A Corpus-Based Study of Contemporary Chinese Translation of the Verbal System in Biblical Hebrew Prose: With special reference to Genesis 37-50

Abstract

Despite numerous linguistic studies on Biblical Hebrew (BH) and on Contemporary Chinese (CC), crosslinguistic research between the two languages remains limited. This thesis adopts a corpus-based approach to explore the CC translation of the BH verbal system in prose, focusing on four CC translations of Genesis 37-50: RCUV, Feng, WCB, and CSB. Two verbal properties are taken as the parameters of the present study: voice and time. Quantitative research examines the similarities and differences between the corpora, while qualitative research analyses the rationale behind the translation patterns. It finds that active and reciprocal voices are similarly translated, but passive and reflexive voices often become active in CC due to language differences and stylistic choices. Regarding time, BH verb conjugations contribute to temporal interpretation, whereas CC, being tenseless, relies on context to convey temporal information.

The research method of this thesis is novel. The rare language combination has uncovered new research directions in both translation studies and contrastive linguistics. The present study also has significant theoretical implications for biblical studies and BH pedagogy. This thesis shows that translation involves exploring possible expressions of the source text for the target audience. Therefore, fidelity to the source text can be achieved through translation diversity. The findings of this thesis challenge the traditional views of religious translation studies, which advocate for one single authoritative Bible or homogenous translation of Scripture. This radical view of religious translation studies allows for more faithful and more readable translations of the Bible and encourages more divergent views in Hebrew Bible exegesis. The noted translation similarities among the CC corpora lay the foundation for further BH-CC typological studies and the typological teaching of BH in CC.