Books published by Sil International, Global Publishing

Each volume in the Exegetical Summaries series works through the original text phrase by phrase. English equivalents are provided for all Hebrew and Greek words, making this an excellent reference for exegetes of all levels. Questions that occur to exegetes as they study the text are stated and then answered by summarizing the ways many scholars have interpreted the text. This information should help translators or students in making their own exegetical decisions. As a basis for discussion, a semi-literal translation of the text is given. The first question to be answered is the meaning of key words in context. Information from standard lexicons is given and then translations of the word are cited from a dozen major Bible versions and from commentaries that offer their own translations of the text. Questions about the grammar and discourse structure of the original languages are answered by summarizing the views of many commentators. When exegetical disagreements appear in the commentaries and versions, the various interpretations are listed. This book is not intended to replace the commentaries that are consulted. Rather than being a stand-alone commentary, this book summarizes many important details of exegesis that should be considered in studying the biblical text. James Pohlig is a linguist and a translation consultant for SIL International. In addition to his volumes on Joel and Malachi in this series, he has published studies on translation and on discourse, with particular reference to languages of Cameroon.

Pike addresses the current changing world, in which men are slipping their intellectual moorings. His first presupposition is the fundamental fact of human language. Another is the importance of the emic principle in understanding reality. In stating this principle, Pike says that persons understand persons, things, and events in relation to occurrence in structure, to class membership, and to social, physical, economic, psychological, and historical function and in relation to the control their frames of reference have over them.

These studies represent the following languages: Paumarí, Cubeo, Tucano, Kayabí, and Suruí, spoken in Brazil, and Coguí, Guahibo, and Coreguaje, spoken in Colombia.

The Norsk Høstfest: A Celebration of Ethnic Food and Ethnic Identity Paul Thomas Emch SIL International* and the International Museum of Cultures Publications in Ethnography 41 What does it mean to be Norwegian-American? This study, of interest to laymen and scholars alike, answers this question by examining the prominent traditions and functions of food at the annual Norsk Hostfest celebration held in Minot, North Dakota. In this book, the author uses anthropological methodology to demonstrate the ways in which the Norsk Hostfest serves as a celebration of what it means to be Norwegian-American. There are many powerful symbols of ethnic identity in evidence at the festival, but food is the most pervasive, and so it is the chief symbol examined in this study. The Norsk Hostfest not only allows for the maintenance and celebration of Norwegian-American culture, but it synthesizes the forces of globalization, localization, and ethnicity in order to keep Norwegian-American ethnic identity alive and vital in a changing world. Norwegian-Americans of all ages who want to better understand their own culture will find this book both intriguing and informative. Students of food, culture, and ethnic identity, will find the application of symbolic anthropology useful. Paul Emch completed his M.A. in cultural anthropology at North Dakota State University in 2006. He currently serves as an intercultural community worker and anthropology consultant in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia.

The Agta People is a photographic reflection of the demographic and cultural change of the Casiguran Agta people over the past half century. This book contains 1,054 photographs of Agtas, taken by the Headlands from 1962 to 2010. Each photo has a caption which includes the name of the individual, names of their parents and spouses, their birth and death dates, the percentage of Agta ancestry, and the year the photo was taken. Images in The Agta People are generated from the Agta Demographic Database: Chronicle of a Hunter-Gatherer Community in Transition, published on-line in 2009. According to the wishes of the Agta community, this database is accessible to anyone and provides detailed information about the individuals in the photographs, as well as vital statistics about the Agta population.The Agta People was first published in the Casiguran Agta language in 2009. In 2010, the Headlands personally distributed free copies of that edition to every Agta household. The present English edition is intended for anthropologists, demographers, social scientists, and students who have shown interest in the culture, history and population dynamics of the Agta people.

