Translating Vocatives into Sign Languages: A Case Study from the British Sign Language Bible Genesis Project

The biblical text arises from a hearing world where it is common to call a person’s name to get their attention or use words like “my lord” or “my son” to maintain engagement and signify relationship with them during a conversation. This paper explores the challenges of translating such vocatives into sign languages, since natural signed discourse in deaf communities only uses vocatives in very limited situations. Typically, other strategies are used to fulfil the vocative functions of getting attention (calls) and maintaining contact or signifying social relationships (addresses). This paper examines all the vocatives in the book of Genesis, categorising them by function and investigating the translation approaches used in the published American Sign Language Version and the draft from the British Sign Language Bible translation project.