Spirit medium language mediation: A neglected form of interpreting?

Abstract

While the need for interpreting has been growing as can be evidenced by intensification of research on interpreting and establishment and expansion of interpreting institutions and course programmes worldwide, the interpreting research landscape has been devoid of insightful research on African indigenous forms of interpreting. Using the Bhasukuma1 spirit medium transcendental language mediation (henceforth TLM) as a case study, the present paper examines interpreting definitional criteria in a bid to make a comparison with TLM features and determine what the comparison may reveal with regard to the relationship between interpreting and TLM. To achieve this objective, the researcher used literature research to glean the criteria used by previous interpreting scholars to define the concept interpreting, after which the criteria were used as an observation schedule for fieldwork observations. Results indicate that TLM exhibits all of the criteria used in defining interpreting. The present paper, therefore, concludes that the Bhasukuma spirit medium TLM is an indigenous form of interpreting, to which people have not been exposed and recommends that African scholars should take the responsibility of educating and re-educating the world about their unknown realities to better the understanding of the same.