Historical judgments about orality and local communities' need to justify their own orality in translation
Different reactions have been given so far to the Hurtado's article in this series.
One person has expressed that PC has totally overshot its claims for orality (See Simon Crips's comments on Hurtado's article). But at the same time there might be a general agreement that even, if the "historical reconstruction" in ancient times does not work.
I would like to highlight Nathan Essala's question and concern in this separate post and I quoting Fausto Lauriano who agrees with Essala:
'About your second (rhetorical, real or neither) question, I am with Nathan: given that in some communities the traditional church is hesitant in some way to accept a new translations or a translation that suits the need of the present time and language, “historical judgments are important to many communities so they feel “justified" or "safe" in their stylistic choices.""
Personally I do take a middle ground in that I do think that that there is a case to be made for learning from oral-writing strategies in ancient times and that these strategies did play a role and that this can function as a base for the communities of faith to see the value of their orality when it comes to Scripture. This does increase the legitimacy for some groups. IT is a matter of "acceptability" which is key in Bible translation. I guess the case Nathan Essala and Fausto Liriano are making is that there is still a legitimacy to trying to find source culture and text motivation for the use of PC (orality) in the culture or translation.
We can probably all agree that it is actually not necessary to have this justification given a Skopus theory of translation but that it is true from local church and Bible translation dynamics (tradition, church culture, acceptability), it would for sure be of great use.
Would be great to hear some other people give their insight as to this issue.
2 comments
Sign in to join the conversation.
I am trying again to respond to Marlon’s question: “What do we do in practice when we try to apply orality to Bible Translation?” Let me show you a snippet of the kind of guides I am writing for oral translators. If you wish to see it with formatting, go to: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3fz3KyACuZrNTE2QlVHNHdQM2c/view?usp=sharing Here is the snippet, without formatting. Read it as far as you are interested: Communication unit: John 4:46c-53 4:46c There was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. We recommend that the script postpone until the level 5 recordings to tell about Jesus returning to Cana and about the miracle that Jesus did in that town. The fact that the man was an important man in Herod Agrippa’s court is not relevant today. It may be left implicit until the recordings of Level 5. The reference to Capernaum is not relevant to people who live in other places of the world. It also may be left implicit until the recordings of Level 5. A storyer or oral translation might use a generic reference. John told that the child was dying in the next sentence. In many languages, it is more natural to describe the problem fully here at the beginning. In some languages, it is also normal to tell the urgen
Thank you Bill. Welcome to the discussion. I know you have valuable input to give on this issue, given your pioneering work with Andean orality. In our circles you were one of the first ones to formally engage the topic of orality with indigenous translators during the three year cycle of the UBS translation training in Lima and Peru. I think you still teach that course as part of that training/curriculum, if I am not mistaken? Always remember the participants telling me about it with lots of enthusiasm. This is the kind of analysis from other languages which I hope will only grow and become part of a rich data base from which people can draw to either teach orality and translation or to help trigger new ideas and thought in the realm of PC application to the languages and cultures of translation. If we can build up a special series on the reality of orality in a language family and the application to translation. This might be significant way forward in applying PC to Bible translation . Even as James Maxey has studied the application of orality in Cameroon with the Vuté., it would be interesting to see more specific language application which can be operationalized as part of a translation guideline. Nothing dogmatic or too rigid but as a way to trigger interaction and help form both theory and practice. I immediately see how this information on Quechua can be used. In my own corner of the world, I will be elaborating a paper for SBL Atlanta DV, which will tackle the way a Catholic Priest in Curaça used the languages internal accentuation and tonal features to make a very poetic and natural. translation of Psalms.