Why SE and Language Development are Top of the Food Chain

Many of us see Bible translation as the ultimate goal of what we do in our work. That’s what we were recruited for, that’s what we trained for. Linguistics is an important means to an end, and that end is Bible translation. When we sit down and plan the next year’s activities what do we plan? Books of the Bible (New Testament?) that we want to draft or edit during the next year? A typical plan has: training for new members to the project, work for experienced translators and checking work for the exegete/advisor/coordinator assigned to the project (or Translation Consultant). But what if we were to rephrase everything in terms of impact? The impact a scripture translation has is clearly a Scripture Engagement goal. Who is the impact going to be on? The community. It depends what kind of a community we’re talking about. If there are churches then the SE goals need to be worked out with those communities. What are the primary needs? Which scripture selections are most likely to appeal to people? In what format should they be presented? And so on.

If not then the language development goals need to be worked out with the wider community. That’s where development comes in. Community relations and finding out what people want to do. Also sociolinguistic and cultural research of course.

So SE and language development drive everything else. Translation is a means to an end, once we have worked out the impact we (or rather the community in question) would like to see. Sorted!

Seeing it All Fit Together

When talking to folk in churches I sometimes get the idea that what they really like is A and we are doing B. The A is rather immaterial. It might be church-planting or development work or something like that. It is what this person, or church, sees as the important work. What is really needed. 'If I were there in such-and-such a place, I would get involved in A.' The trouble with this is:

1. We are often unaware of the real needs of the community
2. It's not really up to us to tell them what their needs are. That's rather patronising
3. That may be somebody else's specialism, not mine (as a Bible-translator type)

So what do we generally do about that? Well, we spend a lot of time listening and learning, basically. Development work usually starts with building relationships with the community and finding out what they want, so that's what we do. If the community is a village, they might have development ideas. If it is a community of believers (a church), they might have scripture engagement ideas. Once we have listened we can begin to draw up a plan, with them, about how we might meet those needs, including language development, scripture engagement and translation work. 

Some folk in churches have even got the idea that doing any kind of work overseas is counter-productive. It can be, but not if we start right and are prepared to serve and facilitate, rather than dictate and do. 

One Story at a Time

We want to make sure the Bibles and Bible portions we produce are acceptable to the audience and in an appropriate format. Often we find ourselves working with people who are not very literate, who speak two languages (their mother tongue, and a trade language), and who are used to oral means of communication. This means that it is good to produce short audio recordings or videos that will have a large impact. Once someone has become a believer they are much more likely to start devouring scripture—before that we need to think creatively of different ways of getting Bible stories into people’s hands (ears and eyes). One very popular method these days is called Oral Storying or Chronological Storying. This is where a believer tells a small group a story straight from the Bible. He or she tells it three or four times and asks some questions to see if they have understood it. The group all go home and retell the story (by now they have memorised it), and so the message is passed on. The interesting thing is that it is much better not to ask analytical questions such as, ‘What do you think the story means?’ or ‘What good example can we follow?’ The questions all need to be about characters and events in the story—oral learners drink in the meaning of the story without analysing it in the way we might. The stories start with Adam & Eve and go on through the Bible.

'Tell as a story!'