ROME: 16 March 2014 -- Maybe let the three pics above
sum it up for us at one level:
(1) The deeper question is where the Word of God is leading
this Chapter.
(2) If you wanted to ask "What's the score?" then the answer
would be focusing on the Guil...er, ...Juridical commission
(or Committee as it is also called in some parts of the
English-speaking world).
(3) And there were calmer moments too - a BBQ - EAO have
decided to let their hair down. Sunday sees a Florence
option just as the previous week there was a Naples option.
(4) And finally - while not part of Chapter discussion
directly (though it has already cropped up indirectly and
could have tripped people up badly) is a post-Chapter issue
- the English translation of our Constitutions and
Regulations. For reasons adduced below, certainly worth some
consideration. You have a more detailed possibility offered,
if you wish to read up on this. THE TREND
Fairly clearly, the trend has been not to fiddle too much with
the Constitutions and Regulations. This is the straw vote,
flying-a-kite, 'trend' phase, so let's take a look at the
week's trends in this regard: Sector Councillors:
the two that came up for discussion were the Missions and the
Communications Councillors and their roles - the proposals
were that both be eliminated from the General Council, the
former being 'absorbed' by other Councillors' roles and the
latter being moved sideways (but out) into a Secretariat. The
respective Constitutions (137, 138) would be 'suppressed'
(that was the word used). Both kites came crashing down,
meaning the proposals. Missions did eventually go to a straw
vote and on the basis of that it would stay. Communications
likewise. In the upshot, both were mixed votes but
surprisingly there was an even more resounding vote for
Communications that might have originally been expected. Regional Councillors:
the proposal was that, despite suggestions to the contrary,
the current description of tasks (C. 140) is adequate.
Proposal resoundingly accepted. Election of the Rector Major:
the proposal was to leave procedures as is. C. 141
Resoundingly accepted. Election of the Vicar:
recall the suggestion that there be three names put up from
which the RM could choose? The Juridical Commission instead
proposed we don't fiddle with (not quite their words) C. 141
again. Resoundingly accepted. Length of terms of office:
The proposal was that the current 6 year terms are appropriate
- accepted. C. 128 and 142 RM can only be re-elected for
one consecutive term: C. 142. Likewise left as is. Vicar, Sector Councillors,
Regional Councillors: re-election for only one
consecutive term in the same role is possible. Accepted. General Council: to
comprise (other than the RM), Vicar, Sector Councillors,
Regional Councillors. C.133. Accepted. Leave as is.
There might be more. Have I missed one? Vicar and SF? But the
trend is very clear - the Constitutions and Regulations, at
least at this point, are left largely untouched. There is also
a practical side to this - any changes to the C&R require
permission from the Holy See. That takes time!
The Translation
There is a lot of translation work going on within and for the
General Chapter - people in the 'cubicles' translating
(interpreting is probably the better word) simultaneously,
people working at night to ensure some translation 'pointers'
added into minutes to ease the task for non-Italian language
English speakers, documents worked on during the day in other
parts of the world (while it is night time in Italy) to be
ready for the morrow in Rome at 9.00 a.m. Most of this
works 'fluently' as one would expect of translation.
Occasional hiccups (email is notoriously unreliable at times),
but by and large - we get there, and on time!
However, there is another issue which is worth raising here,
because you can immediately see the relevance of it - the
sector/department distinction was pretty central to the
earnest discussion that has gone on over sector representation
in the General Council, and we already know that the English
translation of C. 133 is plain wrong! The Italian says "I consiglieri incaricati di
settori speciali sono: ..." and the English says "The councillors in charge of
special departments are: ...". It is a
fundamental error, as discussion this week has shown up.
Let's put it this issue in context:
- it has been 40 years (6 general Chapters worth) since the
translation of the Constitutions and Regulations have been
touched. Those GCs have added, adjusted, subtracted admittedly
few items, but they have done all three things.
- What Don Bosco and what the Special General Chapter meant by
certain terms is something that we now have a much better
grasp of due to the 'historical sense', as the RM puts it,
that has grown over recent decades.
- Language and culture has changed, as it inevitably does. But
we still have the translation of 40 years ago.
These are just three (there would be more) very good reasons
for a new translation.
What follows below is a translator's point of view - based on
solid enough translation principles. It does not claim to
enter into discussion at a charismatic or juridical level
which is the competence of others. But the 'translation
platform' too, ought be part of discussion.
We could sum up the levels of the translation issue along
these lines:
i) Translation of juridical texts usually requires more
literal and less 'interpretative' translation. The SDB
Constitutions have been widely recognised as an outstanding
example of a juridical text in less-than-juridical language.
