Highlights from the International Bible Translation Conference - Engaging OBT and Emotions in Translation
Highlights from the International Bible Translation Conference - Engaging OBT and Emotions in Translation
Me speaking during the Plenary Panel on AI
I have not sent an update in awhile. The International Bible Translation Conference, held in Dallas from October 13-17, has taken much of my time and attention. I had the privilege of fulfilling multiple roles in the conference. These roles included:
- engaging in a plenary panel discussion on AI in Bible translation,
- coordinating moderators for more than 120 presentations,
- moderating 15 presentations,
- and presenting two articles.
This email gives you a window into the research I presented—and the opportunity to watch the presentations for themselves!
Presentation #1 “Quality in Oral Bible Translation: The What and How”
Over a year ago, I started writing an article about quality in OBT with Dr. Heather Beal, who teaches the OBT class at DIU, and Nikki Mustin, an OBT consultant. We were delighted to present a shortened version of this article at the Bible Translation conference. We were especially excited to share our research with an international audience, hoping we would receive constructive feedback before publishing the article in a journal.
We received an incredible response! The turnout for our session was staggering. The room was packed; it was standing room only, and they had to turn away people who did not arrive early enough. What was most encouraging was the attendees’ remarkable level of engagement. Among the responses we received, there was one that stayed with me. It was from a translation consultant in Kenya who shared this with Nikki and me the next day:
“OBT has been growing for some years now, and I have been concerned about its quality. Now, after your presentation, I am no longer concerned. I will go back to my organization in Kenya and tell everyone that we need to train people in OBT!”
What did we learn from our experience? We learned that people have a voracious appetite for learning more about OBT. In response, I am immersed in revising our paper, eager to publish it without delay.
If you’re interested in watching the presentation, or reading the transcript, you can find them here:
Presentation #2: “A Method for Exegeting Emotions in the Bible for Higher Quality Translation”
If you have been getting my emails for awhile, you have probably noticed I talk a lot about emotions. In order to be faithful translators, oral Bible translators must know how to determine the emotions in the Bible. Few resources give translators adequate guidance for this task (as I wrote here).
My second presentation at the BT conference was titled, “A Method for Exegeting Emotions in the Bibe for Higher Quaity Transation.” The presentation was a short version of a book chapter I recently published by the same title. A lot of people attended the presentation, there were good questions during the Q&A time, and many people read my article afterward and are contacting me now to dialogue more on the topic. God has also started to answer my prayer that this research would be of use to the Deaf communities of the world—one person who works for a Deaf team specifically requested that I send him the article to read. I may get to talk more with him on this topic in the future.
If you’re interested in watching my presentation, reading the transcript, or reading the article itself, you can find them here:
TL;DR
If the email was too long to read, here are the main points:
- I presented two articles at the Bible Translation conference, one on determining emotions in the Bible and one with two other colleagues on quality in oral Bible translation.
- You can watch my presentations, read the transcripts, and even read a chapter I recently wrote by following the links above.
Challenge for You
Does one of the topics above interest you? Read more about it!
Do you think your pastor or another Christian would benefit from one of the presentations or articles listed above? Share it with them!