372
15. Scenario Theory and Translation Theory
This study accepts the validity of certain translation principles which are widely held by professional translators of modern secular materials, and by Scripture translation
organizations. Translating according to these principles is variously known as
•
dynamic translation
•
functional equivalence, or
•
meaning-based translation. In this chapter I briefly outline these translation principles and then demonstrate how the
theory of scenarios both validates these principles of translation theory and helps the translator to meet their demands.
15.1. Basic translation principles 15.1.1. Translating meaning rather than words
Translation is not the transfer of an original communicator’s words into another language. This can be clearly demonstrated with modern languages. The French J’ai soif
is translated into English as ‘I am thirsty’. Translating the words individually would produce the sentence ‘I have thirst’, and this would be comprehensible. But ‘I have thirst’
is a bad translation, because it is not natural English.
Translation, then, is the transfer of an original communicator’s meaning into another language. Translation does not communicate the original meaning by reproducing the
form of the source language, but by expressing that meaning in the natural form of the target language. Nida and Taber
1969 :12 put it thus:
Translating must aim primarily at “reproducing the message.” … The translator must strive for equivalence rather than identity. In a sense this is just another way of emphasizing the
reproduction of the message rather than the conservation of the form of the utterance, ….
Meaning-based translation assumes that “author intent” is what determines the meaning of a text
Callow 1998 and that this meaning can normally be adequately
recovered from the text itself and adequately communicated in any language and culture. Determining the author’s intended meaning necessarily requires interpretation of the text
through careful exegesis. Such exegesis involves discourse analysis of the source text, based on studying the author’s use of grammar, syntax, and vocabulary, and making
plausible judgments as to the author’s intended meaning in the light of what is known about the author, the original audience, and the context of the original communication
Mann and Thompson 1987 :4–5.
Meaning-based translation is sometimes referred to negatively as “free” translation or “paraphrase”. Each of these terms is accurate if used to refer to the way a meaning-
based translation is free to use a different “form” of grammar or lexicon from the Source Language, i.e. by paraphrasing, stating the same message in different words. However,
the terms as popularly used imply that the translation has been free in changing the “meaning” of the text, by ill-advisedly “paraphrasing” rather than being “strictly
accurate”. Undoubtedly, once a translator attempts to make a writer’s meaning clear, some people will disagree with the translator’s exegetical choice, or success in
15. Scenario Theory and Translation Theory 373
phraseology, but this does not destroy the fundamental principle that the meaning of the Source Language should not be changed in translation, whereas the form can be.
Catford 1965
:26–27 gives a simple but telling example of this principle, SL standing for Source Language and TL for Target Language:
SL text It’s raining cats and dogs.
TL text 1 Il est pleuvant chats et chiens. Word-for-word
TL text 2 Il pleut des chats et des chiens. Literal
TL text 3 Il pleut à verse.
Free
No one who speaks French can doubt that only one of these three options can be regarded as “good” translation. Catford defines the different translation approaches in terms of the
level at which equivalence of meaning is sought, where
•
word-for-word translation seeks equivalence at word level
•
literal translation seeks equivalence at group level i.e. phrase level, and
•
free translation seeks equivalence up to the highest level clause, sentence, right up to discourse.
Developments in text linguistics and discourse analysis support the need for meaning- based translation to seek equivalence right up to discourse level, changing form where
necessary, to preserve equivalence of meaning. Catford 1965
:27 defines a good trans- lation as one which “is interchangeable with the SL [Source Language] text in
situations”. Thus good translation is concerned with the transfer of the contextual meaning, not the form, of a source text, whether oral or written.
This understanding of translation is not new. Sluiter 1997
:216 notes that “Jerome 4th century CE, who translated the Bible into Latin … firmly places himself in the
tradition of Horace, Cicero, and Seneca, rejecting a literalistic approach in favour of one aiming to convey the intention of the words.” Sluiter quotes:
For not only do I admit, but I even freely proclaim that when I translate Greek texts, with the exception of Holy Scripture where even the word order is a mystery, I do not translate word-for-
word, but meaning for meaning Letters 57:5.
Somehow, as Jerome himself felt, Bible translation has often been regarded as an exception to the rule that translation transfers meaning not form.
15.1.2. Translation and the culture barrier
In simultaneous translation, this transfer of meaning is at the same time, usually in the same place, and sometimes to members of the same audience, as the original com-
municator’s message. The need for translation, however, implies a language barrier and, therefore, to some extent a culture barrier, between the original communicator and the
audience.
With written translation, this transfer of meaning is always at a different time, and almost always in a different place and to a different audience from that which the original
communicator was addressing. Typically, this new audience not only differs in time, place, and language from the original audience, but also in culture.
