Perception is adaptive

So what does this have to do with translation? If communication, both as perception and cognition, is indeed primarily adaptive for the purposes of human interaction (cooperation/competition/expression), then we need to take this insight much more seriously in how we approach the text and the translator. We usually continue to view the text in terms of getting the references as well as the register and allusions right (e.g. understanding the historical context, the genre, intertextuality, etc.). These elements all continue to be important, but if communication is fundamentally adapted for interaction rather than information exchange, we must expect that both what the text communicated and will communicate in translation as well as what the translator brings to the text will be more hidden and identity-based than we have heretofore imagined. As it is cultural reproduction which most forms our identities, it is there we must look to uncover our communication strategies, often hidden even from ourselves.

An obvious an often-used example is from Amos 4.1, where he refers to the aristocratic women of Samaria as "Cows of Bashan." Naturally the translator should communicate that these women are aristocratic, and from Samaria. But more important, and central to the interactive nature of the communication, is that Amos is trying to get his audience to mock these women along with him. It is a negotiation, and one that translators should try very hard to reproduce. Some translators may not want to be so "rude" in the Bible, and so may soften the insult. One does not normally know the reason for different translations, but compare the following:

GNT: Listen to this, you women of Samaria, who grow fat like the well-fed cows of Bashan, who mistreat the weak, oppress the poor, and demand that your husbands keep you supplied with liquor!

CEV: You women of Samaria are fat cows! You mistreat and abuse the poor and needy, then you say to your husbands, “Bring us more drinks!”

Another example of this sort is from Gen 43:34:

CEV: ... So Joseph's brothers ate and drank with him and had a good time.

GNT: ... So they ate and drank with Joseph until they were drunk.

These are rather simple and even superficial examples, and would not require cognitive theories about animal domestication or human perception to deal with. But if human communication (with other humans as well as with other animals at some level) is basically about interaction and not (so much) about information exchange, it is a game-changer.

For supporting evidence of communication-as-interaction, see Tomasello's work on language acquisition, and Patricia Kuhl on the linguistic genius of babies:

Finally, some of the posts in this series are relevant here as well: