concerns is about the self sustainability and autonomy of these NBTOs. My other concern is about the training and the continuity of Bible Translation personnel development. I think the training goals should include: The outcomes of the Bible Translation & Scripture Use training movement are to have at least a team of individuals for every language group able to: 1. produce and revise a quality translation of Gods Word in their heart language 2. be consistent in their life with their words and what has been faithfully translated 3. train and equip each generation to be a better team doing the same and ensuring passing on and refining items such as Vision, Attitude, Skill and Knowledge (ASK). 4. further develop and improve the ASK for better value (know why), Methodology (know how plan and implement) aiming for the best quality product with naturalness, accuracy, communicability, acceptability and usability to a wide audience. 5. share the Vision and ASK within the language group and with other language communities who are in need of their own translation 6. be good stewards, making good use of resources and advanced technologies.(Chung 2008: 2)
As Bible Translation is moving towards the post-missionary era, we need to reshape the strategy and role of foreigner/missionary of a Bible Translation project and be ready to fade out in the transition.
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation
5.4 Self-sustainability The Bible Translation movement is aiming at local, indigenous self-sustainable development. At the same time, how can the foreign Bible Translation leadership and practitioners set good examples of being self-sustainable Are they translating something which is valuable enough economically that they can be self-sustainable? How do the locals perceive the Bible Translation practitioners? What should be their role? In some mission systems, people can be self-sustainable if they are good fund raisers. At the same time, competent people without good fund raising skills may not be able to join a Bible Translation organization. Besides finances, a sustainable system includes sufficient management, especially in the areas of balance of authority and accountability, as we considered above that translation can be either manipulating or transforming.
5.5 Ethics of Bible Translation Translation helps people to understand others and coexist, but not to eliminate others who are different or make the different ones the same as us by force. We need to be aware of the differences between social ethics and individual ethics. Civil disobedience may be present in individuals but not in a systematic, organized form. We should also bear in mind that civil disobedience can also be a way to manipulate or transform especially if it is known in public. People practicing it should be ready to take the consequence. Foreign BT NGO should aim at ethical practice within the political boundary of the host country and ensure that the operation and practice would not jeopardize the security of the country and the safety of the nationals. Receivers of the translation should be notified of potential consequences of the translation by those who are making the translation available to the best of their knowledge. Certainly there are risks in translating or to communicating, but, at the same time it is also risky to do nothing. Decision is always a risk. Let people know that the decision that you make is a kind of communication already. The value of Bible Translation as transformation producing positive impact is underestimated by society. And we have to realize and respect the relationship between politics and religion in different cultural contexts. In translation, it is not possible to communicate exactly what the author intended. However, the translators interpretation should be identical with the sender s intention (Nord 2001:89) and attempt to provide a practical proximity image of the original ideology to others. Ideology exists and is implemented because people see its value. The value of the ideology can be shown by result as well as
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation the risk, cost, and the commitment that the translation practitioners put in. When more people engage in translating something of value, it demonstrates the value of translation. In the Bible, besides transforming others, there is also a cultural mandate of managing well the world, which can be generally global acceptable mandate. Translation is to be environmentally friendly, i.e. besides consider the influence towards readers, translators and authors, but also the ecosystem that how all these people interact and relate with each other.. BT practitioner should bear in mind that translation is powerful and power comes with accountability. People getting benefit from translation should invest in translation to further benefit others.
5.6 The power structure of Bible Translation Agency Power structure re-visit, Bible Translation adminsitructure_ SIL is not allow to publish scripture but academic and language development material. The final process of publication and final approval of type setting, quality of translation was done by different Bible Society. However, with different media and web and the work done by self-funding volunteer or with the funding agency, also the quality controller. It is good to realized different roles and the concern of the issues of accoutabiloity and who should be the stakeholder, ownership or decision makers.
5.7 Lingual Franca Why cant use Chinese to do translation? Oranization aim as translation need to have staff multiple staff? Should we used the Language of Wider Communication but not the lgnague of the widest communication? What languages are the languages of the widest communication can also be and issue.
- CONCLUSION The idea or dream about Engaging Laity in translation in order to transform other the laities themselves can be too ideal and too optimistic. And I have the following concern:
6.1 May your ideology be on earth as it is in heaven Getting an agreeable ideology even in the same religious group is not easy, especially if decisions need to be done in a democratic way. In the initial stages of partnership a consensus ideology can be too generic. Define a personal ideology and ethics system appropriately is not that easy in an ever changing world. How can our individual value, ethics and ideology align with the corporal, organizational, social or national? Team building and getting the right one on the bus as stated by Jim Collins in his book Good to Great is essential.(Collins 2001) However, keep taking the best from the pool of human resources is not
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation ecological, we have to increase value by empowering and training others, especially laity, in order to contribute to the pool of resources. The conflict between the greats in a team can also be great, especially without modesty. The process of translation transforms the laity to Greater and at the same time builds a team that lasts.