374 Section 4. Scenarios and Translation
In the case of Bible translation, this transfer of meaning is at the least almost 2,000 years distant in time, almost always in a different place, and always to a different
audience from that which the original communicator was addressing. The huge time difference and the different audience means that the knowledge, attitudes, and
assumptions of the new audience are likely to be hugely different from those of the original audience.
It is this huge cultural difference between the original author and audience on the one hand, and the new target audience on the other hand, which makes Bible translation
such a complex task. If translation were simply a matter of transferring words, then the difference in cultures would be of minor significance, affecting only the lexicon and
grammar. But translation is about transferring meaning, and the meaning of everything that is read or heard is interpreted through the cultural grid of one’s own personal
experiences. Words are not culturally-accepted symbols equating one to one with universal concepts, but are culturally-accepted symbols related to culturally-defined
concepts. As Tyzmoczko
1978 :43 says:
Knowing the semantic structure of a language, I have argued, depends upon knowing about the speakers, their environment, their society and their beliefs.
Consequently, not only must the form of the source text be altered to match the grammar and lexicon of the target language, but also information implicit in the source text must
be made explicit, so that members of the new target audience, whose knowledge and assumptions are different from those of the original audience, can correctly understand
the original message.
In normal communication, as Relevance Theory Sperber and Wilson 1986
makes clear, the speaker regularly encodes less than he means, on the assumption that the hearer
possesses enough shared knowledge to accurately “read between the lines” and correctly understand the message. The more knowledge is shared by speaker and hearer, the more
is left implicit. The less shared knowledge, the more explicit the text must be. This shared knowledge provides a “mutual cognitive environment” for speaker and audience, and
consists of the real-life communication situation together with all the shared information stored in culturally-based mental scenarios.
Thus communication is not achieved by a text alone, but also requires the communicator and audience to have a “mutual cognitive environment”, in the light of
which the communicator adapts the mode of expression and degree of explicitness to the audience’s knowledge and the audience makes assumptions as to the communicator’s
meaning
Sperber and Wilson 1986 :137–138:
We assume that a crucial step in the processing of new information, and in particular of verbally communicated information, is to combine it with an adequately selected set of background
assumptions - which then constitutes the context - in the memory of the deductive device.
The chief responsibility for ensuring accurate communication lies with the communicator, as Sperber and Wilson
1986 :43 explicitly state:
It is left to the communicator to make correct assumptions about the codes and contextual information that the audience will have accessible and be likely to use in the comprehension
process. The responsibility for avoiding misunderstandings also lies with the speaker, so that all the hearer has to do is go ahead and use whatever code and contextual information come most
easily to hand.
15. Scenario Theory and Translation Theory 375
The original authors of Scripture had to “make correct assumptions about the codes and contextual information” that their audience would “have accessible and be likely to
use in the comprehension process”, and they wrote their text accordingly. Similarly, translators, in trying to pass on those authors’ original messages to new audiences, must
strive to make correct assumptions as to what their own audiences will understand, and adjust the text of their translations in order to communicate the original meaning
accurately and avoid misunderstandings. This conforms to Grice’s first maxim of quantity
1975 :45 “Make your contribution as informative as is required”. Since
people’s understanding is based on information stored in their culturally-based mental scenarios, and since the target audience of a Bible translation never shares the same
culture as the original authors and audiences, translations regularly must be more explicit than the original texts in order to successfully communicate the meaning of the original
message.
Using the appropriate level of explicitness in translation does not only affect whether the target audience can understand the translation but also affects whether they will try to
understand it. Sperber and Wilson 1986
:125, the proponents of Relevance Theory, make two fundamental observations about relevance:
Extent condition 1: an assumption is relevant in a context to the extent that its contextual effects in this context are large.
Extent condition 2: an assumption is relevant in a context to the extent that the effort required to process it in this context is small.
In other words, when an audience hears a message, the degree of relevance they assign to it does not depend simply on the content of the message, “its contextual effects”, but also
on how easy the message is to follow and understand. If the text seems unnecessarily obscure, the audience may simply give up trying to understand it. As Sperber and Wilson
1986 :157 point out:
An addressee who doubts that the communicator has chosen the most relevant stimulus compat- ible with her communicative and informative intentions - a hearer, say, who believes that he is
being addressed with deliberate and unnecessary obscurity - might doubt that genuine communication was intended, and might justifiably refuse to make the processing effort
required.
15.1.3. Accuracy, clarity, and naturalness
As is evident from the discussion above, translation, as a specific type of commu- nication, has three fundamental strands: accuracy, clarity, and naturalness
Barnwell 1986
:23. Accuracy means accurately communicating the original author’s intended meaning as evaluated through exegesis of the original text. Clarity means that ordinary
members of the target audience can clearly understand that meaning. Naturalness means that the form of the translation is the natural form of the target language, including not
only basic grammar and lexicon, but also word order, metaphor, idiom, language level and discourse features, etc. as appropriate for the specific genre being translated. These
elements are weighted in order of importance, but a good translation should include all three.
