TRANSLATIONAL CONSTRUCTION OF ISLAND IDENTITY IN AMERICAN NRMS’ TEXTS: POSTSTRUCTURALIST STUDY OF MALTA NARRATIVE IN AMERICAN ENGLISH AND KIRUNDI NWTS

The study investigated the construction of Island Identity through translation in American New Religious Movements’ texts (NRMs). The research used the descriptive qualitative method that is based on the American studies interdisciplinary method and Kristeva’s theory of intertextuality and notions of identity, abjection, and revolt. Moreover, Kovecses’ theory of Conceptual Metaphor (CM) in American Studies and Schmidt’s CM translation typology were used. Primary data were collected from the Kirundi New World Translation (NWT), American English NWT, and New American Standard Bible (NASB). Secondary data were obtained from books and articles about American NRMs, island, and CM translation. It was found out that in the conceptualization of alterity about island identity the source text (ST) is in abjection to the mainstream NASB. Moreover, the findings proved that, despite the subversion tints of the ascetic virtues from the center of the church, the target text (TT) is a nihilation of all island identity forms. Furthermore, it was discovered that the Burundi JW Bible imitates the ST to revolt against colonial and nationalist conceptualization and ipso facto to construct an island identity that supports the church’s propensity for the postnational and global discourse of American society and culture.


Introduction
Concerning a community's culture and tradition, identity is viewed as the group's self-image, "its perception of what people from other groups think of it", and its "image of another group and its notion of what that group believes that image to be" (Clements, 2011, p. 426).In his investigation of the representation of the self and the community in world literature, Barthes uses Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe to discuss the trope of the island and its entanglement with the concepts of "self" and "other" (Stene-Johansen, Refsum & Schimanski, 2018, p. 13).For Barthes, the metaphor of island has been used in literature and mythology to signify "isolation, individuality, and forsakenness, but also independence, new life, and creativity based on reduced circumstances".In addition, Barthes contends that the island represents "a closed unity", and "an exotic fantasy world, a utopia or dystopia".Following the emergence of postcolonialism and globalization, the concept of the island has been extended to metaphorically represent migration and immigration (p.15).These new island identities have been signified by Homi K. Bhabha (1994) as "unmappable spaces" or "the in-betweens and liminalities".
From a religious perspective, Eliassen posits that the island in Robinson Crusoe connotes the biblical metaphors of transformation from wilderness to a place of retreat to reconcile with God (Stene-Johansen, Refsum & Schimanski, 2018, p. 35).It is also a place of domestication whereby the civilized domesticates the natural through a process of transformation from egalitarian to hierarchical relationships.In a similar vein, Carpi (2022) contends that "in literature, the island often has biblical overtones, thus becoming the metaphor for creation/de-creation, for sin and redemption, for the loss of Eden" (p.22).Moreover, the island's identity sometimes goes with the issue of colonization.Meedom asserts that the Robinsonian island represents "mastery and cultivation of nature" (p.46).He admits that "in the Western tradition, language circumscribes the human island uninhabitable by barbarians and nonhuman animals possessing only an innate and natural language" (p.47).Furthermore, postcolonialism and transnationalism are also suggested in the construction of island identities.Battisti et Al. (2022) mention that "the geographical features of islands foster the exploration of the self, according to multiple perspectives, both in connection with and/or separation from, the society of origin" (p. 7).Speaking of the global Crusoe, Fallon states that Crusoe's "movement from myth to metaphor" signifies "dislocations and unease inherent to inhabiting" a world that is dominated by American globalization (Fallon, 2011, p. 12).Fallon reiterates that "the path of Crusoe" represents a space where the local and the global are made to cohabit (p.15).The result of this postcolonial and transnational island identity is a "metaphor of learning" including "seeing, observing and, finally, knowing" or in other words "encounter and discovery" (Loxley, 1990, p. 159).
In the present paper island identity refers to a set of cultural traits that islanders and non-islanders manifest in making sense of belonging to the insular territory and that distinguish them from foreigners or mainlanders and vice versa.They include colonial identity, spiritual identity, and multicultural identity.All these three forms of identity are examined in Paul's narrative in Malta.In the study, the three identity construction types serve as issues underlying specific-level conceptual metaphors and mappings that are linked to the general concept island.In the light of the conceptual metaphor theory, in Icelandic narratives and discourses, individual and collective identities constitute a target domain (B) that is projected into the alterity language of the island or source domain (A).Before the American English translation of the Bible, the island's individual and communal identities were constructed through the language of alterity by drawing on Judeo-Christian mythology and Western thought.These identities are manipulated by American NRMs in their texts to meet their conception of American national character and their orientation to it.