This book brings together Robert Longacre''s articles on textlinguistics and discourse analysis scattered throughout journals and books. The fifteen articles selected here deal with his theory and its application to Old Testament Biblical Hebrew and New Testament Greek as well as to English. Longacre''s theory of textlinguistics focuses on the intersection of the morphosyntax and discourse structure. He studies a language at the level of discourse and at all its possible interfaces with lower levels of grammar from morpheme and word to phrase, clause, sentence, and paragraph. Two important theoretical concepts in his holistic approach, salience scheme and peak in profile, are discussed in relation to normal surface structure grammatical features as well as the off-norm, unusual, peak-marking features.The theoretical selections include six articles, starting from the need for discourse analysis, to the presentation of basic concepts of textlinguistics based on the two building blocks of language, the VPs and NPs, and to reported dialogue and the paragraph. The nine application articles provide insights into understanding the functions of tense, aspect, and modality, particles, nouns and pronouns, and other features of grammar in distinct types of discourse.Diverse texts are analyzed in the articles of this volume, such as the Flood Narrative of Genesis, Mark''s Gospel, 1 John, a fund-raising letter, and a novel. In the face of historical textual criticism, his scripture analyses show the textual unity of biblical texts leading to better understanding of the content.

This workbook is intended to introduce translators, exegetes, Bible students, and communicators of the Scriptures to some of the main forms and functions of biblical literature, prose as well as poetry. The aim is to enable readers to better understand the original text and then convey selected texts in a correspondingly "literary" - artistic, poetic, rhetorical - manner in their mother tongue or another target language. These lessons have been prepared as a practical supplement to accompany the text Translating the Literature of Scripture (Wendland 2004), which expounds a literary-rhetorical approach to Bible translation, here termed Literary-functional equivalence (LiFE, for short). LiFE combines a concern not only for the artistic and literary dimension of the Scriptures, but also for relative functional parity as part of a flexible translation strategy. Most of the important literary types, or genres, found in the corpus of the Scriptures are described, illustrated, and applied in translation exercises. This text-intensive approach is intended to sharpen the translator''s perception of these forms in the biblical writings, analyze them for greater understanding, and then employ this knowledge in the search for an equivalent manner and mode of expression in the target language. There are two principal concerns regarding quality control: accuracy and appropriateness. Regarding accuracy, the basic content and communicative intentions (i.e., the "meaning") of any translation of the Scriptures must remain sufficiently close to those of the original text. And regarding appropriateness, the final translation product must be widely acceptable to the constituency and to the purpose(s) for which it was commissioned and prepared. This Second Edition includes several major additions which considerably broaden the range of the issues covered and also exposes students and instructors alike to some additional perspectives. The various exercises of this workbook offer a practical methodology for helping not only Bible translators, but other readers as well, to better comprehend and to communicate some of the important poetic and rhetorical aspects of the original. This text can also be used to introduce theological instructors, students, and biblical exegetes in general to the prominent literary character of the Word of God. This vital dimension of the Scriptures is often ignored in exegetical textbooks and courses alike, so this workbook might well serve to fill a gap in the field of biblical studies. About the authorDr. Wendland teaches at the Lutheran Seminary in Lusaka, Zambia and is a United Bible Societies Translation Consultant based in that country. He is also affiliated with the Centre for Bible Interpretation and Translation in Africa at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Prophetic RhetoricCase Studies in Text Analysis and TranslationSecond EditionErnst R. WendlandSIL International®Publications in Translation and Textlinguistics 7 Why were the Hebrew prophets so persuasive? Of course, they were spokesmen for God, but another reason is their powerful manner of speaking-writing. In this book, an oral-rhetorical approach illumines their techniques and their relevance for students of Scripture today.Case studies are mostly from the "minor" prophets, but also include the more familiar texts of Ezekiel 33-37 and Isaiah 53. A fresh look via a dynamic literary model offers greater awareness of these as powerful communicators. Each study has a different focus, according to the form, content, and communicative aim of the prophetic book. Each chapter concludes with pertinent implications for the practice of Scripture translation.This book is a resource for theological students, those interested in translation studies and Bible translation, and teachers, consultants, and writers who are engaged in such studies."In this age when scholars rush to criticize, and readers to over-spiritualize, Prophetic Rhetoric is a positive and significant contribution to understanding the complexity and richness of the biblical text" (from the Foreword).Ernst R. Wendland (Ph.D., African Languages and Literature, University of Wisconsin) is an instructor at Lusaka Lutheran Seminary and a dissertation examiner at the University of Zambia. A former UBS Translation Consultant, he serves as Professor Extraordinary in the Centre for Bible Interpretation and Translation in Africa, Stellenbosch University.