Unfortunately, translations based on this three-point ideology, such as the Good News
1986 :vii–vii, which attempt to be clear and natural as well as accurate, are
sometimes singled out for criticism. Some criticism concerns the style of translation,
376 Section 4. Scenarios and Translation
lamenting its low literary merits. The appropriateness of language level and style, however, can only be evaluated by the intended audience which includes “all who use
English as a means of communication” 1986
:vii. Some criticism concerns a particular exegetical point which the critic believes has been oversimplified, ignored, or wrongly
expressed. Yet often it is only because the translators have attempted to be clear and natural that this point has come to the critic’s attention. Other more literal translations
may well be unclear and unnatural and even miscommunicate to the majority of ordinary readers, yet because they stick closely to the words of the original text they can be judged
in the eyes of the critic at least to be accurate. However, if only a very few academically and theologically astute people correctly understand the “accurate”
translation, then the translation fails in its role as a means of communication.
For example, high-level vocabulary, such as “propitiation”, cannot accurately communicate if people do not understand it. Compare translations of 1 John 2:2:
•
“And he is the propitiation for our sins” AV
•
“He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins” NIV
•
“And Christ himself is the means by which our sins are forgiven” TEV
Likewise Greek idioms do not accurately communicate if people understand them to mean something different from what the original text meant. Compare translations of
Romans 12:20:
•
“thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head” AV
•
“you will heap burning coals on his head” NIV
•
“you will make him burn with shame” TEV
Such technical vocabulary and foreign idioms rarely cause problems in comprehension for academics and theologians. However, by definition, such people are
not typical members of the target audience of most Bible translations. This helps explain the paradox that those most able to evaluate the exegetical accuracy of a translation may
at the same time be less aware of the need for clarity and naturalness. This, I suspect, comes in part from seeing a translation as primarily a kind of crib sheet to the original
wording of the original text, and in part from being inured to unnatural expressions through long exposure to reading fairly literal translations of foreign literature, such as
the Scriptures, and through a very literal approach to the practice of translation such as used to be the norm in Classics. I bear personal witness to the fact that an English
classical education can desensitize one to normal good English style, since in translating say Caesar’s Gallic Wars, one could quite happily write “Caesar having thrown a bridge
across the river …”. Such a translation proves that the translator has correctly identified the words and grammatical structures of the original text, but it is nevertheless unnatural
English both grammatically and lexically.
It has long been recognized by theorists on translation that the word-for-word approach to translation serves only a very limited academic purpose
Catford 1965 :25:
A word-rank-bound translation is useful for certain purposes, for instance, for illustrating in a crude way differences between the SL and the TL in the structure of higher-rank units - as in
some kinds of interlinear translation of texts in ‘exotic’ languages.
Yet, as Porter 1999
:38 points out, in a paper concerning the Contemporary English Version, the tendency to equate “good” translation with literal translation is widespread:
15. Scenario Theory and Translation Theory 377
The CE is a dynamic or functional equivalence translation, as noted above. This method of Bible translation runs contrary to the British tradition, inherited from the study of classical languages,
with its emphasis upon translation as the sign of understanding.
However, even some classical scholars were aware of the need for accuracy, clarity, and naturalness. Porter
1999 :40 quotes Jowett in his preface to his translation of Plato’s
dialogues from Grant 1961
:136:
It [the translation] should be read as an original work, and should also be the most faithful transcript which can be made of the language from which the translation is taken, consistently
with the first requirement of all, that it be English. Further the translation being English, it should also be perfectly intelligible in itself without reference to the Greek, the English being
really the more lucid and exact of the two languages.
Whilst few today would take the extreme ethnocentric glossocentric? view that English, or any other language, is “really the more lucid and exact”, Jowett’s point holds
good, that a translation should be “perfectly intelligible in itself”. According to Paul 2 Timothy 3:15 the holy Scriptures “are able to make you wise for salvation through faith
in Christ Jesus”
NIV . Unless Paul’s comment applies only to the Scriptures in the
original language, then any translation of the Scriptures must also be “perfectly intelligible in itself” so that those who read and hear it may themselves also become
“wise for salvation”.
15.1.4. Acceptability
A further quality of a good translation, which relates as much to sociolinguistics as to linguistics proper, is acceptability. A translation may be exegetically accurate, clearly
understood, and in natural language, but if it is not accepted by the people for whom it is intended, then it will not be used.
