Abstract
Church interpretation is a fast-growing service in practice, though it is still immature in professionalization. This study examines the criteria for measuring quality in church interpretation in Tanzania. These criteria are compared with those discussed by scholars elsewhere. Data were collected in ten representative churches in Dar es Salaam through interviews, focus-group discussions, and questionnaires. It was found that most criteria mentioned by participants in this study, such as fluency, mastery of grammar, faithfulness, congruence, and others, shared a great deal with the criteria discussed in the literature on interpretation. It was also established that initiatives to improve church interpretation in Tanzania are still embryonic, as there are limited actions taken by professional stakeholders to improve it. This paper calls for interpretation stakeholders to provide professional training for interpreters who intend to become professional church interpreters.
Introduction
Measuring quality in interpretation has been a centre of discussion for various stakeholders, such as professionals, trainers, and scholars from the early days of interpretation studies. This is due to the need for the professionalization of interpretation services. The ultimate goal of an interpretation service is to interpret faithfully from the source language (SL) to the target language (TL). Despite the increased number of studies on the quality of interpretation, there is still a lack of agreement on the criteria for assessing quality in interpretation (Alonso Bacigalupe 2013, 9). This study examines the criteria for measuring quality in church interpretation in Tanzania, and investigates some initiatives taken to professionalize the practice in Tanzania.
Quality criteria in interpretation studies
In the early days of interpretation studies, assessment of quality was based mainly on the correctness of the target language text (TT). For instance, in the 1950s, studies on quality focused on the fidelity of interpretation, that is, how closely the TT reflected the content of the source language text (ST; Alonso Bacigalupe 2013, 10). This meant that the interpreter was supposed to render accurately and fully the information given by the SL speaker.
In the 1960s, when equivalency theories of translation were developed, there was a shift in focus from fidelity to equivalence. It was recognized that it was unrealistic for interpreters to render all units of the ST in the TT (i.e., fidelity; Alonso Bacigalupe 2013, 10). It was during this time that it became more acceptable for translators and interpreters either to omit information that was redundant or not relevant to the target community, or to add information for clarification (Alonso Bacigalupe 2013; García Becerra, Pradas Macías, and Barranco-Droege 2013; Nida 1982).
In comparison to consecutive interpretation (CI), more insights relating to simultaneous interpretation (SI) have been gained from empirical studies on quality in the past several decades. In addition, the formation of the Association internationale des interprètes de conférence/International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) in 1953 has helped in setting policies, criteria, and guidelines for professional standards. It has also improved working conditions, wages, and recognition of conference interpreters. Furthermore, AIIC has drawn attention to the need for students to receive professional training in conference interpretation (AIIC 2004; Stolze 1997).
Although the concept of quality in interpretation was still considered elusive due to a lack of consensus regarding criteria (Alonso Bacigalupe 2013; Viezzi 2007), the variety of approaches helped to widen the scope of the understanding of quality. They also supplied complementary models that helped scholars develop improved sets of quality criteria. A good example was the shift of focus from equivalency to functionalism. The interpreter was to create a TT with similar effects to the ST no matter how many changes were necessary (Downie 2014; Herbert 1952; Moser-Mercer 1994; Pöchhacker 2004). This was called intratextual coherence, where the internal consistency of the TT was more important than the consistency between the TT and ST (Alonso Bacigalupe 2013, 11).
With the efforts to standardize interpretation studies, a consensus on the common criteria for quality in interpretation evolved. These criteria include clarity of ideas, linguistic acceptability, terminological accuracy and acceptability, fidelity, and professional behaviour, among others (Alonso Bacigalupe 2013; García Becerra, Pradas Macías, and Barranco-Droege 2013).
Professionalization
Initially, interpreting was not formal. It was done mainly by laypeople who knew two or more languages, especially family members or friends who acted as interpreters to facilitate communication. Such interpreters fulfilled the role of a helper, conduit, guide, or messenger (Angelelli 2004, 19; Hokkanen 2017). It was not until the twentieth century that there were noticeable initiatives to standardize interpreting studies. Moody identifies three countries—Australia, Sweden, and the USA—that pioneered the standardization of community interpreting by recognizing, training, and compensating community interpreters (Moody 2011, 37).
