Discussion on the Roles of the Church Interpreter at Immigrant Churches

Excluding interview questions about the origins of ethnic Chinese immigrant churches, many interview questions addressing the role of the interpreter were derived from items on the questionnaire. Compared to items on the questionnaire, similarly but not identically worded questions were posed to interview participants with the aim of gaining deeper insight into the reasoning behind some of the findings from the questionnaire. In contrast to the questionnaire which could only gauge sentiments on a Likert scale, the semi-structured interviews gave free reign to respondents to elaborate their answers. The topical order of discussion in this section will loosely take after the questionnaire format: eligibility, active roles, passive roles. Quotes will be gleaned from pastors, preachers, church interpreters, and regular church members (see Section 3.5 for table of participants).

4.2.1.1 Church Interpreter Eligibility: Identification with the Christian Faith

Responses from the questionnaire revealed that the Christians surveyed generally view the church interpreter’s identity with the faith as an important eligibility requirement as seen in high mean ratings in the questionnaire for church interpreters to “identify with their field” (i.e. the church setting) and “devoutness in the ideology (i.e. Christianity) of what is being interpreted”, which were also statistically speaking significantly higher than ratings for professional interpreters.

In Section 3 of the questionnaire, responses revealed a high mean rating in agreement with

“identity in the faith as being more important than language aptitude” (see Table 6 in Section 4.1.3).

While the questionnaire was unable to provide detailed reasons for these high ratings towards identity in the faith and devoutness in ideology, interview data provided further insight into why having a Christian identity is so important for church interpreters and how the Christian identity can possibly take precedent over language ability.

First, church interpreting is considered to be a “service”. More specifically, Pastor R1 frames the role of the church interpreter as a form of “altruistic service” which is rendered to God first, echoing Hokkanen (2012). Below is an excerpt from the interview with R1:

Interpretation is considered as a service. Service in the church we believe is a service to God first, so it’s considered as a service to God. Of course, the direct beneficiaries are the brothers and sisters. But primarily, it’s a service to God.

Secondly, we believe that God will give us spiritual gifts of interpretation when the need arises. God will use His power to give the certain individual with the gift of interpretation (R1).

In the last line, R1 mentions his belief that believers who may be lacking in skill are empowered by God to carry out their role in the church. Owen (2014) mentions that his belief has been around since the time the First Epistle to the Corinthians in the Holy Bible was written:

Interpreting lies within a collection of gifts given by the Holy Spirit to the early church before the New Testament canon was complete, in order to edify the church (Owen, 2014)

Pastor R4 also echoes a similar sentiment, but leaves room for the possibility of allowing those outside the church or even outside the faith to interpret:

From the church perspective, interpreting is part of church ministry. Because it’s a church ministry, we want to offer that opportunity to church members because it is considered as a service to God and to fellow brothers and sisters (R4).

As seen in the excerpt from pastor R1, there seems to be a spiritual element in church interpreter eligibility. The belief is that only Christians have the spiritual capacity to receive spiritual endowments that allow them to work towards the edification of the church. Owen (2014) refers to the First Epistle to the Corinthians as the basis for the belief that only believers who serve in the church, including interpreters, are empowered by God’s Spirit to fulfill their roles. Thus, non-believer interpreters, no matter how skilled, lack the spiritual capacity to serve God in this regard.

When it comes to serving God, the beneficiaries may be the people but the mindset and the efforts exerted by the church interpreter must be centered on pleasing God, and only believers can please God. The faith-based model for altruism is a vertical one, where love for God motivates love for others (Hokkanen, 2012). Thus, the church interpreter is not simply providing a service to the speaker and the audience. Church interpreters are ultimately acting out of a desire to serve and please God, which requires them to be Christian. When presented with a choice between a mediocre interpreter who is a believer and an outstanding interpreter who is a non-believer, pastor R9 emphatically and without hesitation chose the former and elaborated his reasons in the excerpt below:

Interpreting in the church is not really work but is a ministry. It’s a service to God.