Some of the factors involved may relate to the text itself. For example, in a trans- lation of Christian scriptures, Christian terminology borrowed from the national language
may be acceptable and desired by the literate Church hierarchy, but not understood by the majority of believers. Unless the translation team is in dialogue with Church leaders
about who the translation is for, and how it might be used, then the use of vernacular terms instead of familiar “Christian” vocabulary may gain clarity at the expense of
official opprobrium. Likewise, the use of terminology from traditional religions may make the translation clear to the wider community, but be unacceptable to churchgoers
who already use the Christian jargon. Again there is the need for dialogue about the intended use of the translation.
Some factors may relate to the actual production of the translation.
•
Is the type too small to read at night by kerosene lamp for village worship?
•
Is the paper quality too poor for a religious book?
•
Is the colour of the cover inauspicious?
•
Is the book too heavy to hold comfortably?
•
Does it cost too much?
•
In the case of Bible translation:
Are the verses shown the same way and in the same place as in national language Bibles?
378 Section 4. Scenarios and Translation
Are verse numbers combined e.g. 1–3 so you cannot find a specific verse if asked?
Other factors relate to social issues within and outside the community, in particular in the case of translation of scriptures. Is the vernacular perceived as a language “unfit”
to convey a religious message? If traditional religions use “holy” languages in the domain of worship and religious teaching, then there may be a perception that religion is
meant to be mystical and obscure, not revealed to ordinary people in their own language. Is a meaning-based vernacular translation likely to be criticized as “different therefore
wrong” by Christians outside the group, who use a national-language literal translation? Are the Christian leaders who speak the vernacular prepared to face that criticism, and
justify the vernacular translation? Unless such leaders have themselves been involved in the translation programme, advising and checking, then it is unlikely that they would take
on such an onerous task.
Whereas accuracy, clarity, and naturalness can be achieved by the translation team’s diligence in exegesis, linguistic research, and comprehension testing, acceptability can
only be achieved by involving others, in discussion of the aims and objectives of the translation project, the style of translation, the members of the translation team, the
people who will be involved in checking, and even printing details such as font size and verse numbering.
15.1.5. Target audience and target use
The first decision one must make as a translator is to define the target audience. This is obvious, inasmuch as it determines the language into which the translation will be
made, e.g. French or Russian. However, the decision is much more far-reaching than that. Who is intended to understand this translation?:
•
Adults only, or also children?
•
If children, children of what age?
•
Men only or also women?
•
Town people only, or also rural people?
•
Educated only, or also illiterates?
•
In the case of Bible translation, Christians only, or also non-Christians?
•
Mother tongue speakers, or also those for whom it is a second language? Once this decision has been made, the translator can consider, and indeed check by
comprehension testing, how far the translation meets the criteria of clarity and natural- ness. Moreover, since the criterion of accuracy includes accurate comprehension as well
as accurate exegesis, a translation can only be evaluated as to how well it communicates with a specific audience in its intended use. Thus a translation intended for private study
by the educationally élite will be different from a translation intended for reading aloud in a nonliterate setting, and each must be evaluated in its own context.
Pike 1992
:233 points out that the relationship between the communicator and the audience is fundamental in communication:
Underlying every text is the relation, actual or potential, of the encoder to the decoder. That relation is the I-Thou-Here-Now Axis in which I is the encoder, thou is the decoder, both in the
same place and time. For communication to take place all four elements are required. The
15. Scenario Theory and Translation Theory 379
significance of here and now for speaking and hearing is modified somewhat for writingfilming and readingviewing.
In translation, of course, there is a special problem, since the
•
translator is not the original I
•
target audience is not the original thou, and
•
original here and now have become a there and then. Pike
1992 :233 points out the responsibilities of encoder and decoder in the normal
communication situation:
Encoders choose the topic appropriate to their interests and to those of their chosen audience decoder. The audience can choose whether to continue the decoding process or not; hence the
success of the communication is dependent on both parties. How close the decoder’s understanding is to the encoder’s intent differs from person to
person. As a decoder of the ZPG letter, I can state only what I understand the message to be. In order to understand some messages the study of many other texts is often required - that is what
education is all about.
This places a great responsibility on translators, who act as pseudo-authors appropriating the original author’s “I” and thus must take into account their own target audience. Yet
they do not change the original author’s topic or message to match it to their own target audience’s interests. Rather they translate because they believe that the text written for a
very different audience still meets the needs of their own audience.
So how can translators take their own audience into account? First, by taking seriously Pike’s comment that “In order to understand some messages the study of many
other texts is often required.” In the case of Bible translation, these other texts include
•
other biblical and extrabiblical texts in the original languages
•
grammars
•
lexicons
•
word studies
•
commentaries, and
•
books on the history, archaeology, daily life, and beliefs of the original author and audience.