Other efforts were made to professionalize interpretation services. These included training, research, and experience, and resulted in the development of interpretation studies. Moody argues that it was in the twentieth century that interpreting was conferred the status of a profession, first as a result of the exigencies in the negotiation and signing of peace treaties following the Great War (Moody 2011, 37–38). From that time forward, Moody argues, the modern profession of interpretation was born in the sense of an occupation requiring specialized training, knowledge, and skills, and in subsequent years professional interpreter associations of licensed or accredited practitioners who consciously adopted codes of ethics or codes of good practice appeared. There was an increase in papers published in journals and in master’s and doctoral degrees on interpretation (Pöchhacker 2004, 34ff.; Pöchhacker 2013). According to Pöchhacker, quality in interpretation is impacted by interpreters’ qualifications, skills, their collective professional ethics, and the conditions in which they carry out their duties (Pöchhacker 2013, 33).
Consecutive interpretation was the first mode of interpreting that was used in the international conferences of the United Nations. In this mode, interpreters waited until the speaker finished speaking then rendered the message in the target language. During the speech, interpreters were taking notes, especially for lengthy speeches. This situation resulted in the development of consecutive interpreting practices, training, and research. Despite this development, there were still insufficient empirical studies in assessing meaning transfer in CI, compounded by the lack of a clear definition of meaning transfer, the absence of an agreed system of categorizing meaning transfer, and finally, by the absence of workable criteria for assessing quality aspects of interpreting (Guo 2013, 57–58).
The establishment of simultaneous interpreting contributed greatly to the professionalization of interpretation globally. This mode of interpreting was mostly used in international conferences after the introduction of headsets and microphones. Interpreters interpreted in booths through microphones and the audience listened to the interpretation in their chosen language through earphones. This became useful during the Nuremberg trials after World War II (Moody 2011, 38).
In the 1950s, conference interpreters established codes of ethics. Sign language interpreters in America developed codes of conduct in the 1960s, which helped in standardizing American Sign Language (ASL) interpreting (Wadensjo, Dimitrova, and Nilsson 2007, 219–24). In the 1980s, the professionalization of interpreting services began to emerge in different domains and settings. These settings included legal and court interpreting, medical interpreting, and other community-based interpreting contexts. Although the professionalization of interpreting in various settings was made possible across time, some settings, such as religious ones, were very slow. There is still no agreement on the best criteria for church interpretation.
Several scholars have proposed various quality criteria for church interpretation. Peremota's categories of criteria are: faithfulness, congruency, linguistic competence, fluency, background knowledge, communication skills, spirituality, attitude and personal traits, speech apparatus and sound equipment, aspects of professionalism, appearance, gender and age, and cultural mediation/explanation (Peremota 2017, 14).
Alonso Bacigalupe proposed three categories of criteria, namely, content, expression, and technique. Content refers to fidelity, that is, the ST–TT equivalency, or inter- and intra-textual consistency. It also involves accurate and complete transfer of the general idea of the ST. Expression means the quality of language used, including grammar, register, acceptability, collocations, and terminology. For the category of technique, he discusses the nonlinguistic components of interpretation (Alonso Bacigalupe 2013, 11–12).
Due to a lack of professional training and skills, church interpreters in most cases fall short in personal qualifications, ethics, and prevailing conditions affecting their performance. This has made church interpretation practices nonprofessional, lacking in consistency, and disorganized. This study examined the quality criteria enumerated by church stakeholders in the Tanzanian context. These criteria were compared with criteria discussed in the literature on interpreting. This helped in establishing a model for assessing the quality of church interpretation in Tanzania.
Methodology
This study was done in the Dar es Salaam region in Tanzania because it has the highest number of churches that offer interpretation services in English and Kiswahili. The fieldwork was done in ten churches, including the Tanzania Assemblies of God, Pentecostal churches, Tanzania Evangelical Lutheran Church, Seventh Day Adventists, and individual ministries. The study was qualitative in nature, although it was to a small extent triangulated with a quantitative approach to account for frequency distributions of the quality criteria of church interpretation. The qualitative approach involves developing an explanation of a social phenomenon and understanding how people make sense of their world through their experiences (Merriam 2009, 2). Qualitative and quantitative approaches helped in understanding how church interpreters, preachers, and church members perceived quality in church interpretation in Tanzania, and in accounting for the frequency distribution of criteria of quality.
