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On
Nida's sociolinguistics
Anthony
Pym
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The
Sociolinguistics of Interlingual Communication.
Eugene A. Nida.
Brussels: Les Éditions
du Hazard, 1996 (Collection Traductologie). 118 pp. ISBN
2-930154-00-4.
Review first
published in The Translator (Manchester: St Jerome)
3/1 (1997), 102-103.
This is
an attractively produced small monograph by one of the
long-term heavyweights of translation studies. Although
one might suspect Nida would have little left to say
after his classical texts on Bible translation and his
theory of dynamic vs formal equivalence, here we find
him becoming even more engaging and entertaining, somewhat
less technical and theoretical, in an attempt to open
wider horizons for translation studies and translator
training. Even on the technical equivalence score, Nida
now allows for a vague range of possibilities between
a maximum and a minimum (114), thus considerably dilating
his earlier positions. Yet there is far more here than
strict translation theory.
The book
offers a meandering path through the main issues in
(American) sociolinguistics and indeed in general theories
of language use, mostly on the level of a leisurely
introductory course. Despite the title on the cover,
the central concern is later described as ‘the sociolinguistics
of translating’ (59), organized around five main themes:
the sociological and psychological roles of language,
the relation of language to focal or core elements,
the tension between structure and creativity, the different
levels of ‘involvement and investigation’, and the close
link between language and culture. Abundant examples
are drawn from ethnography, classical and modern literature,
and modern science (Nida’s fields of interest are by
no means limited to Bible translation), displaying an
acute awareness of cultural difference in a profoundly
multilingual world, with no simple relations between
languages. Indeed, this sociolinguistic world is full
of cultural overlaps and asymmetries, thus significantly
altering the language-to-language frame of many other
approaches to translation. Further, Nida’s sociolinguistics
recognizes and respects the individual’s use of language,
seeing creativity as ‘a personal achievement’ (51),
and in the same breath remains laconically critical
of many apparent achievements: “Some people have acquired
the habit of speaking without actually saying anything”
(51). This is not the case of Nida, who not only has
much to say but also takes obvious pleasure in the saying.
One might
regret, of course, that the style and format of the
book exclude properly empirical evidence. I would very
much like to see, for example, quantitative reasons
for assuring us that the United States has so few schools
teaching translation and interpretation because of the
“number of highly trained immigrants who are often able
to serve as translators and interpreters” (62). Here,
and in many other cases, we simply have to rely on Nida’s
wealth of experience.
The importance
of this monograph does not lie in its presentation of
any new ideas as such. It is instead useful in that
it insists linguistics can still be of crucial concern
to translation studies, and that sociolinguistics might
provide some of the most practical insights. This makes
rubbish of claims to separate translation studies from
linguistics, be it through a ‘cultural turn’ or simply
by turning one’s back. Nevertheless, most of Nida’s
sociolinguistics remains of a kind that concerns source
and target texts rather than translators or translating;
there is little mention of translation as a specific
mode of code-switching or as one of several options
for communicating across intercultural space. In the
end, although Nida’s purpose is to open up sociolinguistic
notions as a general frame for translation, a sociolinguistics
truly of translating could paradoxically turn out to
be a rather more precise affair.
Book available
from:
Éditions
du Hazard, 34 rue Joseph Hazard, B-1180 Brussels.
- Last update
11 March 1999
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© Anthony
Pym 2019
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