Att översätta imperfektivitet. En analys av översättningen av grekiskans imperfektform i svenska och tyska bibelöversättningar.

Abstract

This thesis focuses the New Testament Greek imperfect verb in Swedish and German Bible translations. The aim is to investigate if and how the semantic content of the Greek imperfect is transferred to the Swedish and Greek translations. The theoretical understanding of the verbal aspect in general is the model of aspectuality presented by Carlota S. Smith. The model builds on the assumption that aspect derives from the combination of situation type and viewpoint. The theories on verbal aspect in New Testament Greek are adapted from Stanley E. Porter and Buist M. Fanning. The material of the study is the chapters 1–3 in the Gospel of Mark. The Greek text is the Novum Testamentum Graece (Nestle-Aland 28) and the Bible translations included are Bibel 2000 and Svenska folkbibeln in Swedish, and Lutherbibel and Einheitsübersetzung in German. The analysis consists of two parts, the first focusing on the semantic meaning of the Greek imperfect forms, and the second on if and how this semantic meaning is realized in the translations. The analysis shows that the primary function of the Greek imperfect, the imperfective aspect, to some extent is transferred to the target languages, though not always. Progressives and iteratives are sometimes transferred, sometimes not, and ingressives are not. In Swedish and German, several factors, such as the lexical aspect of the verb, tense form, subject and objects of the clause and adverbials cooperate to determine the verbal aspect of a clause. The context, both within and outside the clause, also has a significant impact on the analysis. The secondary function of the Greek imperfect, the positioning of a situation in the background of the narrative, is seldom transferred. Though sometimes the case, this function is concluded to be a dimension of the Greek aspect which does not have a sufficient equivalent in Swedish and German.