Sampling techniques
This study was done from June 2018 to February 2019. The targeted populations were church interpreters, preachers, and church members. The current study involved a total of sixty participants. There were thirty church interpreters, twenty church members, and ten preachers. The study used both purposive and convenience sampling techniques. Purposive sampling is a technique in which particular settings, persons, or events are selected deliberately in order to provide important information that cannot be obtained in other methods of selection (Maxwell 1996; Taherdoost 2016). Church interpreters, being the key players in the provision of interpretation services, were selected purposely to provide their perceptions of the quality criteria of church interpretation. Convenience sampling is a technique that selects participants based on their availability and willingness (Taherdoost 2016, 22). In this context, preachers and church members were selected based on convenience—that is, the study included those who were available at the time of collecting data.
Methods of data collection and analysis
Data were collected using three main methods: in-depth interviews (IDIs), focus-group discussions (FGDs), and questionnaires. Church interpreters, preachers, and church members participated either by answering questions asked during the interview and the FGD sessions or by filling in the questionnaires provided. The data were transcribed using the f4 transcription program and the transcripts were analysed thematically in NVivo software, version 10. Statistical data were analysed descriptively in SPSS software, version 25, to account for the frequency distributions of quality aspects.
Results
Participants cited ten main criteria for quality church interpretation in the Tanzanian context. Based on these criteria, I propose the “CFFSGBFVCC Model of Quality Criteria for Church Interpreting in Tanzania.” The CFFSGBFVCC model consists of Congruence (C), Faithfulness (F), Fluency (F), Spirituality (S), Grammar (G), Biblical Terms (B), Flexibility (F), Vocabulary (V), Completeness (C), and Cultural Expression (C).
Congruence (C)
The first important quality criterion that was mentioned by almost all participants was that of congruence. Congruence refers to the degree to which an interpreter mirrors, imitates, echoes, co-preaches with, copies, or mimics the preacher (Peremota 2017, 21–29). The process of cooperating with the preaching process is sometimes called invisibility, that is, interpreters are unnoticeable during the interpretation so that the audience feel they are listening to the preacher rather than the interpreter (Peremota 2017, 21).
The majority of participants in this study agreed that interpreters should possess personal skills and traits that enable them to appear and express themselves like preachers. Participants had different ideas about congruence requirements. Some believed that interpreters should echo or imitate the preacher in everything. Participant M, who was a male pastor, asserted that the best church interpreter is one who resembles the preacher in many ways. He emphasized,
Kwa hiyo, ubora wa ukalimani ni pale ambapo mkalimani anafanana na anayemkalimani. Yaani sio kufanana kwa sura, sio kufanana kwa maumbo lakini kufanana katika kile kilichozungumzwa na hichi ndicho huyu anachokipeleka kwa watu. Lakini mbili wanasema kule kubeba uhusika yaani kwamba huyu ndio mimi. Kwa hiyo mnamsikiliza huyu kupitia kwangu.
Thus, the quality of interpretation is seen when the interpreter resembles the preacher, not in terms of physical appearance, but in what they interpret to the audience. This means that the source text should resemble the target text. Also, it means to mirror or imitate the preacher to the extent of becoming invisible, so that members get the same message as from the speaker.
This participant provided a promising definition of being congruent. The congregation should not see the interpreter as interpreter but as co-preacher. This idea of mirroring the preacher was supported by other participants. They indicated that interpreters should act in the same way as the preachers. Participant P, a female church member, argued,
Ufanano huo ni kuvaa uhusika yaani yule muhubiri akivua koti na yeye anavua koti akilala chini na yeye akizungumza yaani unakuta kwamba mkutano unakuwa live, ibada inakuwa live inakuwa katika uhalisia. Lakini unajua unaweza kuwa na mtafsiri halafu watu wote wakawashangaa.
Congruence is the similarity of actions or imitating what the preacher is doing. For instance, if the preacher is taking off his coat, the interpreter should do the same, or if the preacher sits down so does the interpreter; he/she should sit down as well. If the interpreter does what the preacher does, the conference or the sermon becomes alive and the service becomes active as well. But, you can be surprised by some interpreters who do not act like or imitate the preacher.