So that has some basic requirements. You need to have the life of Christ in you before you can serve. There are not only requirements on the practical end but from the spiritual end also. And that’s something that cannot be compromised (R9).

The same question was asked of a church interpreter from NJCA, respondent R2, who gives a more concrete elaboration on why being a believer is of such utmost importance in the church setting:

Church interpretation is different from regular interpretation. It’s spiritual. You can interpret the sermons well, and it still would not carry the power, that kind of influence that you’re supposed to be able to convey (R2).

Respondent R2 touches on the issue of influence and the conveyance of some level of power through the interpreting. This is an allusion to the edifying factor of church interpreting which is another item addressed on the questionnaire and in this research. Tison (2016) affirms that church interpreters are motivated by a “desire to serve others, viewing interpreting as a spiritual ministry” (ibid., p. 26) and that churches all have “some degree of expectation for the interpreter to be involved in communicating the sermon message not only at an interlingual or cross-cultural level, but also at a spiritual” (ibid., p. 31).

Church interpreters must also aim to mentally and spiritually fortify their listeners, though not by relying on their own efforts but on the power of God. For this to be possible, R2 emphasizes the need for the church interpreter to believe in what the speaker is saying to the audience. Below is an excerpt from R2:

Say I’m interpreting for a business speaker. I’m mainly repeating or making note of whatever the speaker says. But with church interpreting, I have to believe in what the speaker is saying in order for me to really convey the idea to the audience. I guess that’s the biggest difference between spiritual and secular interpreting (R2).

R2’s response echoes Owen’s description of church interpreters, that they “have a duty to be personally affected by the themes being interpreted” (Owen, 2014). Respondent R7 is a church interpreter from church WA-1 and adds to the conversation of church interpreter eligibility by linking the Christian identity with being unified in spirit with the speaker:

Service is not like a job or an opportunity for you to do something. It’s really based off of the life of Christ within us. It’s based off of your service to God. So if you’re not a Christian, sure you’ll be able to translate well and understand both languages, but I think there’s an aspect of the Spirit that’s missing. And a lot of times with translation, it depends on the unity and moving of the spirit between the speaker and translator. If there’s no unity or connection, at times it’s difficult to have a smooth flow of things (R7).

R7 mentions “the Spirit”, which gives a degree of personification to the concept of how being a believer in the faith enables an interpreter in the church to carry out their job. “The Spirit”

here refers to a member of the holy trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). The Holy Spirit is believed by Christians to be the spirit of God and the medium through which God administers spiritual gifts and empowerments to those serving Him and to those seeking to know him. In an interpreter-mediated church event, the Holy Spirit works through both speaker and interpreter in conveying the message, and also causes understanding within the hearts of the congregation (see Figure 17). Thus, serving in the church is not merely a job or technical function but is a role that carries spiritual weight in a metaphysical relationship between speaker, interpreter, audience and God.

Figure 17. Relationships in a Church Interpreter-mediated Event Source: Hwa-chin Tseng, 2009, p. 41

As seen in responses from R1, R2, R4, R7, and R9, the Christian identity affords the church interpreter a set of faith-based qualifications which are seen as generally required by the Christians surveyed and interviewed. But on the surface, there seems to be a conflict between a church interpreter’s spiritual and practical qualifications. Is it their heart of service to God that qualifies them, or is it their language and interpreting abilities? When asked to pick one or the other, most respondents said they would pick the former, as having a non-Christian serve in the church would the defeat the whole purpose of serving in the church. Respondent R4, however, said they would choose the latter since a non-Christian could still technically get the job done without having a heart of service to God, albeit the arrangement would not be ideal. This respondent did clarify that they were speaking purely hypothetically, as they have yet to encounter a situation that required such a choice to be made. Nevertheless, responses from both questionnaires and interviews strongly suggest that identifying with the Christian faith and being a believer is on equal or greater importance with language skills when it comes to interpreting in a church setting.

