Translating psalms for Africa today: Involving the community and transmitting through performance

Psalms, being poems, need to be translated as poems using the poetic features of the receptor language. Official translators are not always poetically sensitive, but many community members are highly skilled word-artists, keen to participate in the translation process. Further, poems are always performed before an audience, and thus translated psalms need to include performance features as part of the translation. These two aspects of translating psalms offer advantageous possibilities for those translating biblical poetry. The notion of community involvement challenges the idea of ‘authority resting with the trained translators or consultant’, but the Skopos Theory reminds us that there can be many translations of a psalm, serving different purposes. This article describes the results of an empirical study including Zulu youth (interested in poetry and music) in the translation of some praise psalms. The idea of interpreting and communicating psalms as oral performances was also tested by presenting the translations as performances before an audience. Four Zulu youth groups participated in the study, each spending five days learning the principles of translation, poetic devices (in Hebrew and isiZulu), features of local music and oral communication style. They studied, translated and presented through oral performance three praise psalms before an audience of adults and peers. The isiZulu translations were evaluated primarily using Wendland’s criteria for a literary-rhetorical translation (viz. artistry, aurality and acceptability), but attention was also given to the traditional criteria of faithfulness to the Hebrew, naturalness and clarity. Many of the translations showed creativity balanced with accuracy and gave insights into the exegesis of the psalms. They also used traditional rhythm and features of local poetry and music, and engaged the audience using aspects of performance art. The study highlighted the opportunity available to a translator of psalms to engage local oral artists to participate in the process, either in a parallel project which can feed into the official project, or as a valuable means of Scripture Engagement. Being able to experience the translation process and present psalms in a way meaningful to the local culture has many advantages which need to be explored.Contribution: Engaging the local community in a significant way is key to the success of a translation project. Beyond simply being ‘reviewers’, this methodology offers opportunity for greater involvement in the translation of poetry. Further, using oral performance to present psalms actively, engages the community, resulting in far higher acceptability, memorability and perceived relevance.

Youth sexting and the First Amendment: Rhetoric and child pornography doctrine in the age of translation

Sexting has become a common mode of communicative sexual expression in the United States. Youths who sext with their peers are sometimes charged for the crime of producing and distributing child pornography. Such charges are inconsistent with the intent of American child pornography law, which is to protect children from abuse and exploitation. Understanding sext messages as a type of media content, this essay offers rhetorical translation as one strategy for identifying resources in Supreme Court doctrine to help distinguish between youth sexts and child pornography. Through rhetorical translation, this manuscript finds resources in four opinions concerning child pornography and the First Amendment for distinguishing sexting from child pornography. These distinctions pertain to how the two types of media are produced and distributed as demonstrated in a three-part interpretive model: motive and consent, privacy and consent, and market.