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Bible Translation as Purposeful Communication: One Word, Many Versions
D.C. Chemorion
Abstract1
Translation is a secondary form of communication in which the senders and receivers belong to
different cultures and languages. In order to communicate, senders and receivers need the help of a
translator who is familiar with the lingua-culture of both the sender and the receiver of the message.
Translators bridge the gap between situations where the differences in verbal and non-verbal
behavior are such that there is not enough common ground for the sender and receiver to
communicate effectively by themselves. For over two centuries now, Bible translators have acted as
essential bridges of communication between the biblical authors and contemporary recipients of the
word of God. Whereas different groups of people are happy to read the word of God in one version or
the other, many people do not understand why the same word of God has been rendered in different
versions. The question is: Why do we have many versions of the Bible? The purpose of this
presentation is to highlight the nature of Bible Translation as purposeful communication and the
necessity of different versions of the Bible in Africa. The presenter will also propose a strategy for
producing function oriented alternative translations for an African context.
1.1 Introduction
Translation is a secondary form of communication in which the senders and receivers belong to
different cultures and languages. In order to communicate, senders and receivers need the help of a
translator who is familiar with the lingua-culture of both the sender and the receiver of the message.
Translators bridge the gap between situations where the differences in verbal and non-verbal behavior
are such that there is not enough common ground for the sender and receiver to communicate
effectively by themselves. For over two centuries now, Bible translators have acted as essential
bridges of communication between the biblical authors and contemporary recipients of the word of
God. Whereas different groups of people are happy to read the word of God in one version or the
other, many people do not understand why the same word of God has been rendered in different
versions. The question is: Why do we have many versions of the Bible? The purpose of this
presentation is to highlight the nature of Bible Translation as purposeful communication and the
necessity of different versions of the Bible in the African context. In addition, the article also proposes
a Participatory Approach to Bible Translation as one of the viable strategies that could be applied in
the production of alternative versions of the Bible in Africa..
1.2 Bible Translation as secondary communication
Bible translation may be defined as a process of re-expressing biblical information from
its source language (SL) using the verbal forms of a receptor language (RL) for a given
communicative function and by means of writing. This process may also be known as
The ideas expressed in this article are informed by the author’s own dissertation in the field of Bible
Translation at the University of Stellensbosch. See Chemorion (2008).
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“Bible translating.” In a secondary sense, the term Bible translation also refers to the
general field of study which deals with the science and art of rendering Scripture from
one language to another, or to denote the product of the translation process, for example
“an English Bible Translation”.
The nature of Bible translation as a process of secondary communication may be
described as follows: A Biblical author was the initial source (S1) of a biblical text,
which he/she composed as an initial message (M1) for initial recipients (R1) who lived in
biblical times and understood the biblical language used. This can be illustrated as using
the following modified Aristotelian Source-Message-Receptor (SMR) model of
communication.
S1=====M1===R1
S2=====M2===R2
S3=====M3===R3
In the SMR model shown above, the sender (S1) of the message (M1) shares a common
space and time with the receiver (R1) of the message. However, Bible translation is an
ancient text whose original senders and recipients are no longer living. The original
message is extant but the contemporary recipients in a given community may not be able
to decode the message due their inability to read the SL. It therefore becomes necessary
for translators to stand in the communication gap between the ancient biblical author and
the contemporary readers. In this case, a translator who supposedly has the competence to
decode the message in its original source SL form acts simultaneously as the first
recipient R1 as well as a secondary sender (S2) of a re-encoded message (M2) for a
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contemporary receptor audience (R2). In some cases, Bible translators are not able to
translate directly from the biblical languages. Instead they translate from secondary
sources, which are also translations of the original texts. In such cases, the translator
effectively becomes the secondary recipient (R2) of the repackaged message as well as a
third step sender (S3) for a repackaged third step message (M3) which is then made
accessible to a third step receptor audience (R3)2.
It is important to note that the act of translating is not only a linguistic operation, but it is
also a way of facilitating communication between members of different cultures. This
means that like any other type of communication, translation is goal oriented and it is
aimed at achieving a certain communicative function as discussed in the following
section.
