Phil directs the School of Language and Scripture at Moorlands College, where he teaches about meaning and communication. He has a PhD in Biblical Hebrew and has worked with SIL in Papua New Guinea and the Global Sign Language Team. He lives in Gloucester, UK, with his wife and two teenage boys, and has been trying to learn British Sign Language.
Translating Names: The Literary Use of Names in Hebrew Narrative and Opportunities for Sign Language Translation
Abstract
Names of characters in literature are frequently used as ‘dense signifiers’, conveying messages from the author to the reader beyond the identification of a particular individual, and offering clues about the character’s destiny or how a storyline may develop. This paper explores how the potential semantic connections evoked by names in Old Testament literature are exploited by Hebrew narrators as they craft their stories, contributing to characterisation, plot structure, leitworter, wordplays and dramatic irony. For example, Laban (‘white’) is caught up in trickery with white goats and white sticks; Micah (‘who is like Yahweh’) has an idol in his house; and Mahlon and Chilion (whose names could evoke links to being ‘sick’ and ‘finished’) are dead within three verses of being introduced.
Bible translators working with spoken languages tend to transliterate (rather than translate) these names, and leave any semantic connections in a footnote. Sign languages, however, are more iconic and often naturally use name signs that evoke something about the referent, rather than just an arbitrary collection of sounds. This opens up the possibility of maintaining some of the semantic connections and literary features of Hebrew narratives when creating Scripture-based products in sign languages. This paper investigates the opportunities and limitations of such a strategy compared to other approaches for translating biblical names into sign languages.