Translation of hortatory discourse into Central Bontok: Case study for Amos 5:1-17

• Main Author: Lee, Byung-Hoon
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2007
• Subjects: Linguistics
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/194
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study presents a contrastive analysis of Central Bontok and Hebrew hortatory discourse and the application of findings to translation. The Levinsohn framework was used in the present study which applies insights from contrastive hortatory discourse analysis between Central Bontok and Biblical Hebrew to the translation of the Book of Amos and proves that contrastive discourse analysis can enhance the quality of the Old Testament translation. In Central Bontok hortatory discourse, people use far more positive exhortations than negative ones as a strategy of effective persuasion. Bontoc people use negative exhortation when the problem relates to behavior that needs to be changed. When the addressees are public, mitigated exhortations are far more often used than direct exhortation. But when intimate relationships exist between the addresser and the addressee, direct exhortation is common. The directness of exhortation seems more related to the intimacy of a relationship than to authority. Central Bontok expresses prominence in several ways. Prominence is often realized by preposing with the prominent constituent moved to the pre-predicate position. However, for contrastive prominence the first compared constituent is not preposed whereas the second, and following, constituent is preposed. For highlighting, Central Bontok uses vocatives, special words or phrases. In Central Bontok, coordinate connectives for exhortations are usually unmarked, but adversative connectives are marked in hortatory discourse. The logical relation is marked when it would otherwise be unclear. A few connectives for coordination or time in narrative discourse may function differently when they are used with exhortation information in hortatory discourse. These connectives may encode logical relationships. In Hebrew, even third person jussive exhortations are regarded as direct exhortations when spoken on the basis of the absolute authority of the Lord. Preposing is the most common prominence device but repetition or chiastic patterns at a higher level than the sentence are also often used for emphatic prominence. In the Hebrew of the Amos text, coordinative, adversative and logical connectives are all marked in hortatory discourse.