Processing data and Analysis
an integral part of the upward shift in the status of vernacular, the question of style was also vital. Luther advised the will be translator to use a vernacular proverb or
expression if it fitted in with the New Testament, in other words to add the wealth of imagery in the SL text by drawing on the vernacular tradition too.
I shall discuss the operation of this process model by referring to the situation in the Arab World. The academic language background in the Arab
World reveals a not untypical sociolinguistics setting in which the main regional languages. Arabic coexists with one or two imported and excolonial international
Languages. “Arabic itself has several varieties, from pure colloquial subregional
from to the traditional literary and religious language of classical Arabic ”.
19
One researcher might, for instance, have decided to write his or her research in Arabic
but has recently recognized that additionally an abstract in English needs to be provided. The conventional view of translation supposes an active original and
passive translation, creation followed by a passive act of transmission. But what if writing and translation are understood as interdependent, each bound to the other
in the recognition that representation is always an active process, that the original is also at a distance from its originating intention, that there is never a total
presence of the speaking subject in discourse. The poverty of our conventional understanding of fidelity lies in its
reliance on numerous sets of rigid binary oppositions which reciprocally validate one another. “Translation is considered to be an act of reproduction, through
19
John M Swales, English in Academic and research Setting. London; Cambridge University Press, 2007. p.104.
which the meaning of a text is transferred from one language to another”.
20
Each polar element in the translating process is construed as an absolute, and meaning
is transposed from one pole to the other. But the fixity implied in the oppositions between languages, between
original or copy, authors or translator, and by analogy, male or female, cannot be absolute; these terms are rather to be placed on a continuum where each can be
considered in relative terms. Attention must shift to those areas of identity where the intermediate comes into play. Equivalence in translation, as contemporary
translations theory emphasizes, cannot be one to one preposition. The process of translation must be seen as a fluid production of meaning, similar to other kinds of
writing. The hierarchy of writing roles, like gender identities, is increasingly to be recognized as mobile and per formative.
Translating is an act of interpretation. Religious authorities have always recognized this fact and that is why each major religious denomination has its own
approved translation of the Bible. Certain translations have been decisive in redirecting the meaning of the Bible at pivotal moments in history. The aim of
conversion which motivates evangelistic translations undertaken by missionaries around the globe is clearly stated; these translations based on the idea that the
Bible translations are target centered that is focused parameters of understanding of the readership.
The question of whether particular words are untranslatable is often debated, with lists being produced from time to time. These lists often include a
20
Sherry Simon, Cultural Identity and the Politics of Transmission. London; Routledge 1991. p. 11.