The central idea of this volume is the simple insistence that the structure of a part of a discourse (or text) needs to be explained in light of the structure of the whole. The book can be used both as a textbook and field manual for discourse analysis.

Over the past thirty years, scholars have made significant advances in understanding how human communication functions. They have moved from looking for meaning in texts alone to seeing texts as providing clues that lead hearers to discover the speaker’s intended meaning. Hearers use other inputs as well—things they already know, information from the speech environment—as they search to understand not only what the words of the text say but also what the speaker is communicating. All this has significant implications for Bible translation. Bible Translation Basics accomplishes two things: 1) it expresses these theoretical developments in communication at a basic level in non-technical language, and 2) it applies these developments to the task of Bible translation in very practical ways. Tried and tested around the world, people with a secondary school education or higher are able to understand how communication works and apply those insights to communicating Scripture to their audiences. Bible Translation Basics helps translators work with language communities to determine the kind of Scripture product(s) that are most relevant for them, given their abilities and preferences.

Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsPrefaceIntroductionLesson 1: Why Translate the Bible?Lesson 2: How We Understand MeaningLesson 3: How We Know When We Have UnderstoodLesson 4: Processing Effort, Benefits, and RelevanceLesson 5: How We Select ContextLesson 6: Communicating with ConceptsLesson 7: Filling Out What Is SaidLesson 8: Leaving Parts of Sentences ImplicitLesson 9: Drawing the Intended ImplicationsLesson 10: Stronger and Weaker Guidance to ImplicationsLesson 11: Describing or RetellingLesson 12: Genre and TranslationLesson 13: Appropriate Scripture ProductsLesson 14: Understanding a Biblical PassageLesson 15: Identifying Mismatches in Secondary CommunicationLesson 16: Cultural ResearchLesson 17: Expressing Concepts in Another LanguageLesson 18: Adjusting Contextual MismatchesLesson 19: Translating Metaphors and MoreLesson 20: How We Connect ThoughtsLesson 21: Crafting Bible StoriesLesson 22: Different Contributions to Relevance in a TextLesson 23: Communicating Additional Layers of MeaningLesson 24: Special Issues: Names, Weights, Measures, and MoneyLesson 25: From Draft to PublicationLesson 26: Translation ProgramsAppendix 1. GlossaryAppendix 2. How to Make a Back-TranslationAppendix 3. Generating a First Draft: A SummaryAppendix 4. Topical Indexes