The Translator's Invisibility: A History of Translation

22 The Translator’s Invisibility
impact and appeal for receptors”; it rather “means thoroughly
understanding not only the meaning of the source text but also the
manner in which the intended receptors of a text are likely to
understand it in the receptor language” (Nida and de Waard
1986:vii–viii, 9). For Nida, accuracy in translation depends on
generating an equivalent effect in the target-language culture: “the
receptors of a translation should comprehend the translated text to
such an extent that they can understand how the original receptors
must have understood the original text” (ibid.:36). The dynamically
equivalent translation is “interlingual communication” which
overcomes the linguistic and cultural differences that impede it
(ibid.:11). Yet the understanding of the foreign text and culture
which this kind of translation makes possible answers
fundamentally to target-language cultural values while veiling this
domestication in the transparency evoked by a fluent strategy.
Communication here is initiated and controlled by the targetlanguage
culture, it is in fact an interested interpretation, and
therefore it seems less an exchange of information than an
appropriation of a foreign text for domestic purposes. Nida’s theory
of translation as communication does not adequately take into
account the ethnocentric violence that is inherent in every
translation process—but especially in one governed by dynamic
equivalence.
Nida’s advocacy of domesticating translation is explicitly grounded
on a transcendental concept of humanity as an essence that remains
unchanged over time and space. “As linguists and anthropologists
have discovered,” Nida states, “that which unites mankind is much
greater than that which divides, and hence there is, even in cases of
very disparate languages and cultures, a basis for communication”
(Nida 1964:2). Nida’s humanism may appear to be democratic in its
appeal to “that which unites mankind,” but this is contradicted by the
more exclusionary values that inform his theory of translation,
specifically Christian evangelism and cultural elitism. From the very
beginning of his career, Nida’s work has been motivated by the
exigencies of Bible translation: not only have problems in the history
of Bible translation served as examples for his theoretical statements,
but he has written studies in anthropology and linguistics designed
primarily for Bible translators and missionaries. Nida’s concept of
dynamic equivalence in fact links the translator to the missionary.
When in Customs and Cultures: Anthropology for Christian Missions
(1954) he asserted that “a close examination of successful missionary