ZULU YOUTH INTERPRET AND TRANSLATE METAPHORS IN HEBREW POETRY: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Abstract

Biblical poems make extensive use of metaphors which related to the culture of the original writers. This study explores how Zulu youth in South Africa interpret some of these metaphors from their context. It also gave them the opportunity to translate some biblical metaphors for their peer-group, using images that are more meaningful to them. Their compositions show some insightful interpretation of the Hebrew texts, particularly with respect to their use of new metaphors (often in an expanded form). These new metaphors tend to be within the same domain as those in the original text. The ambiguity inherent in metaphor offered space for the Zulu youth to introduce new (and insightful) imagery in translating metaphors from another culture. The process is worth extending to other communities to enrich our understanding of how people from different contexts perceive and think.