PREPARING TRANSLATION ADVISORS TO LEAD AN ORAL TRANSLATION PROJECT A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GORDON-CONWELL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE DOCTOR OF MINISTRY BY BRIAN W. KELLY JANUARY 2020 Copyright © 2020 by Brian W. Kelly. All Rights Reserved. To my loving wife Susannah, for continually encouraging me to the end. Thanks for walking this road with me. To Robin Ulibarri and Dr. Bryan Harmelink, for cheering this on from the very beginning. To Dr. Heather Beal, whose partnership in this allowed this course to become a reality. CONTENTS ABSTRACT vi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1 The Problem and Its Setting 1 Thesis Outline 4 2. THEOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK 9 Introduction 9 A Biblical-Theological Foundation for Bible Translation 10 A Biblical-Theological Foundations for an Other-Than-Literate Approach to Translating the Bible 17 3. LITERATURE REVIEW 22 Introduction 22 Initial Parameters 23 Missiology and Orality 26 Orality and Translation 36 Oral Approaches to Translation 44 Conclusion 49 4. PROJECT DESIGN 52 Introduction 52 Course Background 54 Course Goals and Design 57 5. PROJECT EVALUATION 64 Introduction 64 Qualitative Assessment 67 Quantitative Assessment 75 Final Assessment 86 Areas for Further Research 87 APPENDIX A. OCCASIONS WHERE JESUS AND THE GOSPEL WRITERS QUOTE THE OLD TESTMANT 89 B. AL 5308 ORAL TRANSLATION DAILY COURSE SCHEDULE 92 iv C. AL 5308 ORAL TRANSLATION COURSE READINGS 95 D. COURSE ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING 97 E. SAMPLE EXEGETICAL WORKUP 100 F. OUTLINE OF ORAL DRAFTING PROCESS 104 G. CLASS HANDOUT FOR ASSESSING EXEGESIS 108 H. ORAL TRANSLATION ADVISOR COMPETENCIES GROWTH CHART 109 I. RESULTS OF ORAL TRANSLATION ADVISOR QUESTIONNAIRE 113 BIBLIOGRAPHY 115 VITA 118 v ABSTRACT This thesis is a critical analysis of a course designed and taught by the author at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics (GIAL). The course is titled, "Oral Translation." This thesis begins with the circumstances that led to the creation of the course. The next part provides the theological basis for an oral approach to Bible translation. Chapter Four describes the course design, including the rationale for the course, the course objectives, the teaching methodology and the assignments. The final chapter evaluates whether the course was successful in its goal of preparing people for the role of being a translation advisor with teams doing oral Bible translation. vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The Problem and Its Setting In May 2017 ten organizations (SIL, FCBH, YWAM, IMB, Seed Company, Wycliffe USA, ABS, GIAL, PBT, Wycliffe Global Alliance)1 came together in what was called the Render Summit. Its focus was on oral Bible translation and the successful rollout of the software developed by FCBH to facilitate an oral translation process. During the Summit the group settled upon four core Challenges/Opportunities that needed to be addressed for the successful rollout of the Render software. These four Challenges/Opportunities were: 1. Control and Standards – establishing how quality of translation would be assured 2. Training – creating multiple venues for training translators, translation advisors, consultants, IT staff, and project designer and coordinators. 3. Mobilization – identifying, inspiring, and releasing new and existing staff. 4. Resources – developing new resources geared towards oral translation and oral communities. Each organization sought to look at its strategic contribution to one or more of the Challenges/Opportunities. At the time of the Render Summit there were no formal training courses in oral Bible translation. Likewise, the workshops that were available all focused on oral storying. While oral storying and oral translation overlap in many ways, 1 The organizations’ full names are: Faith Comes by Hearing (FCBH); Youth With A Mission (YWAM); International Mission Board (IMB); American Bible Society (ABS); Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics (GIAL); Pioneer Bible Translators (PBT). 