As translators, they have access to such books. But in many cases, their target audiences do not. Translators, then, should take advantage of all such materials to decode the text
accurately. Scholarship is the touchstone of the accuracy of the translation.
Secondly, by taking seriously Pike’s comment that “Underlying every text is the relation, actual or potential, of the encoder to the decoder. That relation is the I-Thou-
Here-Now Axis in which I is the encoder, thou is the decoder, both in the same place and time.” Translators are communicating with people whom they know in the I-thou-here-
now reality of life. They can test their audience’s understanding of the message, and they can ensure that the message is communicated in a way that is clearly understood. So it is
the target audience’s understanding and perception that is the touchstone of the clarity and naturalness of the translation.
Translation by its nature is not only transferring a message to a different language, but also to a different culture. And this fact greatly affects the clarity of the text. The
380 Section 4. Scenarios and Translation
more different the culture of original author and current target audience, the more different their scenarios, and the more implicit information will need to be made explicit.
Pike 1992
:234 comments from personal cross-cultural experience:
The notion of script is important here Schank and Abelson, 1977
. A larger event may be made up of smaller, predictable events which are expected by members of a cultural group. Hence the
closer the referential structure of the decoder to that of the encoder, the fewer will be the details needing to be addressed overtly. In this regard, when I was working with a text in India, being
ignorant of many such scripts, I had to address much more detail, in order to understand, than would a local person; in the process, my referential structure was greatly enlarged
The way that shared cultural knowledge affects the form of communication cannot be overstated. Without knowledge of the original author and audience’s cultural
scenarios, accurate exegesis of a text is impossible. Similarly, without knowledge of the target audience’s cultural scenarios, effective communication is impossible. Typically the
translation will need to be more explicit than the source text, precisely because the target audience does not share all of the original communicator’s mental scenarios.
15.2. Scenario theory’s contribution to translation theory
The strength of the meaning-based approach has been the fact that it has allowed ordinary people to read and understand Scripture, just as they would any other book. The
weakness of the meaning-based approach has been a lack of theoretical underpinning from linguistic theory.
For example, Nida’s approach to translation as “functional equivalence” is widely acknowledged for its communicative power
Pearson 1999 :82:
Indeed, it can be very convincingly argued that this method of translation, along with many of the warnings that go with it concerning how to handle style and idiom that exist in the source
language, is the best way to communicate the most meaning to the largest possible audience.
Yet Pearson 1999
:83 also says that there needs to be “serious re-examination of the theory”. There are four basic assumptions of Nida’s theory of functional equivalence
which Pearson 1999
:83–84 believes need evaluating as to whether and to what extent they are true:
1. A translation cannot be said to be a good translation unless it communicates the meaning as understood by the original author to the receptor in his own language, and does it well.
2. The original meaning as understood by the original author is apprehendable and communicable by the translator.
3. ‘Anything that can be said in one language can be said in another, unless the form is an essential element of the language.’
4. ‘To preserve the content of the message the form [of the source language] must be changed.’
I believe that modern linguistic insights in discourse analysis, and particularly the application of scenario theory to discourse analysis, provide at least partial answers to
theoretical problems such as these.
15.2.1. Author intent
As to point 1, that a translation should communicate the meaning of the original author, there is strong support for this both in everyday language use, and in linguistic
writings. In an everyday situation the addressee assumes author intent whenever he or she questions the speaker “What do you mean by such and such?” Similarly, the speaker has
15. Scenario Theory and Translation Theory 381
the right to refute the hearer’s interpretation, “That’s not what I mean”. In the linguistic world, authors emphasize the primacy of the author’s intended meaning, e.g. Callow and
Callow 1992
:5:
It is the intended meaning of the speaker which controls the selection of specific verbal forms, and any analysis of the resultant discourse which does not give due weight to that intended
meaning will be inherently incomplete and defective.
Similarly, Sperber and Wilson 1986
:34 state:
Thus, to communicate efficiently, all the speaker has to do is to utter a sentence only one inter- pretation of which is compatible with the assumption that she is obeying the co-operative
principle and maxims.
Also Chafe 1976
:31–32, whilst discussing the use in speech of the first and second person pronouns as givens, stresses indirectly the interdependence of speaker and ad-
dressee, each being conscious of the other, which presupposes that the addressee will take speaker intent into account:
The fact that the speaker and addressee themselves are regularly treated as given and pronom- inalized as I and you respectively stems from the same consideration. The speaker is conscious
of the addressee, and the addressee is conscious of the speaker.
Baker 1992
:155 again, in stressing that grammatical choices are the speaker’s prerogative, implies that these choices, and their intended effect, are part of the meaning
of the message:
Similarly, an element which has been mentioned before may be presented as new because it is unexpected or because the speaker wishes to present it in a contrastive light.
