The Linguistics of Biblical Dreams

Dreams play an important role in the Bible. They have been studied extensively from theological, exegetical and hermeneutical perspectives, and with regard to their cultural particularities in their ancient Near Eastern context. However, biblical dreams have received little attention from the perspective of linguistics and discourse.

The current study investigates dreams in the Bible from a linguistic and discourse perspective. Firstly, I look at some representative dreams in the Scriptures, outlining their basic types and functions, as used in the original languages. I focus on identifying pertinent linguistic and discourse features that set dreams apart as dream narratives. My key question is: How is their “dream-ness” conveyed linguistically? Secondly, I explore a sample of recent Bible translations into several non-Slavonic languages spoken in the Russian Federation. My aim is to find out what translation choices, specific and natural to each language, have been made to transfer the biblical “dream-ness” into these living languages.

This less-explored area of study is necessary to help us, who are actively involved in various aspects of translation, to study dreams not only in the source languages and texts, but more especially in the languages of translation, in order to ensure appropriate quality of translation. In this paper I offer an initial glimpse of the linguistics of dreams, and share some insights to pave the way for further study of the language in which dreams are couched in the Scriptures, and its application to translation for the enhancement of translation quality.