RECALIBRATING BIBLICAL DISCOURSE INTO AFRICAN INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES THROUGH REWRITING

Abstract

Bible translators, especially those involved with translating the bible into African indigenous languages have become the torch bearers of evangelism and the proliferation of Christian literature in many communities. Thus, translators face the arduous task of expressing the often inaccessible, ancient and eternal message of the bible into local languages. Translating biblical concepts, ideas, rituals with efficacy such that the native audience experience the same evangelical effect, is the challenge that many bible translators are constantly called upon to grapple with. A poor rendering of biblical concepts, rituals, etc. may lead to ‘de-evangilization’ instead of evangelization, which is the main thrust of bible translation. This study therefore sets out to find out how the New Testament Book of Mark has been translated from English into Mokpe. Has the Book been translated or re-written, and if so, how? The study has as objective, to: (1) explain the relevance of rewriting in the translation of biblical discourse from English into an African indigenous language like Mokpe, and (2) to provide the strategies that have been employed to translate the bible from English into Mokpe through the strategy of rewriting. The study employed a corpus-based and analytical research design. 10 (ten) phraseological excerpts were selected from both the source and target texts and analyzed following Fairclough’s three dimensional model of critical discourse analysis (CDA). Findings reveal that the following micro-strategies were used to recalibrate or rewrite biblical discourse from English into Mokpe, with varying frequencies of occurrence: transposition (30%), modulation (50%), calque (10%), and substitution (10%).