Janet Stahl – Oral Strategies Coordinator for Seed Company. Janet and her husband have designed and trained others to implement an approach for crafting and telling Bible stories in languages without translated Scriptures. Janet has trained partners in the Pacific, Ethiopia, Kenya, South and SE Asia to discover their own storytelling techniques and to use them in telling the Bible stories.
Translating a Written Text into a Well-Told Performance
Abstract
Translating a written text into a well-told performance
When we think of translation work, most often our minds jump to translating from one language and culture into another. Educators such as Donald Davis, describe reading and writing as a second language. So, with the rise in popularity of oral strategies for communicating Scriptures, the work of Bible translation is being expanded to include the process of changing a written text into an oral performance. This presentation will examine some of the differences between spoken and written language including the non-verbal communication that happens in a face-to-face performance. As people learn to recognize and use good oral communication features of their language, they then use this knowledge when translating portions of the Bible they wish to tell. Examples will be given from back translations of oral performances from African, Asian and Pacific Islander oral Bible storytellers. We will also look at possible categories for these features, such as density of information, logical flow of events, completed actions, natural speech, verbal echoes, that help a translation consultant or checker to consider what changes need to be made to the written text for it to be performed well and how to advise the MT Oral Bible Storytelling team.