Narrative
Narrative is one of the most common discourse genres. It is composed of sentences that are temporally organized, that is, sequenced according to time.
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Native translator
Same as Mother tongue translator.
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Natural
A translation is natural if its wordings and grammatical patterns are those which occur in the everyday speech and/or writing of its fluent speakers. Many language criteria should be checked to determine how closely a translation follows natural language patterns, including ordinary vocabulary and grammatical patterns, sentence length, word usage, normal idioms, figures of speech, understandability, complexity of clausal embeddings, and word order. Translators should always be a fluent, mother-tongue speakers of the language into which they are translating. They should also be sensitive to what is considered good style within their language group. A translation should not sound like a translation, but, rather, should sound like a normal discourse of the target language. Many English versions of the Bible are not in natural English, but, rather, have English words appearing in language forms which are like those of the original Biblical languages, instead of the target language. It is possible to preserve original meaning and express it naturally and clearly in a target language. This is translation in the truest, fullest sense.
See our Naturalness chart for English Bible versions.
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Neologism
Literally, "new word." A neologism is a word that is made up for a language. Some neologisms eventually become used by enough speakers so that they become natural words of the languages. Others do not. Translators should avoid making up new words for translation, even if it is difficult to find ways to express a concept in the target language. It is usually best to be patient and keep looking for ways of expressing the meaning of that concept in a natural way in the language. Sometimes the temptation to create neologisms occurs because one holds source language words themselves with such prestige that they become like linguistic icons, and it then becomes difficult to think of ways that the target language might express the total meaning behind such words. Often there will not be a word-for-word match for such source language words. One may need to find a periphrastic (not paraphrastic, which is a different concept) solution for a translation need. For instance, if current speakers of English do not naturally recognize the word "repent," it is translationally appropriate to express the meaning of "repent" periphrastically, such as with the phrase "turn from your sins."
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Nestle-Aland text
Greek text which follows the critical text hypothesis. Identical to the UBS text, except for some of the critical apparatus. Compare Majority Text.
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Obsolescent
Language which is obsolescent consists of words, phrases, or grammatical constructions which are passing out of current usage. They are no longer understandable in their earlier usage to a majority of speakers. For example, the meaning of 'alive' for the English word "quick" (as in KJV Heb. 4.12) is no longer known for most speakers. Instead, most speakers only know that the word "quick" means 'fast.' A word which is no longer used by speakers is called an archaism.
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Original texts
Same as Autographs.
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Oral language
Utterances which are spoken but not written. There often are some differences between oral and written language, but if a translator wishes his translation to have a high degree of clarity, the forms of his written language should not deviate too much from ordinary oral language. In many people groups there is no written language, only a tradition of oral language. For these groups to utilize written language an orthography is developed, then literacy introduced.
It is often assumed that a people group must be literate before it can benefit from Bible translation or other literature. However, this viewpoint on literacy is not shared by the entire non-Western world. There are other media besides writing in which literature can be accessible, including oral media such as radio, cassette tapes, and memorized recitation, audiovisual media such as video tapes, film, and television, and kinesthetic media such as drama.
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Orthography
A writing system for a languge. Essentially the same as an alphabet. Before a people group can become literate an orthography must be developed for their language.
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Other Tongue Translator (OTT)
A member of a translation team who does not know the translation language as a mother tongue speaker, yet who has an important role in the translation process. This person typically fills a team role such as linguist, exegete, consultant, literacy teacher, or program advisor. Sometimes an OTT can make valuable translation suggestions, but the actual translation should almost always be done by a mother tongue translator (MTT)
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Parallelism
Parallelism is the use of identical or equivalent syntactic constructions in corresponding clauses, such as repeated lines of a poetic couplet.
See:
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Paraphrase
Paraphrase is the process of restating the meaning of something in other words. The original wording and its paraphrase are intended to be synonymous. The Living Bible was properly called a paraphrase by Kenneth Taylor, its author, who used as his source text the American Standard Version of the Bible and reworded it so that it could be understood by his young children for his family's devotions. It was so effective in helping his family that he published his paraphrase as the Living Bible. Technically, paraphrase is restatement of something in the same language, but the term paraphrase is often used non-technically by people concerned about Bible translation issues to refer to restatement of meaning using one's own opinions as to what the original meaning of the Biblical text is. Used in this sense, the term typically has negative connotations. When so used as a non-technical term, paraphrase is essentially synonymous with interpretive translation. Compare Periphrasis.
Following is an example of paraphrase:
"Eschew obfuscation" is a phrase intended to be humorous because it breaks its own instruction. Neither of its words are known to a majority of average, fluent speakers of English. Paraphrases of this phrase, which would be understandable to most speakers, would be:
"Avoid using big words when you speak."
"Don't use big words."
Visit the following webpage on paraphrase:
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Partial meaning
When a translation communicates only part of the essential meaning of the original to its users. The existence of partial meaning is determined through community testing. Literal translation of some Biblical idioms produces partial meaning. See Inadequate meaning.