6.2 Give us our daily power, knowledge, skill, resources ... etc. today to fulfill our daily responsibilities. With the idea of empowering laity and the disadvantaged why do the power owners want to give away or share their power? Implementation of transformation needs to be move gradually and allow transition and buffer. Maintaining power equilibrium can be too ideal, however considering the consistent flow of power in a constructive and relatively peaceful way can be second best or lesser evil. How much power is enough and how much is more than enough? Concerning self-sustainability, we need to ask more than our bread for today with the ability of making bread for ourselves and the love of sharing the bread with others. We also need to embrace the value of lifelong learning.
6.3 Forgive our deeds and ideology which do not match with your ideology, as we understand that others can be different from ours. While effective and trustworthy communication depends greatly on the consistency between the communicators and their behavior, the effective translation of highly ideological content needs to be consistent with the translators behavior, especially in those cases where translators are the only access to the source text. Since translators should be the role models based on the source text, how are we doing as role models, translators, and some of us as believers of the source text? While some of us believe the scripture is infallible, were sure that we are not. If we can tolerate ourselves, how can we understand and tolerate others who are different from us? Besides asking for forgiveness, we also need to repent or sin no more by translating the right text and translating the text right. (cf. The Effective Executive, Drucker 1993) We need to rethink the ethical issues and translators social responsibility.
6.4 Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. Choices about what to translate can be moral, political and/or commercial. While it may be controversial to say that human nature is depraved or corrupted, human selfishness, greed and evil seem obvious. The west and non-west are alike in the history. In the shadow of the history of colonialism and
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation imperialism there was a significant political implication because of translations and translators. Nowadays translations political implication still exists in post-colonial form and has extended its influence in the context of globalization and technology. The translation industry is mainly market driven and owned by a minority who own majority resources, religious group and/or governments. However, after the battle of ideologies the survivors are those politically correct and not necessarily theoretically or logically correct. Those who need the translation are not necessarily the decision makers. Here Im not saying power or religious group or government are necessary the problems but translation agencies and translators need to be aware of their power, social responsibility and ethics in the discipline. We have to run away from the temptation to be evil and not to abuse our power, and we need to have wisdom and courage to face the top-down choices made by our powerful but not necessarily ethical stakeholders. Engaging laity does not to exclude the the significant roles of experts and scholars, but help the elites see their roles of training and developing the grass-root and the next generation with the ideology of seeing the instrumental value of the nature of translation: to transform other and to be transformed for a better world.
6.5 For yours is the kingdom and power and the glory forever. While the indeterminacy and uncertainties shattered our hope of knowing the exactness of the certainties in our mind, nothing can take away peoples faith in their heart which yearns for the process of justice (power and kingdom) and the ultimate aim of goodness and beauty (glory). As we are seeing the translation beyond transformation towards an ultimate goal, translation becomes religious. As we think beyond the ownership of the translation receivers, authors, translators and other institutions, kingdom and power and glory are His or something eternal. It gives us a new perspective, thrust and desire to translate more materials of eternal value.
- REFERENCES Cheung, Martha P. Y. 1998. Translation and power: A Hong Kong case study. Perspectives, 6: 2, 259 274 Cheung, Martha P.Y. 2002. Power and Ideology in Translation Research in Twentieth-Century China. In Theo. Hermans (eds.), Crosscultural transgressions: research models in Translation Studies II : historical and ideological issues . St. Jerome. Collins, James Charles. 2001. Good to great: why some companies make the leap--and others don't. HarperBusiness.
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Interaction between the Ideologies of Content and Process in Translation and its Implications for Bible Translation Chung, J. 2008 End Goals and Recommendation of BT/SU Training Movement: Vision beyond 2025, Word and Deed, Issue 6.3, Dallas: SIL. Drucker, Peter F. 2005. The Effective Executive. Beijing: JiXieGongYeChuBenShe. Gentzler, Edwin. 1993. Contemporary Transaltion Theories. London: Routledge. Hermans, Theo. 1985. The Manipulation of literature: studies in literary translation. Routledge. Lefevere, Andre. 2004. Translation, Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. Shanghai:
Nord, Christiane. 2001. Translating as a Purposeful ActivityFunctionalist Approaches Explained. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. Noss, Philip A. 2007. A history of Bible translation. Rome:Edizioni de storia e letteratura. Pym, Anthony. 2010. Exploring Translation Theories. Taylor & Francis, Steiner, George. 1998. After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press, USA. Vella, Jane Kathryn. 2002. Learning to listen, learning to teach: the power of dialogue in educating adults. John Wiley and Sons. Venuti, L. 2004. The Translation Studies Reader. 2nd ed. Routledge. Yan, Xiao-jiang. 2007. On the Role of Ideology in Translation Practice, in US-China Foreign Language, April. 2007, Vol. 5, No. 4. (Serial No. 43) . 2004. : . .
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