On the translatability of liturgical texts: A significal perspective

Abstract

The contribution of the thinking of Welby to Greek intra-linguistic translation is the theoretical support of her thought for the translation of liturgical texts from Greek to Modern Greek. Intra-linguistic translations of liturgical texts will function as a positive factor for the missionary work of the Church inside Greece and the translations will help priests and chanters with their own linguistic and prosodic contribution during the liturgical acts, an issue that will affect, dialectically, the participant of the congregation during the reception of the performance of liturgical texts. In the quest for significance in the intra-linguistic translation of liturgical texts, the identification of unity and distinction, unity and difference, convergences and divergences, common elements and specificity between Greek and Modern Greek, favors the clarification of concepts and terminology, and, more generally, the acquisition of liturgical linguistic and extra-linguistic competence. Furthermore, translating concepts and terminology from one historic area of the Greek language to another according to a significal perspective as is described in Petrilli (2007; cf. 1990, 2009), is a meta-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary linguistic act that allows different wording choices in Modern Greek liturgical texts and makes the subsystem of Greek liturgical language remain open and de-totalized, by enhancing the possibility of the participants in the Greek Liturgy to identify new links and connections in extra-linguistic reality of the performance of any ceremony and new correspondences, and therefore new results in the reception of the performance.