Similarly, Mann, Matthiessen, and Thompson 1992
:45 state that it is the author who is in charge of structuring his material to achieve his own purposes, implying that
the translator should also strive to structure the material to fulfil the original author’s original purposes:
Text structuring relations are functional; the character that they all share can be stated in terms of the categories of effects that they produce. They can be described in terms of the purposes of
the writer, the writer’s assumptions about the reader, and certain propositional patterns in the subject matter of the text. The text structuring relations reflect the writer’s options of
organization and presentation…
Scenarios, as mental structures, affect the way that the speaker or author structures the text, including both grammatical and lexical choice, as shown above for both Greek
and Parkari. Since the source text for translation is itself structured in accordance with the author’s mental scenarios, the meaning of the text must be the meaning in the
author’s mind which that text reflects.
15.2.2. Recoverability of author intent
As to point 2, that one can know what the original author meant, this study demon- strates that, in addition to other documented linguistic data for determining the author’s
intended meaning such as word order and boundary markers, there are both grammatical and lexical indications of the presence of certain scenarios, which give clear
markers in the text as to the author’s intent. It is true that “uncertainty exists concerning the meaning and, in the case of textual criticism, content of the documents upon which
Christian and for the Hebrew Bible, Jewish faith and practice are based”
Pearson 1999
:81. However, scenario theory provides a theoretical basis for believing that the
382 Section 4. Scenarios and Translation
original author’s intent can be plausibly reconstructed from the text. Scenario theory helps identify Hearer-old and Hearer-new information, helps “fill in the gaps” of the
explicit text, helps understand implicatures, and helps illuminate what was focal in a given scenario, and thus clarifies what the translator must make explicit in translation to
preserve the original focus.
Scenario theory, along with other theories used in discourse analysis, should defuse the argument that author intent cannot be known. Jordan
1992 :200 states:
In my view we cannot possibly know - or reliably guess - what was in the writer’s mind even if we asked her in composing each part of the text, and we must analyze instead what she did
write.
Even if we accept so radical a view, we do have biblical texts recording substantially not only what the original authors actually wrote, but the way they chose to write it. What
we can deduce from their choice of semantic structure, grammar and lexicon is at least a sound basis, in the text itself, for determining author intent. I believe that scenario theory
demonstrably links explicit grammatical and lexical markers with implicit scenarios, and thus provides a means of distinguishing what is implicit, that is deliberately
communicated.
Determining meaning i.e. the author’s intended meaning is not an issue restricted to Scripture translation. Even in ordinary conversation, or writing, as Sperber and Wilson
1986 :34 point out, the text is frequently ambiguous, but the message is rarely so, since
the speaker and audience share a basic assumption about what is relevant:
Recall for instance, our example 16–18: 16 Jones has bought the Times.
17 Jones has bought a copy of the Times. 18 Jones has bought the press enterprise which publishes the Times.
Usually only one meaning will seem true or only one will be relevant. Hence the maxims and the inferences they give rise to make it possible to communicate an unambiguous thought by
uttering an ambiguous sentence.
Mann, Matthiessen, and Thompson 1992
:50–51 point out a necessary caveat, in the context of analysing the rhetorical structure of the text, that we can never be “certain” of
author intent:
Since the analyst has access to the text, has knowledge of the context in which it was written, and shares the cultural conventions of the writer and the expected readers, but has no direct
access to either the writer or other readers, judgments about the writer or readers must be plausibility judgments rather than judgments of certainty.
It is true that, in exegeting biblical texts, we do not have all the background information about speaker, addressee, and situation to resolve all ambiguity, but we can
resolve much of it, by applying our knowledge of grammar, historical background, and linguistics. But in the end we must realize that we are sometimes making “plausibility
judgments rather than judgments of certainty”, just as we do in our interpretation of everyday communication.
However, the fact that our understanding of author intent will be imperfect, does not argue against making our best efforts to determine it, and use it as the yardstick against
which to evaluate the “accuracy” of our translation. As Mann, Matthiessen, and Thompson
1992 :66 point out, to understand a text we must inevitably move beyond
what is explicit and make judgments as to what the writer intended the text to mean:
15. Scenario Theory and Translation Theory 383
The abundance of unsignalled relations highlights the importance of the differences between text understanding, which involves recognition of text structure and relations, and a symbol
decoding task. Recognizing relations requires that the reader make judgments about the writer, including judgments about the plausibility of intentions. Symbolic decoding proceeds on the
basis of the conventional import of symbols and their compositions, without judging such factors.
If translators, who have access to the best theoretical and exegetical helps, do not make plausibility judgments as to what the original author meant, then their target
audiences will make such judgments, and will make them both more hastily and on less evidence. Scenario theory provides a strong theoretical basis for evaluating what meaning
may be plausibly deduced from the text.