In answering what congruence means to the participants of this study, a total of 51 participants agreed that congruence as a quality criterion had numerous meanings. Twenty-one participants (40%) indicated that it is the act of being invisible, 15 (30%) saw it as the act of mirroring or imitating the preacher in everything, 10 (20%) thought interpreters should resemble the preacher including in dress code, and 10% saw interpreter neutrality as central (see Figure 1).
Aspects of congruence rated.
These findings show that most participants agree that the invisibility of the interpreter is most important, followed by imitation or mirroring of the preacher, then the interpreter's resemblance to the preacher. This corresponded to the statistical results which revealed that 51 (85%) of the 60 participants claimed that congruence was indeed an important factor in determining quality in church interpretation and only 15% believed that it was not.
Faithfulness was considered another major criterion of quality in church interpretation. Faithfulness in the current study refers to accuracy. One of the tenets of the interpretation profession is to interpret faithfully from the SL to the TL (Moody 2011, 1). Faithful interpreting requires one to interpret meaning rather than word for word. Participants agreed that church interpreters should not insert their opinions by adding information that was not present in the ST or by subtracting anything from the source message. Faithfulness as a measure to assess interpreters’ performance was endorsed by church preachers, members of the church, and interpreters. Their concept of faithfulness depended on the type of participant.
Preachers or priests suggested that a faithful interpretation means an accurate interpretation. Participant G, a male preacher, asserted, “The interpreter should be able to bring out the meaning the way it was intended by the preacher. That requires knowledge of both languages and an ability to follow the preacher.” Preachers further argued that for a correct rendering of meaning, interpreters should give a precise meaning which is close to the original text. Participant T, a male preacher, claimed, “Faithful interpretation involves sending of the true or the correct message as it was intended by the preacher.”
On the other side, church members portrayed faithful interpretation as presenting a clear and understandable message. Participant M, a church member, observed, “From my side, a faithful interpretation allows the interpreter to deliver a message which is clear and understandable to the church members.” This participant emphasizes that the message should be comprehensible to the target audience.
Church interpreters, in contrast to the other participants, agreed that a faithful interpretation is one that is free from biases. Unbiased interpretation, according to Peremota (2017, 15), happens when the interpreter's “self” does not interfere with the process. Such interference might include adding something of their own volition or changing the meaning of the message. Participant G3, an interpreter, asserted, “The church interpreter makes an interpretation which is not based on his/her opinion, ideas, thoughts, or messages that were not the preacher's intention. Good interpreters are faithful to the preacher's message.”
Participants enumerated five major elements that make a faithful interpretation. These include correct meanings, clarity, complete interpretation, unbiased interpretation, and interpretation which is not literal. Faithfulness looks at the accurateness of the target message in terms of content, the language used, such as grammar and register, as well as culture (Peremota 2017, 30–33). It involves completeness and accuracy in the target language (Moody 2011, 1). In this regard, the TT should be faithful to the SL text. This concurs with equivalency theories of interpretation that emphasize the equivalence of the ST and the TT.
Generally, there were 50 (83.33%) participants who agreed that faithfulness in interpretation is the most important quality criterion for church interpretation in Tanzania (see Figure 2). Of these 50, 17 (34%) claimed that a faithful interpretation involves interpreting the correct meaning of the ST, 15 (30%) declared that a clear and comprehensible interpretation (clarity) is an important aspect of faithful interpretation, 13 (26%) identified unbiased interpretation as central, and 5 (10%) emphasized the importance of interpretation which is not literal.
Participant ideas about what faithfulness in interpretation means.
The third criterion for quality in church interpretation identified by the majority of participants was fluency in the working languages. Participants argued that fluency involves articulating the messages quickly, smoothly, and continuously without unnecessary interruptions, pauses, vowel lengthening, or hesitations. Participant D, a female church interpreter, noted, “One of the qualities of good church interpretation is the ability of the interpreter to flow with the preacher, [which requires being] fluent in English and Kiswahili. The interpreter should interpret sermons without unnecessary stopping or pauses.”
