When (re)translating means converting: Prototypes and protestant soteriology in the (re)translation of texts from English into judeo-spanish
doi: https://doi.org/10.31810/rsel.53.1.13
Keywords:
retranslation; prototypicality; Sephardic Jews; soteriology; ConstantinopleAbstract
The present study analyzes the translations and retranslation from English into Judeo-Spanish written with Hebrew script carried out by the Scottish missionary Alexander Thomson (1820-1899) in Constantinople in the 19th century. We will shed light on, from the approach of prototype theory (Rosch, 1978), how imperialist language is used by Protestant translators in the 19th century. In this sense, these missionaries attempted to introduce a novel semantic cognitive system in the target language through translations, importing not only new words but also concepts and ideas from the source language in a proselytist manner. Therefore, our hypothesis is that these translations and retranslations will include numerous neologisms which were not known in Judeo-Spanish, or which existed in the target language but originally conveyed a different non-Protestant meaning. We will thus present the Protestant soteriological cycle (Pharo, 2018), marked by words with a high semantic load pinpointing ideas such as sin and salvation from a Protestant perspective.
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