|
| “We had two brothers from an indigenous group in the mountains... They have to walk for about four hours to get down to the station where they do their translation” |
Dr Steven Voth, a UBS Translation Consultant based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, has helped plan the course and is currently program director. He is also one of the two professors teaching it. Its purpose, he says, is to give the translators “the tools to do a better job”.
The two courses in March were the first of 12 planned modules. Each a week long, they were attended by 15 translators from eight countries, all of whom are working as translators or as co-ordinators on UBS projects.
“We had two brothers from an indigenous group in Costa Rica called the Bri Bri that lives up in the mountains,” said Dr Voth. “They have to walk for about four hours to get down to the station where they do their translation. These two, probably in their early 20s, are in the process of finishing primary school.
Different perspective
“They have been part of a Christian church for some years but their community is not Christian so they’re working on getting the Scriptures into their own language. They brought a totally different perspective from students from urban areas.”
At the other end of the spectrum was a seminary-educated Italian priest who has been working in Guatemala for over 20 years.
“He is working with indigenous groups in Guatemala. It was a really good experience to have him along with some of the other students from evangelical backgrounds. He was very gracious and appreciated getting to know other people doing the same kinds of things with the same kinds of problem.”
Creative approaches
The assortment of backgrounds, Dr Voth explained, also means that teachers have to devise “creative” approaches in the classroom.
“Even if some of the students have had formal education, their learning process is different,” he said. “They don’t learn in the same ways as westerners so we have to engage them in different ways - storytelling… images… experiential means. We don’t just lecture!
“But they learn from each other: because of the good spirit that developed amongst them the priest will learn from the others and vice versa. This is the first time this has happened in Latin America and everybody is very excited about the opportunity.”
The course introduces them to helpful theology reference works and gives them practice in, for example, translating key theological terms such as ‘Sabbath’ in their different cultures and languages, and gives background information.
No formal training
“Most have had no formal training in biblical studies, theology
or anthropology so we’re giving them some theory and information and
do case studies and practice sessions,” said Dr Voth. “They
are given a specific translation and, working in groups, they have to
compare the kinds of problem in one culture with the problems in another
culture.”
| This is the first time this has happened in Latin America and everybody is excited about the opportunity |
Among the cultural problems encountered among some of them was an aversion to the idea of translating the Deuterocanonical books.
“We had other people in the class who were involved in that,” said Dr Voth, “so it was a critical issue. And each had to learn to accept the other.”
Another was the role of women. “We had three women in the class and in most indigenous societies women do not have a lot of rights. Yet we had some who were translating and who had to engage in discussion and dialogue with their male colleagues - and that was a whole new scenario!”
In some cultures, he said, anthropomorphic descriptions of God are an issue.
Unacceptable
“A god who gets angry or is jealous is almost unacceptable to them so they have a hard time translating those passages. They try to ‘domesticate’ the translation and I had to insist on the need to translate what the text says not what they would like it to say.
“But the common denominator was that they really enjoyed learning from each other. They also felt that after the two weeks there were a number of things that they had to begin to change and to do better. They feel they have better tools now and they really are looking forward to the next two weeks that we’ll have at the end of September.”
Beyond September, there are plans in hand to extend and develop the course from its modest but promising start.
New dimension
Meanwhile, Dr Voth says that the two weeks in March provided a very exciting experience.
“The students all feel somewhat isolated in what they do and to come together like this and to realise that they’re part of a much bigger enterprise - that there are translation projects going on in Europe, in Asia and in Africa - that just opened up a whole new dimension for them - that they’re part of a much bigger family.” (WR 369/20 - 7/8.02)