Paradigms, Paradigm Shifts and Paradigm Conflicts in Bible Translation: Insights, Questions and Possible Answers from Translation Studies

Dr. Sameh Hanna - United Bible Societies

The idea of ‘paradigm’ was first developed and promoted by the philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn (1962), as a conceptual tool that explains how a particular discipline of knowledge functions synchronically and develops diachronically. It was later borrowed into translation studies by Theo Hermans in the mid-1980s to introduce the then emerging descriptivist and systemic approach to translation as “a new paradigm in translation studies” (1985: 7). Although Kuhn did not give a neat definition of the concept, it was generally understood as “a model of scientific achievement that sets guidelines for research”, and as “a means for conducting research on a particular problem, a problem-solving device” (Crane 1972: 7, 29, cited in Hermans 1999: 9). A paradigm, in this sense, informs the theoretical assumptions underpinning the design of methodologies, conceptual tools and research programmes. With its double focus on theory and practice, any given paradigm is keen to foster solutions for real, practical problems. Over time, a dominant paradigm in a field becomes unable to accommodate theoretical contradictions, resolve paradoxes, nor answer practical challenges. This is when a crisis in that field emerges, and a new paradigm is needed. The moment of crisis involves a tension between the old, decaying paradigm and the new one which aspires to embrace the questions left unanswered. 

How does the concept of ‘paradigm’ help us map the conceptual topography of Bible translation, its theory and practice? How does it help in understanding the field of Bible translation at any given point in time, its dominant practices, key players (both individuals and institutions) and its underlying dichotomies (theory/practice, meaning/form, text/context, literalism/communicativeness, local-church centric/missionary-translator centric)? And how does it help us to understand the historical development of that field, its moments of crisis, changing modes of practice and transitions between old and new paradigms? Most importantly, how is disagreement and difference managed and negotiated at moments of crisis when two translation paradigms collide with their two different sets of theoretical assumptions about language, meaning and communication?

This paper seeks to facilitate a dialogue between Bible translation and translation studies in their most recent developments. In his latest publication, Contra Instrumentalism: A Translation Polemic (2019) Venuti captures all the paradigms (he uses the term ‘translation models’) that shaped translation theory and practice in two: the instrumentalist vs. the hermeneutic. Using Venuti’s latest work, among others, as well as examples of Bible translation in Arabic and English, in print editions and audio-visual formats, provisional answers to the above questions will be attempted. 

References

Crane, Diana. 1972. Invisible Colleges. Diffusion of Knowledge in Scientific Communities. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press

Hermans, Theo. 1999. Translation in Systems: Descriptive and System-Oriented Approaches Explained. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing

Hermans, Theo. 1985. ‘Introduction. Translation Studies and a New Paradigm’, in Hermans, T. (ed). The Manipulation of Literature. Studies in Literary Translation. London and Sydney: Croom Helm

Kuhn, Thomas. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press

Venuti, Lawrence. 2019. Contra Instrumentalism: A Translation Polemic. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press