leë plekke in die literatuur en bybelvertaling

Empty spaces in literature and Bible translation Texts and sentences contain empty spaces which have to be filled by readers in the construction of meaning. The way in which these spaces are filled is not completely arbitrary. Readers fill them on the basis of the textual context and/or their own field of reference. There are thus limits and constraints of interpretation. The purpose of empty spaces is to involve the reader actively in the process of interpretation and the generation of meaning. Translators should therefore be careful to fill the empty spaces of the original text. Only in cases where it is absolutely unclear how they should be filled can the translator assist the reader in filling them. One such example is Galatians 2:4. By filling most of the empty spaces, the translators of the 1983 Afrikaans translation weakened the communication function of the text. Examples are Ephesians 1:3-14, Romans 5:12-17 and Galatians 2:6. On the other hand, the 1983 translation is much more intelligible and accessible to the everyday reader than its predecessors. The solution for a possible new Afrikaans translation lies somewhere between the 1933/1953 and the 1983 translations.