Journal of Translation 20.1 (2024) now available

The latest issue of SIL’s Journal of Translation is now available. Visit the links below to read all articles free of charge.

Journal of Translation 20.1 (2024)

1. Liao, Doug. “Listening to the Other: Kuang’s Babel, Postcolonialism, and Bible Translation.”
2. Vaz, Christopher. “Going the Extra Mile: Improving Linguistic Quality in Translation.”
3. Adams, Ken. “How Long Will You Love Being “Upright”? The Danger of False Friends in Translation.”
4. Frost, Katie Hoogerheide. “Why Consider Local Genres in Translation?”
5. Kenmogne, Michel. “Bible Translation as Justice.”
6. Levinsohn, Stephen H. “Short Note: Translating the Additive גַּם Gam in 1 Samuel 22:7.”

Editor's Foreword

In JOT 20.1, we present two articles on the wider context of translation. We begin with Doug Liao’s work on surveying the issue of postcolonialism and its effect on Bible translation. How big an issue is this? For some it is a deeply held topic of historical and current concern, and we invite you to follow and interact with Liao’s overview and conclusions.

SIL’s Executive Director, Dr. Michel Kenmogne, follows with a timely and thought-provoking topic on Bible Translation as justice. He writes: “The translation of the Bible into minority languages has the potential to affirm the dignity and worth of translating communities as people created in the image of God (imago dei).” I look forward to feedback from readers on these valuable topics which consider translation apart from the domain of practical methodology and theory.

I can speak from personal experience: unlocking the power of local genres can be eye-opening in a translation program, and is an area of translation work which is under-studied. Katie Hoogerheide Frost gives a detailed overview of this topic—one which will stimulate new thinking in language programs and potentially initiate new approaches by practitioners and team members. This article builds on her fine presentation of this topic at the BT 2023 Conference in Dallas.

Two articles in this current issue deal with linguistic awareness. The first is from Chris Vaz, as he examines the role of translation consultants in improving linguistic quality in Bible translations. In all of the checking and investigation done by a consultant, where does linguistic insight fall in the range of important inspections and suggestions? Vaz takes us through a number of scenarios which will challenge the reader and the practitioner to take fresh looks at the text with “linguistic eyes.”

In the area of lexical choices, translators and consultants often encounter cross-language boundary cognates in their work. Mistakes made in appropriating false equivalence can seriously undermine a translation. While these have been widely studied in linguistics, Ken Adams makes a strong case for recognizing and avoiding such “false friends” in Bible translation into related languages.

Levinsohn concludes this issue of JOT with a valuable, short treatment of the translation of the Hebrew additive gam in 1 Samuel 22.

As always, we invite your feedback to editor_jot@sil.org on this collection of scholarship, in addition to your suggestions and inquiries regarding future articles and topics.

Freddy Boswell, editor

About the Journal of Translation

Published by SIL International, the Journal of Translation is an open access, peer-reviewed academic journal of translation theory and practice with a special interest in sacred text translation and local languages and cultures. For more information, please visit https://siljot.org.

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Journal of Translation
Freddy Boswell, series editor
Drew Maust, assistant editor
✉ editor_jot@sil.org
🌐siljot.org
@jotranslation