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Community Testing Your Translation (and why Scripture engagement is linked to this)


We all now the importance of community checking (or testing) a translation. This is where members of the team (but not the translators) go out into the community to test a translation, to see if it is understood, often using Katy Barnwell's '10 Ways of Testing Your Translation.' If you haven't read it yet, do read it now.

Community Checking and Scripture Engagement

So, what is the connection between community testing and Scripture engagement (SE)? There are several things that can be said about this:

  • Community checks are a good way of gaining legitimacy or acceptance of your translation amongst the community. They've had input, so now they have had their say, their feel they own the translation
  • It's not about a product it's about a process - building relationships with the community which will lead to SE
  • Some of the methods of community checking overlap hugely with SE, namely Listening to Readers (or to those giving their voices to audio recordings), Tell it Again, Trial Version(s), and Use of the Translation in Bible Study Groups. All four methods are commonly used by SE workers as they work with communities
  • Searching for opportunities for community checking your translation can be the same as searching for SE options
  • If you are working in an area where people have smartphones, why not test the translation using Social media? Or by making a Bible App, which can be updated with the final version of the text? (Apps can be set to expire on a certain date unless updated)
  • If you are sitting in a room, as a translation team, or working virtually as a team, how is anyone ever going to hear about the translation? Why would they read it when it comes out, if they have never heard of it while it was going on?
So, it's really important to have your translation community checked, as it helps to build those relationships that are needed between the team and the community, and gain trust, and begin SE work amongst the community. Without community checks, your translation may never be used.

Remember that it is the translation you are testing, not the testing respondents. Whatever a respondent says is the correct answer, in that they have understood it in a certain way and we want to find out why that is, and if necessary correct the translation to make it make sense.

When Community Checking is Hard

What if community checking is difficult where you are working because of limited access to the community? It doesn't mean you can skip this important step in your translation process. Why not? Because there are always ways to test a translation. You can ask friends about certain key terms e.g. which word do they use for 'God' when they are praying to him (give them a list of alternatives)? What do they think the purpose of sacrifice is? Friends will be happy to answer those kinds of questions. Also, it is possible to carry out community checking with members of diaspora communities.

If you find it hard to carry out community checking, the most important checking methods are:

  1. The Tell-it-Again test
  2. Asking comprehension questions ('Questions and Answers')
  3. Back Translations into a Language of Wider Communication
So, if you have to skip anything, skip some of the other methods, but do make sure you carry out community checks!

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