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Periphrasis
Periphrasis refers to using more words than necessary. Periphrasis can be used for rhetorical effect, often of emphasis. Periphrasis is sometimes required when a target language lacks a word to match a word in the source language. In this case, the translator uses a phrase or sentence to express the same meaning as the source language word. Although the two terms sound nearly identical, periphrasis is different from paraphrasis, which is the use of paraphrase.
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Perlocutionary force
Perlocutionary force refers to the impact or effect an utterance has upon its recipient, for example, whether what is said or written persuades, frightens, ridicules, or amuses. A translation should attempt to convey to its audience the same impact that the source text had upon its audience. See Perlocutionary act.
Compare Illocutionary force.
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Personification
In personification an object or concept is referred to as if it were a person:
Wisdom is personified in Proverbs:
Prov. 1.20 Wisdom shouts in the streets. She cries out in the public square. (NLT)
Rivers and hills are personified in Psalm 8.8:
Let the rivers clap their hands in glee!
Let the hills sing out their songs of joy before the Lord. (NLT)
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Perspicuity
Perspicuity refers to being clearly expressed and easy to understand. It is an important quality that allows the reader to clearly understand details as well as main points of a translation. During community testing, the translator should ask about something that may not be clear, "What does this mean to you?" To see if an entire passage is clear, he should ask, "What is the main point of this?" If hearers cannot clearly understand something, the translation needs to be revised until they do. It is often the case that when a translation is not perspicuous certain important forms of the target language are missing, which are functionally equivalent to forms of the source language which allowed the source text to be perspicuous (clear) to its hearers. Perspicuity is essentially a synonym for clarity. We are not referring here to lack of clarity (perspicuity) due to the complexity of some concepts. We are only referring to linguistic clarity which can exist in most normal language exchanges.
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Phrase
A phrase is a grammatical construction consisting of two or more words. These words have a particular syntactic relationship to each other which is part of their meaning within the discourse in which the phrase is found. This phrasal meaning must be translated as well as the meaning of individual words.
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Plain English
A form of English which is clear, concise, direct, straightforward, natural, and lively. It is promoted by a rising tide of voices as a kind of English which should be imitated by scientists, computer technicians, linguists, theologians, Bible translators, and others who produce technical speeches, articles, and user manuals. It is closely related to vernacular language. Plain English has its own clear vocabulary and grammar, both of which are subsets of more complicated, often convoluted and esoteric, dialects of English. Plain English contrasts with academese , legalese, and translationese. Some English Bible versions, such as the LB, TEV, CEV, NCV, and, to a large degree, GW, NLT, and The Message, are written in Plain English.
Plain English features active verbs. It uses passive and complex gerund ("-ing") verb phrases only when required by the situation, minimizes series of prepositional phrases, and avoids runon sentences.
Research shows that hearers, including those who are technically inclined, understand and enjoy Plain English better than other dialects of English.
Above all, Plain English "eschews obfuscation" (humor alert)!!
Internet resources on Plain English are:
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Polyvalence
Synonymous with Multivalence.
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Possession
Languages use a variety of forms to indicate possession. Some, like English, mark possession by some affix on the possessor. English does this with the suffix -'s on the possessor:
John's book
Greek marks possession with the genitive case suffix on the possessor:
biblivon Iwavnn-ou
book John-of.him
Other languages, like Cheyenne, mark possession by a prefix on the object possessed:
John he-môxe'êstoo'o
John his-book
In each case, the translator needs to use the form of the target language which usually indicates possession. He should not use an uncommon or unnatural form, even if it is a possible form, just so he can preserve the form of the source language as closely as possible.
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Pragmatics
Pragmatics is the study of language in context. Utterances do not simply "mean" something in isolation. They do not even fully mean something just by the addition of all the lexical (semantics) meanings of words and structures within utterances. Utterances also mean something within a context. There are a variety of contexts in which we speak, including intratextual (discourse) context, speech situation context, and cultural context.
Also see:
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Précis
A concise summary or abstract of some document. For the purposes of this glossary, we consider précise to be synonymous with Gist.
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Prescriptive grammar
Prescriptive grammar states rules for how people should speak a language. It contrasts with descriptive grammar which simply describes the rules (or principles) which people actually follow when they speak a language. Prescriptive grammar has also been called schoolbook grammar. Some examples of English rules which have been stated within prescriptive grammar are:
1. Never split an infinitive, as in "Remember to never split an infinitive."
2. Never end a sentence with a preposition, as in "That is something prescriptive grammarians cannot put up with."
3. Always use the nominative form of a pronoun after the verb "to be", as in "It is I," instead of the more common usage today of "It's me."
4. Always use "whom", the so-called objective form of the relative pronoun "who", when referring to a syntactic object which precedes its subject and verb, as in "I wondered whom you saw," instead of what sounds more natural to many (most?) speakers today, "I wondered who you saw."
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