Doublespeak: Translational Doubling in the Wycliffite Bible and Other Old and Middle English Biblical Texts
Public Deposited- Creator
-
Diem, Matthew Bradford
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English and Comparative Literature
- Abstract
- This study examines the stylistic and semantic functions of translational doublets in English prose translations of biblical texts from the late ninth to late fourteenth centuries. Translational doublets are here defined as expressions in a translated text in which a single word or phrase is translated by two alternative or complementary renderings joined by a conjunction (“and” or “or”). Doublets common in medieval translations from Latin, and this study aims to develop a taxonomy of doubling, based on the semantic relationship between the doublet’s two members and between each member and the word they both translate, and apply it to a sample corpus of related but chronologically and linguistically varied texts, in order to illustrate the variety of uses to which doubling is put in medieval vernacular translation. Prose translations of the Latin Bible are selected as a useful locus for examining doublets because the status of the Bible as a sacred text, whose precise meaning was in the Middle Ages a matter both of extensive scrutiny and often of official regulation, puts the relationship between translation and interpretation into especially sharp relief. The chief texts examined are two Old English interlinear biblical glosses, King Alfred’s translation of the first fifty Psalms, and the two versions of the Wycliffite Bible, but the West-Saxon Gospels, the Old English Heptateuch, Richard Rolle’s English Psalter, and two non-Wycliffite partial New Testaments of the late fourteenth century are also considered.It is argued that doublets fill an ambiguous position between literal translation and explanatory gloss that can allow a translator to elaborate, clarify, or emphasize aspects of the source-text’s meaning without resorting to intrusive exegesis. Doublets are almost always associated with the “literal sense” of Scripture, but their widely varying use underscores how capacious and divergent notions of “literalness” can be. Though modest in scope, the template for doubling developed here thus helps elucidate the interpretive and translational approaches of a range of different translations, underscoring how both exegesis and the cultural relationship between Latin and the vernacular inform translators’ attempts to guide readers’ interpretation, often for definite theological or ideological ends.
- Date of publication
- 2022
- Keyword
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
- Advisor
- O'Neill, Patrick P.
- Leinbaugh, Theodore H.
- Babcock, Robert
- Cowdery, Taylor
- Legassie, Shayne A.
- Degree
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
- Graduation year
- 2022
- Language
Relations
- Parents:
This work has no parents.
Items
| Thumbnail | Title | Date Uploaded | Visibility | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Diem_unc_0153D_20949.pdf | 2022-05-26 | Public | Download |