This is excellent for warm and inspiring reading; it is also a
translation trap. Are there cases where the English
'interprets' the Italian a little too freely, or downright
incorrectly? (You have one answer above already in C. 133)
ii) One of the most difficult areas to deal with in
translation is not exactly the lexical or syntactic, but the
so-called discourse level, how things are said and understood
in a particular culture. But the phonetic, morphological,
syntactic, semantic, pragmatic all have an effect on that. Can
we point to any problems here in the C&R in English?
iii) Then there's perhaps one of the lowest and least
important levels, but one that tends to annoy people most
because it is so obvious: it's more at the levels we
instinctively recognise - consistent spelling, use of
punctuation (which inevitably differs between Italian and
English), shifts in sensitivities. Are there cases in
the current C&R in English in this, let's call it
'orthographic' area?
Interpretation
Take the first of these - interpretation, which may manifest
through choice of words (lexical) or by adding or
subtracting. So, continuing with C. 133 you will notice
it talks about 'youth apostolate'. We would most likely use
the term 'youth ministry' today. Elsewhere you will even find
'youth pastoral', which is by now a deprecated term - it was
really always deprecated! It does not make sense, since it is
more or less dragged in from 'pastorale giovanile' and 'pastoral' made
into a noun that would not be widely recognised as meaning
anything other than a work of literature idealising country
life.
But there are more serious examples. GC26 pointed to a
dangerously defective translation of C. 187 which omits the
word 'permanente=ongoing,
constant ...' and translates 'capitalizzazione fruttifera' as
'interest-bearing investment'. Maybe it should have at least
been 'capital investment' rather than generalised investment.
We have the excellent study today by Fr Arthur Lenti on what
Don Bosco meant by 'i
più poveri', and since it crops up so
frequently in our language (already several times in GC27),
how we interpret that is pretty important - not as a
categorising feature, according to Lenti, but as a quantifying
one. In English, C. 2 has it as just 'those who are poor'. C.
26 has it as 'those who are poorer'. Is one worse than the
other?
C. 33 raises a set of discourse issues around terms like 'ambienti popolari' and 'giovani poveri'. Here
too, today we have a better appreciation of what these terms
meant for Don Bosco that may raise questions for how they have
been translated in English, as 'economically depressed areas'
and 'poor youth' (the Italian is more precise and 'real', the
English more abstract in this latter case). But, staying with
C. 33 which is long and complex as an article, there is
another issue. The first para in Italian is two sentences, and
three in English. That's fair enough - often is the case that
Italian sentences are longer, more complex. But another factor
creeps in - the focus changes in the English. The grammatical
structure in Italian places focus on 'education', while in
English it becomes 'collaboration'. This is a discourse issue.
Or take C. 36 where the Italian speaks of 'Con Cristo nell'ascolto della
Parola' and English says 'the encounter with Christ
in the Word'. There could be an argument, in the light of the
central place of the Word, or better, listening to the Word
(Lectio divina etc.) so much emphasised today, for this notion
of 'listening to the Word' to be in the English text, rather
than just encountering Christ in the Word.
There are several other cases along these lines. The Italian
is happy to speak of Francis de Sales' humanism (C. 17) while
English feels the need to add that it is optimistic humanism.
Shifts in sensitivity
There are many obvious examples. In the 23rd General Chapter I
recall being laughed at when suggesting that in some parts of
the world 'saying man to also embrace woman' is unacceptable
(well, you know what I mean; in other words the
gender-sensitive language issue). Not even Italy would laugh
at that one any more! And yet our constitutional text is full
or reference to 'man' when it could use a more generic term,
or 'brothers' when it is not only confreres we are referring
to.
Then there's spelling and other orthographic issues. The
question here would be partly one of consistency. 'Labour'
suggests that the spelling adopted will be British, so one
would expect to find that adhered to throughout. Not so. -ize and -ise are both acceptable
in British English but it is better to adopt one or the other
and stick with it. Not so in our case.
Capitalisation is another question. There are pretty much
widely accepted rules on this across the range of 'Englishes'
in the world. It is standard practice that adjectives, adverbs
or verbs which derive from a proper noun are capitalised.
'Christian' and 'Salesian' are proper nouns (and also an
adjective form). The C&R is quite inconsistent in this
regard, often employing 'christian' and 'salesian'.
Some of these issues are up for discussion - the important
thing would be to have this discussion at some stage (probably
not at the Chapter, but generated by the Chapter).