Adding to this, another interpreter highlighted that for interpreters to be fluent they need to have confidence. Participant L, a male church interpreter, claimed,
One quality is fluency in Kiswahili and English. The interpreters are supposed to be very fluent. In order to be fluent, the interpreter needs to be confident and to have enough knowledge of interpreting sermons. . . . This is the best quality. To gain fluency, confidence, and knowledge, interpreters should practice in big conferences to gain experience.
Based on the findings of this study, it was also observed that some interpreters made a poor performance of interpretation because they did not render keywords without hesitation. Participant G, a male preacher, commented, “One of the common errors is the inability to translate the keywords which are in English as quickly as possible to the correct Kiswahili. This makes you fail to have a continuous flow of the information.” This finding concurred with the statistical results whereby 50 out of 60 participants (83.33%) agreed that fluency in Kiswahili and English was one of the most important criteria for good church interpretation. Thus only 10 participants (16.67%) did not agree that fluency was a factor in determining the quality of church interpretation.
Spirituality (S)
Another criterion of quality is spirituality. In the church setting, this plays a significant role in interpretation. Spiritual invisibility means that interpreters show the same spiritual qualities as preachers (Peremota 2017, 49–53). In church interpreting, the congregation wants to feel that the interpreter is connected to God and guided by the Holy Spirit (Peremota 2017, 49).
The majority of participants of this study confirmed that the issue of spirituality in interpreters weighs heavily in effective church interpreting. The first group of participants conveyed that interpreters should be guided by the Holy Spirit. For instance, participant F, a male church member, described the importance of the Holy Spirit during the interpretation service: Well, let me say also during the interpretation, you have to be guided by the Holy Spirit; you have to conform to the preacher's mind. If your mind shifts away, you will lose control. You have to be attentive. So, the Holy Spirit helps you to deliver his message.
Another group of participants highlighted the importance of Christian behaviour. They observed that church interpreters should not only be Christians but also obey God and live according to his commandments. Participant E, a male church interpreter, explained how the interpreter should align with God: Another quality I said is to make sure that you are Christian and you are in line with God, to make sure that you are a perfect Christian. Your personal behaviour should conform to the standard of Christ. You should be like Christ. You don't drink and go to translate or you don't commit adultery and translate. Make sure your life is perfect. Your life should be holy.
The last group of participants described the aspect of spirituality in terms of prayers, reading the Bible, and having a good relationship with God. They emphasized that church interpreters should be in the habit of praying. Participant J, a female church interpreter during the FGD, commented,
Kwa mimi ninachofikiria kwa sababu huduma inafanyika kanisani, kitu cha kwanza ni maombi. Wale ambao wako katika huduma husika wamwombe Mungu ili wawe na mahusiano mazuri na Mungu wao. Kitu kingine kwa sababu kinahusisha Biblia kwa wale wanaotafsiri wasome Biblia au tusome Biblia sana. Lakini kitu kingine yaandaliwe mafunzo pia maalumu ya kuwawezesha hawa ambao wapo katika hii huduma ya kutafsiri. Kwa hiyo wanapoandaliwa au kukutana kujadili maswala yanaohusikana na huduma hiyo ya kutafsiri ni jambo lililo jema.
For my part, since the interpretation service is done in church settings, I think the first thing is prayer. Those who provide an interpretation service should pray to God and have a good relationship with him. Another thing, since the service involves the Holy Bible, church interpreters should read the Bible a lot. Another thing is to prepare special training for church interpreters to be equipped with professional skills of interpretation in church settings. That way, church interpreters will get time to discuss key issues relating to an interpretation service. This will be the best thing to do.
Of the 48 participants who thought that church interpreters should be Christian, 15 (30%) described spirituality in terms of Christian behaviour. Another 15 (30%) emphasized the importance of prayer and 18 (40%) indicated the importance of the Holy Spirit. This is shown in Figure 3.
Aspects of spirituality rated.
These findings show that spirituality is counted highly as a criterion of quality in church interpretation. Forty-eight of the 60 participants (80%) agreed that church interpreters should have a good spiritual relationship with God. Only 12 participants (20%) did not choose spirituality as a quality criterion of church interpretation.
