Beyond Oral Bible Translation to Multi-Modal Translation

Twenty-five years ago, Bible translation (BT) assumed a print product. Slowly, research from outside BT and recalibrations within BT began to inform the goals and methods of BT. What developed was a focus on orality and eventually a variety of methods subsumed under so-called Oral Bible Translation (OBT). This paper asserts that this popularization of orality and OBT neglects the broader theoretical and practical ramifications by confining human interaction to disparate categories such as literate and oral. This paper asserts that human interaction is always multi-modal, adopting and adapting technologies developed throughout history, including the history of the Bible. These realities can enhance and inform approaches to BT beyond oral to multi-modal translation (MMT). MMT assumes that literacy and orality interface. MMT anticipates audio-visual complexities such as film adaptations. MMT is robust enough theoretically and practically to address a continuum of storytelling to recorded performances. MMT embraces both oral and signed communication and recognizes similarity of questions asked when translating. MMT accommodates digital developments in translation. Translation Studies (TS) has embraced MMT as the means to address a wide variety of human interaction, from theatre and other performative arts to intersemiotic translation such as adaptations of books to film and sign language. We who are involved in BT – especially those of us who are exploring media for Bible – would do well to learn from and adapt TS’s approaches to MMT for Bible. At the same time, we in BT have a wealth of data and experience that could contribute to TS’s ongoing exploration of MMT.