TRAINING SOUTHEAST ASIANS TO TEST TRANSLATION FOR COMPREHENSION

The work of Bible translation confronts a major challenge in areas of Southeast Asia where hundreds of minority languages are spoken. Of particular challenge is where the expatriate's time is limited to short periods in the language community. Therefore, a major role of expatriate members of the team is to train mother-tongue translators to perform adequate comprehension tests in Southeast Asian village contexts.; This thesis presents a model for developing workshops for the training of Southeast Asian mother-tongue translators to do adequate comprehension testing based on cross-cultural testing and training methods. A cross-cultural testing problem is identified and methods used in current training programs in Southeast Asia are explored. Methods for adequate comprehension testing, and models for cross-cultural testing and training are presented.; Conclusions include recommended training methods for the Southeast Asia context, and an application of these in a proposed mother-tongue translator workshop for initial training in comprehension testing.