Translation and Communication

Abstract

This chapter focuses on identifying prominent stylistic and rhetorical features of biblical literature, with occasional suggestions of how they might be represented in a translation aiming for functional equivalence. The assumption is that an in-depth appreciation of the source text's features contributing to its literary quality needs to precede the attempt to produce a literary translation, especially in an approach such as functional equivalence where 'faithfulness' to the source text is viewed as a primary goal. The presentation of stylistic features is organized in terms of three sets: the first set includes unity, diversity and rhetoricity factors that are general and foundational in nature; they are thus presupposed to varying degrees by all of the others. The second set includes structure, patterning and foregrounding are pertains largely to the macrostructure of a text, while the third set includes imagery, phonicity and dramatics are associated more with the microstructure of literary discourse.