Bible Translation Basics

Communicating Scripture in a Relevant Way

Harriet Hill, Ernst-August Gutt, Christoph Unger, Margaret Hill, Rick Floyd

• Publisher: SIL International
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781556712937
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblische Studien

Over the past thirty years, scholars have made significant advances in understanding how human communication functions. They have moved from looking for meaning in texts alone to seeing texts as providing clues that lead hearers to discover the speaker's intended meaning. Hearers use other inputs as well—things they already know, information from the speech environment—as they search to understand not only what the words of the text say but also what the speaker is communicating. All this has significant implications for Bible translation. Bible Translation Basics accomplishes two things: 1) it expresses these theoretical developments in communication at a basic level in non-technical language, and 2) it applies these developments to the task of Bible translation in very practical ways. Tried and tested around the world, people with a secondary school education or higher are able to understand how communication works and apply those insights to communicating Scripture to their audiences. Bible Translation Basics helps translators work with language communities to determine the kind of Scripture product(s) that are most relevant for them, given their abilities and preferences.

The Basics of Communication

Lesson 2

How We Understand Meaning

They’re back!?

John Ngu and Peter Rigi were part of the team translating the Bible into the Wizi language. One day an invitation came for them both to attend a conference in the capital city on communicating the message of the Bible by oral means. God made it possible for both of them to attend.

The workshop began and they heard about many interesting things, but during the afternoon break a most extraordinary thing happened! Many of the people at the conference were from the capital city or from the north of the country, but Peter and John were from the south. As they were sitting drinking their tea, a man rushed into the room shouting, “They’re back!” All the people from the north and from the city grabbed bowls and brooms and rushed outside to go after them, leaving John and Peter and various other southerners sitting there feeling rather confused. Finally they got up and went outside to find out what was happening. The sky was full of locusts! Some people were trying to get them off the plants and bushes, and some were trying to catch them in bowls.

After five minutes all the locusts left as suddenly as they came, and the conference continued. John whispered to Peter, “Now we know who they were.”

GROUP DISCUSSION

1. What did the northerners at this conference understand from the announcement, “They’re back?”

2. Discuss why John, Peter, and the other southerners were confused.

We look for what seems to be most important

To understand why John and Peter did not understand what was meant by “They’re back!” while others in the room did, let us look at how communication works.

Our environment is full of information. Look out the window. What do you see at first glance? Now look again carefully. What else is out there that you did not notice at first? Do you smell anything? Hear anything?

There is too much information in our environment for us to pay attention to it all. Our minds select certain things and disregard others. The first time you looked out the window, you noticed the things that seemed the most important to you right now. When you looked again carefully, you noticed much more.

When we are in church and a person is preaching, we generally pay attention to what he or she is saying, not the kind of shoes he is wearing. We expect the message to be the most important thing to give our attention to. If, however, we are planning to buy new shoes, we may give attention to the preacher’s shoes, as any information about shoes will seem important. We are not aware of it, but we are continually making choices like this.

People cannot pay attention to everything. They give their attention to what they consider most important and ignore the rest.

GROUP DISCUSSION

1. What do you give your attention to?

a. What did you give your attention to in this room prior to this exercise?

b. What else is in this room that you did not notice the first time? List at least four things.

c. Suggest another circumstance that might have led you to notice these things. For example, if you were feeling thirsty, you might notice that there are some glasses at the back of the room.

2. Discuss whether or not people in your audience are willing to give their attention to Scripture. If not, discuss possible reasons.

Speakers claim to have something worth paying attention to

By communicating, people claim that they have something important for their audience to understand. This is true whether they are communicating with words or by actions. They are claiming their communication to be more important than anything else in the environment and that it will be worth the audience’s effort to give their attention to understand it.

When someone addresses us, we no longer give our attention to other things, but we search for the meaning of the words they used, and we try to work out why they said this to us. For example, when the northerners in the story said, “They’re back,” everyone understood 1) that the locusts were back and 2) that the speaker meant that they should run outside quickly to collect some to eat.

People say less than they mean

What do you see in this photo?

Do you call it a papaya tree?

Does it touch the ground?

How do you know?

Does it have roots?

Does the picture show them?

