Translating orally the Scriptures
Willis Ott, Oral Translation Consultant, Storying and Orality, SIL
(The author carries the full responsibility for the views expressed.)
We humans are skillful learners. As babies, we begin learning to associate specific sounds with our experience while still in our mothers’ wombs, principally with whether we are comfortable or uncomfortable. After birth, we gradually widen our environments and our experiences with our environments. We learn to manipulate our hands, arms and legs to obtain things that interest us. Early on, we learn meaning for the sounds we hear from our mothers and fathers. Soon, we attempt to mimic those sounds in attempts to communicate meaning to our mothers, fathers and siblings. The learning part of our brains is wonderfully skillful. They gather and retain vast amounts of proper association of sounds and meaning.
As we develop, we learn to compartmentalize those associations. If a child’s family speaks a language different from the language he hears in the street and playground, his mind automatically maintains a category for each language in its environment, resulting that the child can speak either language with ease in the environment where it is appropriate. If a child maintains interactions in several languages into adulthood, he or she can usually shift instantly and easily into the language appropriate for the occasion.
It seems that we as children have this innate ability to learn language and we utilize it until about the age of ten to twelve. Up to that age, we can function comfortably, as children, in two languages, even three. Of course, we are more comfortable in one language, but we can still function well in others. After some critical point of our development, most of us find our learning a new language increasingly difficult as we age. No one can verify whether the difficulty happens because of hormonal changes in the brain or because a person becomes more focused on interactions with others in a comfortable language. From the point of change, it seems that a person’s brain becomes as if hardwired to the languages of youth.
Now let’s think about a person who learns a language in classes or in the market. His or her experiences are limited to the kind of language used in those environments. He or she will have difficulty understanding or communicating in other environments. Those limitations are overcome at least partially in the oral training paradigm when a team is composed of two to five members. Their combined experiences help them all to understand the language of the base-translation.
Orality
When we think about how we humans learn language and how we communicate to others orally and hear their messages, we can understand better why oral translation is possible and why it is perhaps preferable.
Orally translating
Let’s think about the process that happens in our mind when we hears a message in a language we have learned. If we hear the speech in the language in which we is comfortable, we remember the words of the message as well as understanding the meaning. But something different happens when the speech is in a language in which the person is not comfortable, as is the case of our having learned the language in school or in the market. When we hear such a speech, OUR BRAIN AUTOMATICALLY FORMULATES THE MEANING and STORES THE CONCEPTS IN TERMS OF OUR LANGUAGE OF COMFORT. It does not store it in the words of the language of the message we have heard. The stored concepts are defined by the language in which we are comfortable. When an American hears “Vale cinco dolares” in Spanish (which he has learned in school), he understands the meaning “the seller wants five units of money.” If we could elicit from him what he heard, he would likely respond with the English words “It’s worth five bucks.” His mind will have “translated” the meaning into the words of his most comfortable language.
Putting it simply, WE HUMANS TRANSLATE A MESSAGE AT THE MOMENT OF OUR HEARING IT! WE DO IT NEARLY AUTOMATICALLY! Then, when we speak our understanding of the message, we do not mimic the words that we have heard but rather we speak THE MEANING OF THE MESSAGE in our language.
With the audio-recording, we can review what we have spoken and we can restate it if necessary. Our teammates can listen the recording and suggest possible changes. The process facilitates the translated message being natural and truly communicative.
Hindrances to the communication of the message
Some of us trainee translators might be hindered by our preconceptions of translation. Most of us have interpreted sermons for guest pastors in our churches (instantaneous translation). Those experiences have a strong similarity to orally translating. We can build on those experiences.
Some of us trainees might hold the attitude that “proper translation” can be done only in writing. It will take a few days for us to recognize that the action of writing is very encumbering, as well as sometimes communicating too ambiguously.
A lack of experience in the language of instruction in the spheres of spiritual interactions can hinder us translators in understanding the passages. This problem is resolved by our hearing a meaning-based base-translation, our team discussing problems among ourselves and our facilitator’s occasional advice.
