Translation as Argument: The Nontranslation of Loob in Ileto’s Pasyon and Revolution

Abstract

This article discusses Ileto’s nontranslation of the Tagalog concept of loob as integral to the argument and rhetorical persuasiveness of his seminal work, Pasyon and Revolution (1979). The meaning of loob that readers gather is a deeply religious and mystical one. However, the idiom of loob has multifarious and varied usages, and in the vast majority of cases loob is a prosaic term. Using some methods in the field of corpus linguistics, this article demonstrates that reambiguating Ileto’s translations could lead to different interpretations.

KEYWORDS: Corpus linguistics • loob • Reynaldo Ileto • Andres Bonifacio • Philippine revolution