How do you know it has roots?

We are always trying to make sense of things. What we see is only part of what we understand about the world around us. Automatically, it brings to mind certain things we already know. We combine what we see with what we know to understand what it is we are looking at.

What information do we supply to make sense of this photo?

Context is information that the speaker thinks we already know before we hear (that part of) a text, and that we use to understand what the speaker means.

When we speak, we also say less than we mean. We count on our hearers to supply things they already know. It can include things in our environment we see, smell, hear, or feel, what has just been said, things from our culture and society, from our personal experience, and so forth. We refer to this information as context. For example, at the conference in our story, if Peter gets to the classroom and realizes he did not bring a pen to take notes with, he may say:

Peter: I need a pen.

John: I have an extra one.

What exactly did Peter say? What did he mean? Was it a statement of fact or a question? What context did John use to understand what Peter meant?

What exactly did John say? What did he mean? What does “one” refer to? Is he only stating a fact or was he also making an offer? How do you know? What context did Peter use to understand what John said?

What people say only points to what they mean. Our minds supply the context.

GROUP DISCUSSION

1. Discuss the information Jesus expected his audience to know about the relationship between Jews and Samaritans to understand the story of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:30–37).

2. Read this passage from the story of the flood:

After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth (Gen 8:6–7 NIV).

In Southeast Asia, one group thought ravens had mystical powers that could dry up water by flying back and forth. Discuss how this context might affect how they understand this passage.

3. Often people have misunderstood Scripture because they used the wrong context. Discuss any situations like this that you can think of.

We work out the meaning

Understanding what people mean involves working out the clues they provide in what they say and supplying information they think we already know. For example, when Peter said, “I need a pen,” John understood that Peter needed this to take notes, not for some other purpose. He understood Peter needed a pen that worked, that Peter was really asking to borrow a pen, and so forth. Since this context is not spelled out in words, we have to work out the information speakers intend us to use to understand their message. In this course, we will be exploring how we do this.

How do hearers know when they have understood the speaker’s meaning correctly? Speakers want to be understood. They do not want to tire out their audience unnecessarily, so they try to make the meaning they intend the easiest one for their audience to work out. This allows hearers to take the first meaning that makes sense as the intended one. If speakers wanted them to understand something else, they would have expressed themselves differently.

This is not to say that all communication is successful. Speakers vary in their ability to communicate but, as much as they are able, they try to make their message as easy to understand as possible.

We are very intent on finding meaning. Even if someone says something that is incorrect or unclear, we try to understand something from what they say. In our search for meaning, we may even correct errors in what is said without realizing it. For example, if John said, “I think I have a pen in my box,” as he looked for one in his bag, Peter would still understand what he meant.

We figure out what is meant from what is said by using context.

Summary

We cannot pay attention to everything in our environment. Our minds pay attention to the things we think will be the most important to us and ignore the rest. When we speak, we are claiming to have something important for our audience to know. We do not say everything we mean; what we say only points to what we mean. The audience is guided by these clues to supply the context needed to understand the meaning. Hearers try to make sense of what is said. Since speakers try to be understood, hearers can take the first meaning that makes sense as the intended one.

So what?

Translators need to communicate Scripture in such a way that people give their attention to it.

Assignment

1. Listen to conversations around you. Write down an exchange between two people. Analyze what each one said and what they meant. List the context each one expected the other to supply.

2. Think of a Bible passage that is often misunderstood by people in your church. Explain why it is misunderstood. Write down the reference of the passage and the heading.

3. Read Matthew 12:1–2:

At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. ² When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath” (NIV).

Now read this information:

12:1. Jewish law based on Deuteronomy 23:25 (cf. Ruth 2:2–3) provided for the poor to eat food as they passed through a field. The issue here is thus not that the disciples took someone’s grain but that they picked it on the Sabbath; later rabbinic law specifically designated this as one of thirty-nine kinds of work forbidden on the Sabbath.¹

what is unlawful on the Sabbath: According to Jewish tradition (in the Mishnah), harvesting (which is what Jesus’ disciples technically were doing) was forbidden on the Sabbath (see Ex 34:21 NIV Study Bible).

a. Is any of this inf...