1.2.2 Bible translation is function oriented
Recent studies in the field of Translation Studies has shown that no single translation can
communicate effectively all the aspects of a source text. Every Bible translation process
is therefore undertaken with a specific skopos (communicative purpose) in mind. It is the
intended skopos of the translation that determines how the information obtained from the
source texts is reflected in the target text. This means that a single type of translation
cannot fulfill all the communicative functions that various subsets of a community may
expect from a translation of the Bible. In the past centuries when the science of
translation had not come into being, new translations of the Bible would be received with
a lot of suspicion. However, today the Bible is translated in very many ways and for a
variety of purposes (Noorda 2002:8). One word of God has effectively been effectively
rendered in many versions depending on the skopos of the translation.
For the English speaking audiences, many modern English versions of the Bible have
been produced with different functional emphases, based on real life experiences and
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Although third step translations of Scripture are better than having no Scripture at all, it must be noted
that basing mother tongue translations on existing second step translations (such as English Versions) is
likely to introduce a certain degree of translation difficulties and distortions that would not have been fewer
if one was able to use the original source texts as the basis of the translation. It is therefore important for
translators to be competent in biblical languages in order to translate directly from the original texts
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specific scriptural needs of various audiences. It is now estimated that there are over 500
versions of the Bible in English language since John Wycliffe produced the first
handwritten English translation of the New Testament in 1383. Examples of such
versions include versions with a study emphasis which are useful for students, versions
designed to be more popular for a wider readership, versions that are more literary in
style, versions that have a more protestant or more catholic background, versions
designed to be particularly suitable for liturgical use, and so on (Hagreaves 1993:70-73).
1.3 Function oriented types of Bible versions
Given the diversity of the purposes for which translations are needed, two main broad
categories of Bible versions can be drawn: Documentary (foreignizing) translations and
Instrumental (domesticating) translations (Cf. Munday 2001:81). Documentary
translations serve as documents, which expose the original form of communication
between the author of the source text and the source text recipient (Nord 1997:47). Literal
translations of the Bible such as the King James Version, Revised Standard Version, New
International Version, Jerusalem Bible, New American Standard Bible, and the Revised
English Bible may be put in the category of documentary translations. An extreme form
of a documentary translation is an interlinear translation which reflects the
morphological, lexical, and syntactic features of the source language system as presented
in the source text.
Instrumental translations are produced in forms that are independent of the forms of their
source texts. These types of translations are intended to fulfill communicative purposes
without the recipients being conscious that they are reading or hearing a text, which
previously had a different form and was used in a different communicative situation (Cf.
Nord 1997:50). In other words, instrumental translations are shaped in such a way that
readers would read them as though they were original texts written in the target language.
The form of the text is usually adapted to target culture norms, conventions of text type,
genre, register and tenor. Readers are not supposed to be aware they are reading a
translation at all (Nord 1997:52). Majority of modern versions of translations are
instrumental. Examples include: Good News Bible, New Living Translation, Biblia
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Habari Njema, Contemporary English Version, and a variety of recent mother tongue
translations in Africa.
1.4 The necessity of different versions of the Bible in Africa
In Africa, many communities have only a pioneer mother tongue translation of the Bible,
which is either complete or in progress. Like any other pioneer translations in the rest of
the world, the overriding communicative function for the pioneer African translations is
the missionary function. In other words, these translations were or are being produced
with a missionary objective in mind. They are essentially designed to be part of the
missionary effort of establishing the church in the dark continent of Africa.
We need to note that while translation is yet to begin in some of the African languages,
the translations in some of the communities are long overdue for revision. For example,
some of the words used in the older versions have either acquired different meanings or
have simply become archaic to younger generation of readers 3. In some cases, the
translations were drafted by missionaries and their style lacks the natural flow of
indigenous language. Most of the first translations are also very literal as they keep
closely to the linguistic forms of the Hebrew and Greek texts, which make to give wrong
meanings in some texts. In addition, some of the pioneer translations were done for
particular denominations and there is need to come up with “Inter-church” translations
acceptable to all Christians.