15.2.3. Translatability
As to point 3, that any thought can be expressed in any language, there is no doubt that cultures and languages are very different from each other, and that there is not a one-
to-one correspondence between languages in either concepts, grammar, or lexicon. Nevertheless, scenario theory is based on the fact that although people categorize their
experiences and perceptions in different ways, there is such an enormous overlap of human experience that within any one culture people’s categories are remarkably
consistent that is they have essentially the same scenarios in their minds, and across cultures their experiences are still so remarkably similar that they have stored in their
minds enough world-knowledge that similar experiences to the author’s can be accessed. Callow and Callow
1992 :6 say:
The meaning expressed in verbal communication is a universal, i.e. it is capable of multiple realisation in words, but is independent of those realisations, which are specifics. … In
analysing discourse we are analysing a specific realisation of an underlying meaning which is a universal; it is capable in principle of realisation in any language.
Modern theories of communication do not try to say “My words mean this”, as if words had discrete, abstract, unchangeable definitions, but rather “My words are able to
trigger similar thoughts in your brain to the thoughts in mine, because you share some of my life experience.” Callow and Callow
1992 :6 say:
The kind of meaning with which we are concerned here is the meaning the speaker intends to convey. As he communicates he is using verbal forms as signals of his inward thoughts,
attitudes, emotions, purposes, etc. Words do not have meanings, they signal meanings.
Thus communication is not about stating in unambiguous lexical and grammatical forms 100 percent exactly what the author intended but being “good enough for the job in
hand”, i.e. good enough to signal to the hearers the inward thoughts, attitudes, emotions, and purposes, etc. of the speaker. This “good enough” is attainable in translation, and is,
in fact, all that is attainable in any form of communication. As Lakoff and Johnson
1980 :179 say about the audience’s role in communication:
We understand a statement as true in a given situation when our understanding of the statement fits our understanding of the situation closely enough for our purposes.
There is also experimental evidence, from Schank and Abelson 1977
:11, in support of the claim that the same meaning can be communicated adequately in different lan-
guages. They use computers to analyse texts and reduce them to language independent concepts, relying on scenario theory, especially scripts, plans, and goals. Two axioms of
Schank’s Conceptual Dependency Theory are especially relevant:
384 Section 4. Scenarios and Translation
A For any two sentences that are identical in meaning, regardless of language, there should be only one representation.
The above axiom has an important corollary that derives from it. B Any information in a sentence that is implicit must be made explicit in the representation of
the meaning of that sentence.
Based on this theory Schank and Abelson 1977
:177 have analyzed texts, reduced them to their explicit conceptual format, and translated them back successfully into Chinese,
Russian, Dutch, and Spanish, all using computer programs. Similar, but less documented or verifiable experimental evidence in favour of trans-
latability, is the fact that the New Testament has been translated into some thousand languages. I personally have been involved in one such translation, and the translation
team never had a problem such as “Can this be said?” but rather “How can we best say this?” The barrier to translation in the remaining languages is largely due to lack of
personnel, training, and resources. I have never heard of any project being abandoned due to the inherent untranslatability of the message into that particular language.
Scenario theory, whilst acknowledging the differences in people’s mental concepts due to different cultural and individual experiences, also argues that people can under-
stand new concepts and make sense of new ideas by making generalizations and inferences based on previous experiences. Since scenarios are formed by experience, they
can also be modified by experience. This means that new concepts can be communicated, so long as they are communicated within the framework of existing scenarios, thus
allowing the audience to categorize the new concepts appropriately and modify their mental scenarios accordingly.
15.2.4. Priority of meaning over form
As to point 4, that “To preserve the content of the message the form [of the source language] must be changed”, nobody argues that the form must always be changed other-
wise meaning will not be preserved, but that sometimes, indeed frequently, the form must be changed in order to preserve the meaning. The only alternative approach is for the
translator to preserve the form and ignore the meaning, thus leaving the reader to decipher the meaning. This form-based approach has two major flaws.
First, the form cannot be preserved. The translator has to tamper with the form. At the very least, the language used must be changed, else it is not translation. Word orders
may have to be changed where they are fixed, for example
•
SOV
to
SVO
•
adjective noun to noun adjective, or
•
preposition to postposition. Verbal forms may have to be changed, at least where there are fewer tenseaspect
distinctions in the target language than in the source language. Gender of nouns and hence agreement of adjectives and pronominal references may have to be changed.
Words may have to be changed to phrases, or verbs to nouns, where equivalent words are not available for the same concept, etc., etc. Having made these changes, some of the
clues as to meaning which were encoded in the original text, such as juxtapositions, tense usage, disambiguation due to gender markings, etc. will not be preserved in the
translation.