The mastery of the grammar of Kiswahili and English was another criterion highly valued by participants. In this case, good interpreters should have an excellent understanding of the grammars of English and Kiswahili in order to avoid grammatical errors. Participant D, a female church interpreter, stated,
Another good quality of church interpretation is that the interpreter uses the correct grammar when going from the source text to the target text, including correct verb agreement together with proper pronunciation and even also the speed of the speaker.
This statement agrees with the statistical findings which reveal that 44 out of the 60 participants (73.33%) consider the mastery of grammar to be one of the most important criteria of quality in church interpretation.
Knowledge of biblical terms (B)
Other participants agreed that good church interpreters should be rich in their knowledge of biblical terms. Biblical terms are those words or phrases commonly used in the religious setting. A strong grasp of biblical terms helped church interpreters render effective interpretation services. Most participants in this study affirmed the importance of knowledge of the Bible to be ideal interpreters. Participant B, a male church interpreter, observed that the result of reading the Bible and getting training is familiarity with the text. He commented,
One of the best quality criteria is richness in biblical terms. If you are well versed in the Bible (and the working languages as well), then you can become an ideal interpreter. You have to be taken through the paces of interpretation. Somebody should give you the ABCs of interpreting professionally; then you can do better. Otherwise, you can be interpreting out of context, which is very dangerous.
This interpreter went on to describe the effect of a lack of sufficient biblical knowledge. Interpreting out of context may result in the wrong message or a misrepresentation of Scripture. Another participant, E, a male church interpreter, suggested that interpreters can fulfil the objective of solid biblical knowledge by developing a regular practice of reading the Bible: The quality of good church interpretation first is to make sure you read the Bible and to ensure enough Bible knowledge both in Swahili and English. You should have a reading plan, a Bible reading plan, to make sure you finish the Bible every year. There should be a determination to read the Bible. You commit to read the Bible the whole year until you finish it.
Flexibility (F)
Some participants in this study stressed the importance of flexibility in church interpretation. Interpreters were advised to be flexible enough to adapt to the different speaking styles or pace of different preachers. If, in the sermon, the preacher switches from the main language to the interpreting one, then the interpreter has to switch languages in the opposite direction. This is a fundamental point for quality interpretation in church settings. Interpreters also have to be flexible in terms of gestures or facial expressions, body movement, manners, behaviours, and movement on the stage, and other forms of nonverbal communication, together with the speaking styles of the speaker (Peremota 2017, 46). According to participant H, a male pastor, an essential quality of a church interpreter is his or her ability to be flexible. He asserted,
For me, one of the best qualities of a good interpreter is [that] the person . . . can adjust to the main speaker. That's my personal taste, they take note of the tone and pace and they move with the speaker. They don't necessarily interpret word for word but they take a concept and they deliver it to the people. For me, you see, communication is not only verbal: we have movement, [with the interpreter] adjusting and moving as the speaker moves, using action as the speaker is acting. For me, that's a good interpreter.
This pastor participant has highlighted the very important note that interpreters should be flexible. This means that they should move along with the preacher's tone, pace, action, and so on. This participant added that another important thing for interpreters is their ability to modify the interpreted speech to comply with the targeted church members’ needs. The majority of participants in the study (42 or 70%) agreed that flexibility was one of the criteria in determining quality.
The use of simple and understandable vocabulary (V)
Another important quality criterion is the use of simple and understandable language to allow church members to understand the intended messages. Participant D asserted,
Interpreters should have the right choice of words. They should know how to connect with the key speaker. They should know how to own the stage along with the speaker. But, the most important thing for me is the right choice of words.
This interpreter emphasizes the choice of appropriate vocabulary to represent preachers’ ideas. She believes that when the interpreter chooses words that are easy to grasp, church members can more easily understand the preacher's message. Again, 42 (70%) of the 60 participants indicated that the use of simple vocabulary is a crucial criterion for judging quality.
Completeness (C)
Another issue that was repeatedly reported by several preachers and members of the congregation is completeness. According to Peremota (2017, 19–20), completeness requires the message to be conveyed in its entirety, preserving the full meaning in great detail.
