Gender-Sensitive Translations of the Bible

Translations, broadly speaking, are of two types. Type A translations are committed to the source text and its idiosyncrasies; Type B translations, to the idiosyncrasies of the target language and the felt needs of a particular demographic for whom the translation is designed. I use “types” in the sense of Weberian ideal types. In practice, translations are compromises. Types A and B are relative, not absolute categories.

The Contemporary Torah: A Gender-Sensitive Adaptation of the JPS Translation (CJPS), which I reviewed in a 4-post series (start here) and whose principles and goals are further discussed here (note the comment thread with contributions by CJPS revising editor David Stein), is a type B gender-sensitive translation (as stated in its preface, p. ix; in the same preface and elsewhere, David Stein makes a case for the view that CJPS is also a type A gender-sensitive translation). That is, CJPS seeks to provide a translation that is acceptable in the eyes of a readership for whom male-gendered language in some contexts is problematic. Male-gendered language which has men and women in mind is reprehensible from this readership’s point of view. So is male-gendered language which has only men in mind, when “by rights” men and women should be addressed. For the same demographic, male social gender ascribed to God is problematic. Apart from pronouns and other terms that refer back to irreducibly male entities in the narrative stream, male-gendered language is avoided in CJPS and other translations like it. If source-text diction has to be modified to accommodate this end, so be it.

There is nothing necessarily wrong with a translation that makes concessions to the sensibilities of a particular demographic. In fact, all translations do, to differing degrees. For example, it is now a universal practice, in translations of the Hebrew Bible designed for a non-scholarly audience, to render the Tetragrammaton, not by an approximately accurate phonetic equivalent of the same, as is done for the names of other deities in the same text (Baal, Nabu, Chemosh, etc.), but by some stand-in hallowed by tradition, like Lord. “Lord” is a type B translation of יהוה.

Nonetheless, a Type A gender-sensitive translation is not in the business of making concessions to modern sensibilities. It seeks to preserve gendered language found in the source text. Gendered language with metaphorical weight is represented with care; in conformity with target language options and constraints; so is grammatical gender, as the default option. A Type A gender-sensitive translation pursues this goal at the cost of using equivalents that are sometimes less natural or up-to-date than alternatives.

I will note up front: type A gender-sensitive translation is not about following an algorithm that works it way up from an analysis of the genderedness of individual items in the textual stream. It is about capturing the degree of genderedness, overt and covert (for us, covert to the point of missing it, since we bring different cultural presuppositions to the text), of entire discourses. Since the goal is to be faithful to the idiosyncrasies of the source text in full awareness of the fact that, as George Lakoff and many others point out, the reception of communication involves perceiving things holistically, as a single gestalt, contextual implications and covert cultural presuppositions are not, for translation, beside the point.

In my next post, I give an example of what I mean by type A gender-sensitive translation.

Bibliography

Mona Baker, ed.; Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (London: Routledge, 2001); George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987); George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980); Jeremy Munday, Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications (2^nd ed.; London: Routledge, 2008); Jeremy Munday, ed.; The Routledge Companion to Translation Studies (London: Routledge, 2009); Daniel Weissbort and Ástráður Eysteinsson, eds.; Translation - Theory and Practice: A Historical Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006)

Comments

[David E. S. Stein]

This sounds like a promising start; surely we are about to explore some complex issues. Let me offer a few observations thus far:

1. CJPS was created for a larger intended audience than the readership that you describe above. Some readers avoid male-gendered language but not because they pass moral judgment on it. Rather, they find it unduly ambiguous: “Well, if what you meant was ‘person,’ why didn’t you say so?” Other readers find it simply archaic. (Not everyone likes their Bible translations to sound archaic.)

2. You say that in a “Type A gender-sensitive translation,” grammatical gender is rendered as the default option (in conformity with target language options and constraints)? Hmm. As far as I know, that is rare for literary translations.

Consider the observations of the linguist Menachem Dagut. His focus was on rendering contemporary Hebrew literature into English. He pointed out that Hebrew and English do not mark a referent’s gender in the same way. He called this a syntactical asymmetry between the two languages.

For example, in Hebrew it often happens that grammatical gender is marked only for the sake of concord among the parts of speech, without semantic significance. From Dagut’s perspective, a literary translator who carried nonsemantic grammatical gender into an English translation would be guilty of a mapping error from one language to the other. (Hebrew-English Translation: A Linguistic Analysis of Some Semantic Problems [Haifa: University of Haifa, 1978], pp. 84–85, 180)

3. I agree with Lakoff’s observation as you paraphrase it, except that its application may be constrained by the fact that he is not dealing in the translation from one language to another, and from one audience to another.

4. You note that “contextual implications and covert cultural presuppositions are not, for translation, beside the point.” Indeed. But perhaps what is implied and conveyed covertly should stay that way. Some things are more powerful when left unsaid, no? I’m reminded of the title and refrain of Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra’s Top-40 hit when I was a kid:

“And then I go and spoil it all
by saying something stupid
like ‘I love you.’”

[JohnFH]

David,

Very helpful comments, as always.

Re 1): I'm sure you're right. Translations committed to functional equivalence tend to disambiguate the source text wherever they feel that it is necessary. Moral scruple is just one of many factors that influence translators. Type B translators by definition give themselves permission to adjust the source text to target language and target audience needs to a greater extent than type A translators. Undoubtedly, they are explicative to an extent translations more interested in preserving the idiosyncrasies of the source text, including ambiguities, are not. But there are many *kinds* of ambiguity to consider, so it's a complex subject.

Re 2): It is the case that grammatical gender in a gendered language like Hebrew, wherever its function is concord only, need not and usually cannot be reflected in a language like English that does not gender nouns as a matter of course as either masculine or feminine. I think it's better to look at these on a case-by-case basis. There are cases in which English translations have traditionally degendered the source text in which an argument in favor of gendering can and has been made, with respect to feminine gender. Fine, but if so, it has to work both ways.

Re 3): The fact of translation does not invalidate Lakoff's observations, but adds a layer or two of further complexity.

Re 4): Very true. For example, I have argued often on this blog that euphemisms and metaphors in general should not be reduced in translation to their concrete referents, though that would explain and disambiguate. Instead, metaphor-for-metaphor translation is preferable.

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