1 it was felt by everyone that training specifically oriented to the unique demands of oral Bible translation needed to be developed. During this Summit GIAL felt that it was strategically positioned to take up the Challenge/Opportunity of developing a new graduate level course on oral Bible translation (OBT). They tasked Dr. Heather Beal with creating this new course. Since this was a new field for Dr. Beal, she reached out to staff from SIL, FCBH and Seed Company who had experience in oral storying and oral Bible translation to help develop the course. I was her primary partner in SIL. In coordination with Dr. Harmelink and Dr. Ciampa, Dr. Beal agreed that I could focus on development and teaching this course for my DMin thesis-project. One of the first steps in the process was to better understand the parameters at GIAL within which the course needed to be designed and operate. The first parameter was that this course needed to be an elective. Since there is no program or concentration at GIAL which requires an oral translation course as a core course it was decided that offering this course as an elective was the best fit. Another parameter was that the course needed to be taught within the time frame of GIAL’s academic calendar which is set up as bimesters and sessions. To fit within the existing sessions of GIAL’s academic calendar the course needed to be either four weeks or eight weeks in length. The course also needed to be structured so that it had the appropriate workload, especially in relation to other courses students might be taking at the same time. The final parameter was that it needed to be strategically positioned in relation to other courses already offered at GIAL. GIAL’s desire was that the course be available to as many students as possible, especially students in other degree programs whose interests overlap with oral translation. 2 Therefore, it was decided the course would have no prerequisites. It was also recognized that it should seek to avoid duplicating the content of other courses, in particular the Translation Principles course. Several questions presented themselves in relation to developing a new graduate level course in oral Bible translation. What should a graduate level course on OBT contain? In light of the parameters at GIAL how should a course in oral Bible translation be developed and taught? If a course were developed, how effective is this course in preparing people to do oral Bible translation? Taking all of this into account my research question had two parts: How can we prepare an effective course in oral Bible translation and how effective is it in teaching the subject matter? A core assumption was that the typical student would be someone from the U.S. or Europe who would end up serving as a translation advisor in a translation project. A follow-up assumption is that with some experience this person would transition into a trainer role to train up nationals and mother-tongue speakers to be better translators and with time to serve as the translation advisors for a project.2 Therefore, methodologically I wanted the manner in which this course was taught to be one that was reproducible overseas – that what the students saw and did they could replicate in the field to train others. Another core assumption was that people with a wide variety of translation experience would be taking this course. Since the course had no prerequisites some people would enter the course with little to no translation experience. On the other end, it was likely that people who had years of translation experience and were even consultants 2 Payton, “Preparing Future Translation Advisors to Mentor National Translators,” 2015, 11-13. 3 would enroll in the course in order to get exposure in this new field. Therefore, methodologically this course needed to cover some fundamentals of translation in enough depth to give new students enough of a starting point to enter into a translation project, but at the same time cover new topics in oral translation to broaden the Knowledge, Skills, Attitudes (KSAs) of experienced translators. With all these factors in place I felt that we could produce a course that provided an introduction to oral Bible translation. I expected students to leave the course with sufficient experience and knowledge such that they could lead a team of mother-tongue translators through the various steps of oral translation. I did not expect all students to be able to operate independently having taken only this one course. Those who had little to no translation experience would still need a combination of training and mentoring in a variety of areas (e.g. biblical exegesis and translation principles) to be able to address all the complexities of a translation project, and especially of being a translation advisor. I felt that those with translation experience should be able to lead a translation team. In some cases they could quickly move to training others, preferably after a time of additional coaching. Thesis Outline Chapter Two will look at the biblical-theological foundations for oral Bible translation. A fundamental assumption that an oral approach to Bible translation seeks to challenge is that a person has to be literate to be a Christian. Rarely is this ever stated overtly. Rather, it is a recognition that for many centuries now we, Christians, have been “people of the Book.” Two authors, Green and Sundersingh, have looked specifically at 4