Participants were asked if interpreters should render everything said by preachers, and to what extent additions or omissions are acceptable in a faithful interpretation. The majority of participants agreed that interpreters have to render complete information that can be understood by the church members. Participant Q, a female preacher, stated that “interpreters are supposed to retain all important information as spoken by the preacher in the interpreted sermons.”
Other participants conveyed that it is difficult to interpret all the information spoken by preachers. They suggested that interpreters can focus on interpreting the main content. Participant M, a male interpreter, said, “I usually ignore unnecessary words such as jokes, repetitions, greetings, long stories, and other unimportant issues.” This interpreter tells us that the interpreter is not necessarily supposed to interpret everything. They should choose only important information to render. This technique of summarizing important content and omitting extraneous material is acceptable in interpretation studies.
Proper use of biblical cultural expressions (C)
Some of the participants of this study confirmed that one of the serious challenges facing interpreters is to interpret cultural expressions. Cultural expressions include biblical idioms, sayings, proverbs, and jargon specific to the biblical culture or context. Participant R, a female church member, said, “Watafsiri wengine hupata ugumu wa kutafsiri maneno ambayo yanahusiana na tamaduni za Kiyahudi” (“Some interpreters have difficulty interpreting words or phrases that are characteristic of Jewish culture”).
In this regard, ideal interpreters are those capable of rendering biblical cultural expressions faithfully in the TL. This ability was not rated highly as a criterion of quality. The majority (32 or 53.3%) claimed that rendering cultural expression was not a big issue in church interpreting.
Discussion and conclusions
This study examined criteria for judging quality as stated by Tanzanian church stakeholders. The study was guided by one key question: What are the most important criteria of quality in church interpretation in Tanzania? Since it was agreed that the purpose of the interpretation is to render a faithful interpretation, the best church interpretation is one whose interpreters: are faithful to the source sermon; are fluent in both English and Kiswahili; have mastery of grammar, vocabulary, and biblical terms; are congruent in body, spirit, and soul; strive for completeness; and are flexible. Most of the stated criteria resembled criteria discussed by other scholars. In the Tanzanian context, participants rated ten criteria, with the percentages indicating participants who agreed that a given criterion was crucial in determining quality: congruence (85%), fluency in both Kiswahili and English (83.33%), faithfulness (83.33%), spirituality (80%), mastery of the grammar of Kiswahili and English (73.3%), the use of simple vocabulary (70%), richness in biblical terms (70%), flexibility (70%), completeness (68.33%), and the use of biblical cultural expressions (46.7%). (For a comparison with Peremota's study, see the Appendix.)
Although it was assumed that participants in this study, especially interpreters, would not understand the idea of quality criteria for church interpretation because of their limited professional knowledge, it was observed, on the contrary, that they evaluated the quality criteria in a way comparable to that of scholars in the field. Eighty percent of the criteria discussed in the study corresponded to criteria enumerated by scholars in the literature (García Becerra, Pradas Macías, and Barranco-Droege 2013; Moody 2011; Peremota 2017). Other criteria discussed in the literature include communication skills and attitudes (Alonso Bacigalupe 2013; Viezzi 2007). These were not addressed to a significant extent by participants in the study.
Although church interpreters in Tanzania seem to be aware of some important criteria for quality church interpretation, they still experience the challenge of applying these criteria to their practice. Consequently, there are still occasions where interpreters distort the intended messages by omitting important words while including unimportant ones, by adding information not present in the source text, or even by interpreting something completely different from the speaker's message. Other studies also report misinterpretation by church interpreters, caused by insufficient language and interpreting skills (Biamah 2013; Musyoka and Karanja 2014; Peremota 2017).
Generally, church interpretation practices in the Tanzanian context are still experiencing difficulty in their professionalization, as they lack proper standards of training, practices, and quality—in this study, all the interviewed interpreters lacked professional training in interpretation and translation. No initiatives exist to introduce the specific training of church interpreters in universities or colleges. There are limited publications in this area in Tanzania and church interpretation still lacks recognition as a professional field. There is no professional board to certify and register interpreters in Tanzania.
This paper calls for churches and other Christian institutions to provide professional training to church interpreters to improve their services. In addition, more empirical studies need to be carried out on church interpretation practices in the Tanzanian context, especially with regard to the applicability of these criteria in real situations.