Overall, interview responses in regards to the church interpreter’s eligibility were in line with findings by Hokkanen (2012) and Tison (2016) in that church interpreters are expected to be Christian not solely for ideological reasons but also because of the belief that only Christians can be empowered by God to serve altruistically and spiritually in the church. Interpreting in the church is seen as an altruistic service where interpreters are driven by a spiritually fueled desire to serve

God through serving others. This spiritual source stems from God’s spirit--Holy Spirit, which is what empowers interpreters and preachers to convey God’s word to rest of the church. The Holy Spirit interconnects the preacher and interpreter (Tseng, 2009) with the audience. In light of this, it makes sense why some respondents are willing to accept church interpreters who may be lacking in language skills but are qualified by their spiritual conviction to serve God and the church.

4.2.1.2 Church Interpreter’s Active Roles: Co-performer Role & Non-verbal Communication

Questionnaire results regarding the church interpreter’s role in conveying the speaker’s non-verbal communication (e.g. facial expressions, hand gestures) showed that respondents were generally indifferent about this role for both church and professional interpreters. Interview responses were also a mixed bag. Some respondents dismissed the action of actively mimicking the speaker’s non-verbal communication as negligible while others felt that it was paramount in conveying not only the information but also the dynamic of a preacher’s message. Respondents R1 and R9 generally disagreed with making mimicking facial expressions, hand gestures and other non-verbal expressions as a priority for church interpreters. Both emphasized that the church interpreter’s focus should be placed on the information being conveyed, and that matching the speaker’s facial expressions, hand gestures and body movements was optional.

Church interpreters R2 and R7 were not as quick to discount the importance of conveying non-verbal communication and acknowledged that in some cases it could be very helpful. R2 interestingly brought up the issue of gender and having the correct corresponding decorum while in the pulpit:

Imitating the speaker’s hand gestures or facial expressions is not required but it’s preferable to a certain degree. But in our church, speakers are male, so there are

certain acts or movements I don’t think a sister should or, you know, are able to do without looking strange. So it’s important only to a certain degree, like if the speaker’s voice becomes louder, I think the interpreter could do the same. But still, because there is a difference between gender, certain things are just not proper for sisters to do (R2).

The concern with propriety according to gender, a factor that was unable to be considered in this study due to limitations, may stem from R2’s cultural upbringing in Taiwan or generational differences in regards to how members of each gender should behave. It may also be may be the church’s conservative culture that makes R2 sensitive to the differences in the male-female dynamic in the pulpit. R7 is also a female interpreter, but unlike R2, she grew up in the United States and is a member of the younger English-speaking generation at her church. R7’s comments made no mention of gender but focused more on personal preferences and differences in linguistic expression (e.g. sentence-final particles in Chinese):

I think I’m a little more passive and focused on translating so I don’t do as much.

Some simple hand gestures I’ll try to mimic, but I don’t really go full out. That’s just a personal thing. I know that some people do, because I feel like it does help sometimes to get across the urgency or the fervency or certain feelings. Also, the Chinese like to make certain noises when they speak or when trying to get a point across. Most of the time, I won’t make the same noises (R7).

Only R4, the pastor for church NJ-2, appraised the conveyance of non-verbal communication crucial in the church interpreter’s goal of conveying the full meaning of what is

being said by the speaker:

I think it is very important. Maybe not the exact facial expression, but I do believe the interpreter needs to interpret dynamic as well. It’s more than the information.

It’s also the dynamic the speaker wants to convey. The interpreter needs to convey that as well. Sometimes it means using the same gestures. I do that as well, though not identically. When the speaker waves their right hand, I try to do that too. I think it’s very, very important to translate that dynamic as well (R4).

