Implicit and explicit information in translation

As I step into translating into the Kovol language I certainly feel overwhelmed! Translation isn’t a task where there is a simple right answer and wrong answer. It involves a complex spectrum of choices. It’s possible to be too free and end up paraphrasing on the one hand or to be too wooden on the other. It’s possible to have correct sentences that all work, but don’t fit together as a paragraph. There are choices to be made on how much “glue” to add to help the sentences hang together. There are choices to be made about how to translate new vocabulary and concepts. One helper prefers to use this word and say it this way, and another prefers to say it that way. Are the different opinions simple stylistic variations? Does one flow better? Which term fits the original meaning best? Before heading out for our annual conference in Goroka I’ve been working on finishing off the post-literacy readers I have been working on. I’m on course to finish the last one next week and have 9 completed. These are practice books for new readers. Some are simple stories and some are simple non-fiction books teaching about animals. The translation process I’ve been following for these stories is this:

1. Draft the book on my own, translating from English to Kovol.
2. Sit with a Kovol helper and go through one paragraph at a time making corrections.
3. Record a Kovol speaker speaking the paragraph from memory.
4. Blend the original draft and the recording which represents natural speech. I take the naturalness from the recording but retain things that might have been forgotten.
5. Check the corrected text with the helper.
6. Read the text to someone who hasn’t heard it before and ask them comprehension questions like “What did that say?”, followed by specific questions about details.

One of the books I’ve been working on is “Animals of Israel”. It is a short 3-page book that gives a paragraph of information on each of 16 animals found in Israel, most of which are not found in PNG. Lots of new information to cover! The paragraph about oxen mentions that they were used to plough fields. Here’s a back-to-English version of the Kovol we ended up with after steps 1-5.

“They went with oxen down to the garden, they tied a rope, they pulled a tree trunk, and were breaking the ground”
After deciding with my group of helpers that this was a good translation of images I’d shown them of simple ploughs pulled by oxen I went into a comprehension check. I read the paragraph to someone I’d never talked to about oxen and then asked, “What did that paragraph say about oxen?” Everything came back well, including the fact that they tied ropes to them to break the ground. Then I asked, “Why did they break the ground?”, to which I got the answer “to make a road to walk on”. Interesting. Everything contained in the sentence communicated. The idea of ploughing, which people have never seen came across, but the reason for the ploughing wasn’t understood.
The original text doesn’t say why they ploughed the ground. It assumes the reader knows that. The author and English readers know why the ground is being broken, and the location of the work – the garden, or field, is enough to confirm that it’s exactly what we expected it to be.

That didn’t carry across into Kovol though so I added a sentence. “Break the ground and they get food seeds and plant them”. This tells people the purpose of breaking the ground. I’ve added an entirely new sentence to the translation not contained in the original text though. Have I translated the original correctly or did I add to it?

This is where implicit and explicit information comes in. Language and culture go together. A sentence in a language has both explicit and implicit information. Explicit information is actually stated in the words used, but implicit information is assumed to be understood based on shared culture. The words used have “baggage” that comes with them. In the example about ploughing a field in English, concepts like farms, tractors, and planting come bundled up as implicit ideas.
The knowledge that ploughing is for the purpose of planting doesn’t need to be explicitly stated to English readers. In fact explicitly stating it might be a bit redundant and slow the text down with detail it doesn’t need.
Languages differ in what information is explicit and what is implicit. In Kovol for example saying “They break the ground, and they plant seeds” doesn’t work well. In Kovol the “getting” has to be explicit. You can’t plant seeds if you didn’t first get the seeds! Whereas in English it’s a bit redundant to say you got the seeds and then planted, if you say you planted seeds we know that you have the seeds. That’s how I translated it at first, in fact, but my Kovol helpers corrected me. In the recording where I was looking for naturalness, the verb for getting was inserted.

“Getting seeds and planting” and “planting seeds” only differ in that in the 2nd getting the seeds is implied.
How do we know, though, that implicit information is there? We need to look at the author’s purpose in communicating. What would the author and original hearers understand? If getting the seeds isn’t explicitly stated does the author intend to communicate that the planting process involved imaginary seeds? Of course not! Kovol speakers just don’t feel like it makes sense unless they say “he got the seeds and planted”.

How much implicit information should you make explicit then? That’s a tricky question! It depends on the culture you’re translating into, but also the length and flow of the text you are working on. In my case adding a single sentence so that readers knew why the oxen were ploughing the ground seemed like a good idea. It’s possible to go overboard though! It’s also implicit that the reason they are planting is so that food will grow and they can eat, so that they will survive so… etc. etc. Translation involves making a lot of judgement calls!

I’ve also been working on my initial draft of Genesis 37. Bible translation feels a lot harder than translating literacy books. The text is much more dense with meaning. It feels far more weighty a responsibility and we must not add to God’s word. In a literacy book adding something isn’t a big deal; if it makes the book flow better why not, but for Bible translation, that’s a no-no.
There is implicit information in the original text that needs to be dealt with though.

“When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes”

Gen 37:29 ESV

Why did he tear his clothes? The ESV is a more literal English translation and so sticks close to the source language, but the NLT adds some implicit information:

Some time later, Reuben returned to get Joseph out of the cistern. When he discovered that Joseph was missing, he tore his clothes in grief.

Gen 37:29 NLT

“in grief” isn’t in the original text, but it is what was understood by the original readers. He didn’t tear his clothes because he was angry, the clothes were old or because he wanted new clothes. If someone reads that he tore his clothes and concludes any of those things they have supplied the wrong implicit information. If that information is provided by the translation explicitly it prevents that misunderstanding. The Kovol people don’t tear their clothes when they grieve, if they did they wouldn’t have any clothes to wear! For the Kovol version I’m thinking of providing the implicit information that this was a show of grief. The Kovol people’s guesses about what it means will probably be off.
Here’s another one:

Then they sat down to eat. And looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing gum, balm, and myrrh, on their way to carry it down to Egypt.

Gen 37:25 ESV

A “caravan” carries the idea of people intending to sell goods. We get the idea of traders, but that isn’t explicitly stated.

Then, just as they were sitting down to eat, they looked up and saw a caravan of camels in the distance coming toward them. It was a group of Ishmaelite traders taking a load of gum, balm, and aromatic resin from Gilead down to Egypt.

Gen 37:25 NLT

The NLT provides the word traders to make this implicit information explicit. In the Kovol translation, I’m thinking of saying that “they wanted to sell their things in Egypt” as the Kovol language doesn’t have a word for trader. They would be “people that sell things”.

Are these “additions” justified in a translation? When is it too much? I’m glad I have some resources to help me. You’ve seen one already. I can look at multiple English translations to see the range of translation options taken by others. I also have translation commentaries that I can consult. Then finally there is a translation consultant check. Every verse I translate will need approval by a translation consultant. Someone who has been there and done that, having worked with multiple Bible translations in PNG languages, will take a look at how I’ve translated to see if I made acceptable decisions and if the translated text is communicating well to Kovol speakers or not.
I’m glad to have a safety net!

So what do you think? Do you prefer more literal Bible translations like the ESV, or do you prefer meaning-based translations like the NLT? Which style of translation do you think would best suit the Kovol people who are currently illiterate and have limited education?
What are the benefits and risks of both styles of translation when it comes to minority languages like the Kovol language? Feel free to comment!