{"id":1288,"date":"2019-09-13T21:28:18","date_gmt":"2019-09-14T02:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/?p=1288"},"modified":"2019-09-13T21:28:18","modified_gmt":"2019-09-14T02:28:18","slug":"stories-from-the-comprehension-checking-files-collocate-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/2019\/09\/13\/stories-from-the-comprehension-checking-files-collocate-what\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories From The Comprehension Checking Files: Collocate . . . What?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since this seems to be the week for \u2018Stories From The Comprehension Checking Files\u2019 \u2013 or some such thing, here is another one \u2013 hopefully NOT as long as the last!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Is he “veiling” his head? He is in Lusi!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last week, as we were working through the II Corinthians 3 passage about Moses veiling his face, Anji said something to the effect that she has a great vocabulary word, if her Mother Tongue drafter and taper would allow her to use it. I was pretty busy \u2013 and the word she ended up using seemed to communicate to me \u2013 so I didn\u2019t pay much attention. I always seem to have more than enough things to check, so I didn\u2019t reckon I needed any more.<\/p>\n

However, this week as my lightbulb went on about the vocabulary usage I related about above, I knew Anji and I needed to talk it over with the folks about this word and phrase. So, I told Anji to bring this other word along, because, to me too, it seemed like a word that should work.<\/p>\n

The word is \u2018ikalu\u2019 and means \u2018to cover or drape something over (with something)\u2019. Like, \u2018ikalu airava\u2019 means \u2018she covers her head\u2019 (like with a piece of material). And when asked to demonstrate, they would take a towel or piece of cloth and drape it over their heads \u2013 seemed pretty \u2018veil like\u2019 to us, since the implications were that the most being covered were the heads and necks.<\/p>\n

But here is where the details come into play, in something called Collocation. Collocation is a fancy way of saying words have to match and used in the right context. For example, in English, it is a big deal for us that plurals match. We \u2018just know\u2019 that it is proper to say \u2018his way\u2019 and \u2018their ways\u2019 or \u2018he likes\u2019 and \u2018they like\u2019. Collocation also comes into play when a foreign speaker brings phrases or concepts from their language into another language with things like \u2018I just heard some delicious singing\u2019.\u00a0 It is one of the problems that most “translation programs” have particularly when going cross culturally.\u00a0 There are just some things that aren’t a one-for-one exchange.\u00a0 What makes sense in one language\/culture, has to be said in a different manner in another culture.\u00a0 Since ‘delicious’ is associated with food and eating, English speakers would be more comfortable with ‘I just heard some amazing singing.’<\/p>\n

Perhaps a classic example of collocation clashes is the following sentence, \u2018I have never heard a green horse smoke a dozen oranges\u2019. Now while that sentence is grammatically correct, it contains three collocation clashes where the speaker of the sentence put things together that just don’t go together (In an English person’s experience you don’t hear smoking, horses aren’t green, and oranges aren’t smoked).\u00a0 Thus, you can begin to see that collocation matters.<\/p>\n

Now, in the Lusi example we are talking about, when Anji tried to use a word other than \u2018head\u2019 with \u2018ikalu\u2019 (like \u2018face\u2019), her translation helper wouldn\u2019t allow her to do so. It just didn\u2019t collocate for her. It was something that we could say that way in English, but we couldn\u2019t quite say it that way in Lusi. So, Anji had to drop it.<\/p>\n

Often, as we hit bumps or walls in our translation work, our helpers have a difficult time telling us why things don\u2019t work or how to overcome or get around a difficulty. Think about it, if I asked you to explain to me when to use the phrase \u2018a policeman\u2019 versus \u2018the policeman\u2019 \u2013 AND WHY \u2013 would you be able to? Probably after you thought about it for a while, along with thinking about examples, but it would probably take a bit of time and pondering! And so it is for our wonderful helpers too. They are great folks \u2013 and not in any way dumb or unintelligent \u2013 they just have never had to really think about their language and how it works.<\/p>\n

So, after discussions in the comprehension checking phase with other mother tongue speakers, what we ended up with was that we COULD say that Moses \u2018veiled\u2019 himself in that way, that is, with that word \u2018ikalu\u2019. However, what we now faced was the question, if we used that word, would we be able to bring that word forward and talk about the other things in the II Corinthians passage that Paul talks about being veiled or covered like faces and hearts, the seat of emotion? That remains to be seen. So, if not, we may have to go back to the more generic word, so that we can keep the parallels in focus. Stay tuned, there always seems to be something to ponder and puzzle about! This is the part of the job that keeps Translation interesting. That, and of course, because we are translating the Word of God \u2013 that is the best part!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had a great vocabulary word, but my mother tongue taper wouldn’t let me use it that way. Often, as we hit bumps or walls in our translation work, our helpers have a difficult time telling us why things don\u2019t work or how to overcome or get around a difficulty. This is one of those stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":799,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[275,4,6818],"tags":[2999,2547,2425,111814,352],"class_list":{"0":"post-1288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-language","7":"category-ministry","8":"category-translation","9":"tag-comprehension-testing","10":"tag-lusi","11":"tag-lusi-language","12":"tag-mother-tongue-speakers","13":"tag-translation","14":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/799"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/rick-zook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}