According to Vigouroux (2010), the interpreter-mediated sermons should be seen as a performance genre in which two alternating performances between speaker and interpreter coalesce into a joint performance and are constantly shaping and re-shaping each other. To some degree, the immigrant church pastors and interpreters that were interviewed acknowledge the importance of conveying the dynamic in addition information, though they stop short of explicitly calling their dynamic with the speaker a “performance”. In contrast to Vigouroux’s findings that preachers actively allow interaction between themselves and their interpreters, it seems that the immigrant church preachers and interpreters interviewed in this study see their roles as interconnected yet distinctly separate and confined to clearly defined roles. These roles convey the dynamic of a message through both verbal and non-verbal communication but is not considered a

“performance” as suggested by Vigouroux.

Edification & Goal of Church Interpreting

Questionnaire results showed that responses for whether interpreter should aim to be edifying in their interpreting in addition to conveying the meaning interpretation showed a higher

mean rating for church interpreters than for professional interpreters. When interview respondents were prompted on whether they felt edifying the audience took precedent over conveying the meaning, respondent R1 remarked that the two tasks were not mutually exclusive:

I believe that interpretation/translation is itself a service to God, and ultimately, both speaker and translator are used by God to edify this church. That’s our goal.

That’s our purpose of serving whether you are speaker or translator. Thus, I don’t see a conflict between the two. I don’t see at all they are conflicting. You can get both. You can be faithful in your interpretation while edifying brothers and sisters (R1).

Respondent R4 spoke from his experiences as both a preacher and interpreter to offer insight into the goal of church interpreters in relation to the goal of preachers. To R4, both the preacher and interpreter are aiming for the same goal of edification but differ in how they achieve that goal:

As a preacher, my goal is to edify the church. I want to convey the sense of the presence of God, through the word of God. I want to be able to faithfully interpret the word of God, and bring out the presence of God to the congregation, and really be transformed by God. As an interpreter, my goal is the same, but the instrument I adopt is interpretation. I’m not trying to generate new meaning. In the position of preaching is what I want to convey. As an interpreter, I want to convey what the

preacher is saying and through that I want to achieve the same goal (R4).

Respondent R2 brings up issue of trust. R2 assumes that the preacher is always aiming to be edifying with his sermon, and the interpreter is, by extension, aiming for the same goal:

I believe that the speaker already has this mind of edifying the brothers and sisters.

The interpreter just has to faithfully translate and interpret the message. It’s not about which one I should be focusing on. Interpreting and being edifying are actually linked. This is the goal of any speaker in church, so if the interpreter is faithful to what the speaker is saying, the goal should be reached, so the brothers and sisters could be edified. I think the interpreter just has to trust in the Lord and do the best they can in preparing themselves in terms of knowing the Bible in both languages. If brothers and sisters don’t feel edified, it could then because the message itself is not edifying for some reason, be it doctrinal or due to lack of focus.

I believe it greatly affects the interpretation (R2).

Regardless of the situation, the end-goal of church interpreters is to ensure that the God’s word preached through the speaker reaches the hearts of the listeners; though linguistic competence is necessary, the overarching goal is for the hearts of the congregation to receive, internalize and benefit from what is being preached or interpreted (Owen, 2014). Contributing to the discussion “edification” in the questionnaire results, the interview responses add weight to the claim that church interpreting is not only the passing of information but also the imparting of the divine into the hearts of church members, from God to man, spirit-to-spirit (Tison, 2016).

4.2.1.3 Church Interpreter’s Passive Roles: Co-speaker, Prayer and Financial Compensation

When prompted on the church interpreter as a co-speaker or co-communicator alongside the preacher, none of the respondents immediately agreed with the classification. Most respondents elaborated on their answer without being prompted, often giving a multi-layered breakdown of the church interpreter’s duel role as both helper and co-speaker. Respondent R1, a pastor from the

When prompted on the church interpreter as a co-speaker or co-communicator alongside the preacher, none of the respondents immediately agreed with the classification. Most respondents elaborated on their answer without being prompted, often giving a multi-layered breakdown of the church interpreter’s duel role as both helper and co-speaker. Respondent R1, a pastor from the