15. Scenario Theory and Translation Theory 385
Secondly, the reader has far less chance than the translator of correctly deciphering the meaning. I am presuming that readers do expect to get meaning from the text, which
is why they are reading it, and that they expect to get the original author’s meaning, whether they take that as the human writer’s or the Holy Spirit’s meaning. The reader no
longer has access to all the linguistic clues encoded in the original text, since the use of word order, tense and aspect markings, gender and person markings, etc. to keep track of
participants, show prominence, resolve ambiguity, and so on, will almost certainly be different between the source language and target language. Moreover, understanding a
literal translation requires background knowledge. This is shown practically by the existence of commentaries and Bibles with notes, and theoretically by scenario theory
and relevance theory. The reader and author need to have a “mutual cognitive environment”, i.e. the reader must share with the author similar mental scenarios
encoding their understanding of the world, if they are to correctly understand the message of the text. The average readers who do not know about the author and his world, or
share his linguistic and cultural presuppositions, cannot understand the author easily or accurately.
The task of understanding and expressing the author’s meaning is indeed hard, and some may doubt it is possible. However, the problem is not solved by leaving the total
burden of understanding i.e. exegesis to the readers, who have neither specialist knowledge nor time. It is better to see exegesis as the rightful preserve of the translator,
who, fallible though he or she is, has the time to use not only their own knowledge but draw on the expertise of others, including linguists, translation theorists, and theologians,
in order to make good justifiable exegetical decisions about the author’s meaning.
Whilst we cannot ever completely know the original author’s total intended meaning, we can be sure, on the theoretical basis which scenario theory provides, that a meaning-
based translation can more accurately convey the author’s meaning than a form-based translation. This is because meaning is communicated not by the form of words alone,
but through the grid of the author’s and audience’s scenarios, and where those scenarios are demonstrably different, the original form of the text will indeed need to be changed to
compensate for the different grid through which the text will be interpreted.
15.2.5. Meaning-based translation—a con or linguistically responsible?
In response to the concern that meaning-based translations, since their stated aim is clear and accurate communication of the original message, may be wrongly perceived as
being “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”, I heartily recommend a reminder in every translation, that it is a translation, i.e. an attempt to make the meaning
of the original author’s message clear. Whilst acknowledging that any attempt at meaning-based translation will inevitably fail in places in terms of accuracy, clarity, and
naturalness, I maintain the attempt is still worth making, and is the most linguistically responsible approach the translator can take.
As I hope I have already demonstrated, it is the mismatching of scenarios between different languages and cultures which frequently causes either noncommunication, or
miscommunication. This mismatch of scenarios, involving as it does the worldviews and presuppositions of differing cultures, is simply not addressed in the “modified literal”
style of translation represented by such major Bible translations as the
386 Section 4. Scenarios and Translation
•
Authorized Version
•
Revised Standard Version , and
•
New International Version .
Only a meaning-based approach to translation, seeing meaning as applying not merely at word, phrase, or clause level, but right up to discourse level, can accurately convey the
message of the biblical texts to today’s audience.
15.3. Chapter summary
Translation is the transfer of meaning across languages, and so requires the translator to interpret the meaning of the original text based on plausible judgments as to what the
original author of a text intended to communicate. With all translation, but especially with the translation of ancient documents, such as the Bible, the difference in culture
between the original and new target audiences means that the form of the message may need to be adjusted to make explicit what was implicit in the source text, quite apart from
changes of form due to using a different language, such as grammatical, syntactic, and lexical differences. A translation should be not only accurate but also clear and natural so
that the target audience can understand the meaning. Acceptability of a translation depends on sociolinguistic as well as linguistic issues. Apart from exegetical decisions,
every other aspect of a translation depends on the target audience.
Scenario theory provides theoretical justification for meaning-based translation. Scenario theory emphasizes that thinking and communication is fundamentally con-
ceptual, so that the meaning to be translated is not the words of the original text but the thoughts of the original author, as indicated by the text he wrote. Scenario theory
provides a conceptual framework for recognizing Hearer-old and Hearer-new marking and for identifying implicit participants, events, and relationships, which allows for better
discourse analysis and thus a clearer evaluation of the author’s intended meaning. Scenario theory provides a theoretical basis for translatability, since scenarios as mental
constructs are not only used to categorize new information but are also modified to include such information, making new conceptual categories and links as appropriate.
Scenario theory recognizes that conceptual structure is mirrored by language structure, thus enabling the translator not only to analyse the conceptual meaning of the source text
by studying its linguistic form, but also to choose the appropriate linguistic form for reexpressing those concepts in the target language.
387
16. Scenario Theory and Translation Problems
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