Similarity and alterity in translating the orality of the Old Testament in oral cultures

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

This article explores the relationship between the orality of the Old Testament as a source text and orality as a feature of the target culture. This relationship involves both alterity, the assertion of distance of culture, and similarity (or familiarity), the assertion of proximity of culture (Sturge 2007). However, because orality does not involve a fixed set of universal features, the similarities and differences between the orality of the Old Testament and the orality of a target culture are examined using the insights of Biblical Performance Criticism (Rhoads 2012). In other words, the process involves not just the translation of performance but also translation for performance (Maxey 2012). These concepts are explored through a performance translation of a liturgical psalm (Psalm 24) into Sesotho, a Bantu language of Southern Africa.