Friday, 22 April 2016

Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications,
Jeremy Munday, Routledge, 2016
Chapter 8, "Cultural and ideological turns" (pp. 197-221), page 211-212

Munday touches on the idea of a 'master language', drawn from Susan Bassnett and Harish Trivedi, who ...

... see these power relationships being played out in the unequal struggle of various local languages against the one master-language of our post-colonial world, English.

English and Mandarin battle it out for the most popular language; one on the basis of spread of users and contexts, the other on the number of users. If English has achieved such a position of dominance - theoretically at least on the basis of its ubiquity - how much power does it have to control those who use it.

Can we see a similar process at work in the field of Christianity? Does the church control the language of religion and relationship with G-d? Words such as 'salvation' have different meanings in an evangelical Christian context from that found in an Orthodox Jewish context: one is highly individual, the other is almost completely corporate. Other keywords such as covenant, grace, generation and so on are used interchangeably by both of these communities and yet have distinct meanings. Does the church, by virtue of both its spread of users and number of users, have the right to exclusively define the meanings of these words, or does the Jewish tradition, on the basis of its longevity, endurance and original ownership have the right to jointly control the master language?

Friday, 22 April 2016
Comment -

I am encouraged that in this day many doors have opened in which evangelicals and Jewish leaders are sitting together to talk about these important words and concepts. Instead of standing on either sides of tall walls, we are talking together about such words which have often been seen as "toxic" in the past or even unmentionable based on horrific facts of history between Church and Synagogue. Similar conversations are taking place among Jewish and Gentile believers in Yeshua and are finding much to discuss re these words used and understood differently.

Posted By Theresa Newell 01:54pm