Although missionary translations have served and continue to serve their purpose fairly
well, other African translations with different functional emphases are needed.
Christianity is now well established in many parts of Africa and the goal of translation
need to expand its horizon from a missionary function to catering for other specialized
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Cf. Kikuyu translation Deuteronomy 28:13, translation of the term for tail in Kikuyu has acquired a
different meaning causing problems in public reading of the text for the current generation.
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functions4. For an institution like St. Pauls we need versions of mother tongue
translations that can be used as bases for biblical exegesis.
1.6 A strategy for producing alternative translations
The task of determining and producing alternative translations is by no means an easy
one. The prime question is: What strategy can translators use to design a scripture version
that is not only complementary to the existing translation but also acceptable to the
intended target audience? In the following section, a participatory approach to Bible
translation (PABT) is presented as one of the viable strategies that could be used to
identify an alternative function-oriented and acceptable Scripture version for an African
context. The strategy in build on the theoretical framework of a functionalist perspective
of translation, which suggests among other issues, that in the real world of translation, the
central factor for determining how a translation is done may be found in the question:
Does the translation fulfill the function that its initiator(s)5 had in mind for it? (Nord
1997:30).
The PABT approach aims at the active involvement of the target language community in
the design of the translation brief, which guides the actual process of Bible translation. In
this approach the most important participants in the translation process are: the target
language community, the sponsoring translation organization, and the source text author.
As it has been discussed in the previous section, the target language community in the
PABT approach is allocated the role of “initiator-cum-addressee” for the translation.
There are three important steps to be followed in involving members of the community in
the technical aspects of translating the Bible into mother tongue. These steps are: the
engagement step, the source text analysis step, and the transfer step. The whole of the
participatory process is illustrated in the following diagram.
As De Vries (2001:312) observes “the situation in which only one type of translation has the monopoly
should only be temporary”, because “a single translation is not enough for the various things people want to
do with the Bible”.
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“Initiator” is a technical term, which Nord (1997:20) defines as “the person, group or institution that
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starts of the translation process and determines its course by defining the purpose for which the target
text is needed.”
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Step 1:
Engagement.
Target language
Community
needs a
translation
Rapport and
Negotiation over
translation
brief/skopos
Translation
Brief: to
guide the
translation
process.
Translation
acceptable to
target text
audience
Step 2:
Source text
analysis.
Translation
agency provides
the required
expertise for
translation
Source text
analysis
Step 3: Transfer. Translation
agency translates the source text in
accordance with the translation
brief
Translation product
that is loyal and
acceptable
Source text
author provides
the source text
The source
text
message
Translation
loyal to
source text
author
Figure 1: Diagram illustrating the process of translation in PABT
1.6 Conclusion
Translations are produced to serve certain communicative functions. It is necessary to
have as many translations of the Bible in order to fully understand the Bible from
different perspectives. The need for alternative versions in an African context is urgent
but without suitable strategies, the task of doing such translations can be very difficult.
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The PABT strategy proposed in this presentation may be applied to produce acceptable
and function oriented translations.
Bibliography
Chemorion, D.C., 2008. Translating Jonah’s Narration and Poetry Into Sabaot. Towards
a Participatory Approach to Bible Translation. Stellenbosch University.
De Vries, L., 2001. Bible Translations: Forms and Functions. The Bible Translator. Vol.
52 (3):306-319.
Hargreaves, C., 1993. A Translator’s Freedom: Modern English Bibles and Their
Language. Sheffield: JSOT Press.
Munday, J;, 2001. Introducing Translation Studies. London: Routledge.
Nord, C., 1997. Translating as a Purposeful Activity: Functionalist Approaches
Explained. Manchester: St. Jerome.
Noorda, S., 2002. New and Familiar. The Dynamics of Bible Translation. In: Brenner, A.,
& Van Hentem, J.W., (Eds.) Bible Translation on the Threshold of the Twenty
First Century: Authority, Reception, Culture and Religion. London: Sheffield
Academic Press, pp. 8-16.
Wendland, E.R. Buku Loyera. An Introduction to the New Chichewa Bible Translation.
Blantyre: Christian Literature Association in Malawi.