The term NRM has been used to refer to "religious groups that have developed, or at least come to the attention of the general public and political authorities in recent decades in the United States" (Richardson, 2006, p. 65).In the American context, an NRM has been viewed as an "alternative religion", "cult", or simply "new religious movement" that envisages "to establish, reinforce, and defend certain kinds of individual and group identities, even as they threaten, compromise, or erode other kinds of individual or group identities" (Gallagher & Ashcraft, 2006, p. xiv).This perception of NRMs shows to what extent American culture and religion are entangled.NRMs strive to define themselves and their members through the national culture.Actually, "in their sectarian forms, these movements attempt to recapture the lost purity of an idealized past" and "aim to return to the pristine origins of the tradition and reestablish its foundations" (Gallagher & Ashcraft, 2006, p. xii).In this attempt to "define themselves both about the broader world and relation to their specific tradition" that they perceive as threatening "their purity of belief and practice", NRM inscribe themselves in the logic of national social and cultural systems and cultural globalization.From their artifacts, texts, or organization, NRMs are significant tools to better "understand the cultural mainstream of any society and, of even greater import" because "they often anticipate impending religiocultural changes that are as yet undreamed of in the cultural center" (Kaplan, 2006, p. 84).In the United States, for instance, NRMs belonging to the Adventist tradition, have related to the manifest destiny and Americanism through "substantial missionary efforts" to such an extent that "many of them now count more members outside of the United States than within".In addition, they have reacted to the millennial national narrative by "exhorting their members to be prepared for the coming end".Due to its connection with such sociocultural identities as ethnicity, nation, and migration, the translation of the concept of island in biblical texts is susceptible to provide insight into the way American-based NRMs construct identity in and outside the United States.
The present study focuses on the translation of the Bible by Jehovah's Witnesses (JW).JW is an American NRM that belongs to the Adventist tradition.According to Gallagher Jehovah's Witnesses have maintained that "only through membership in their group could one be saved " (2004, pp. 43-44).In addition, JW is characterized by "their practice of holding the Lord's Supper only once a year on what they take to be the traditional date of the Jewish Passover".Other practices that make them remarkable in American society and culture and elsewhere in other countries include their "refusal to serve in the military, refusal to pledge allegiance to the flag", and "refusal to accept blood transfusions".JW "have erected and maintained strong boundaries between their group and what they continue to see as a sinful and damned outside world".It is this self-other definition that makes JW's translation of the holy scripture a significant tool to apprehend how they manipulate the language of alterity through the characterization of island insiders and outsiders to represent individual and collective identities based on their orientation to American national mythology and identity.Williams (2014) defines poststructuralism as "a movement in philosophy" that emerged in the 1960s (p. 1).He supports that the main proponents of this movement are five thinkers namely "Derrida, Deleuze, Lyotard, Foucault, and Kristeva".The main concern of poststructuralism is according to him to "resist and work against settled truths and oppositions" (p.4).In addition, poststructuralism deals with resistance against discrimination based on gender, race, background, class, and wealth.Furthermore, it questions established moral artistic, and legal values or frameworks.
In translation studies, poststructuralism is viewed by Venuti as an "incisive method of reading translations" (Venuti, 2018, p. 10).For Venuti, from the perspective of poststructuralism, "translation emerges as an active reconstitution of the foreign text mediated by the irreducible linguistic, discursive, and ideological differences of the target-language culture" (Venuti, 2018, p. 11).Furthermore, in poststructuralist analysis, "the translation is located in an intertextual and ideological configuration that may escape the translator's consciousness to some extent and result in unanticipated consequences, like social reproduction or change".From this apprehension, poststructuralism establishes a relationship between translation and intertextuality.
Kristeva treats intertextuality and translation as revolt forms.For Levine (2019) Kristeva likens intertextuality to "woman's dissidence" or "feminine subversion", which is the "process of becoming, of deferring rather than differing" (p.80).It is a revolt for the individual to "discover the multiplicity" of one's "possible identifications".From this perspective, during the translation activity, the translator is engaged in producing pluralistic, open, and diffuse texts.For Kristeva (2014) revolt language as intertextuality stems from an individual's "inner experience that is demanding, unique, and able to appropriate the complexity of the past to approach the present and the future" (p.2).Thus, about poststructuralism, revolt is resistance against "certainties and beliefs" by the "questioning of the self, of everything and of nothingness" (p.3).The absence of revolt is nihilism.Nihilism is a reconciliation with "the stability of new values" (p.5).Kristeva's apprehension of revolt and nihilism are connected with the phenomenon of cultural globalization.In this paper, revolt, and nihilism are used to account for the retention or subversion of conceptual metaphors about the island identity.
The conceptual metaphor theory was pioneered by Lakoff and Johnson in their book entitled Metaphors We Live By (1980).The innovation of Lakoff and Johnson was their apprehension of the notion of metaphor beyond the linguistic and stylistic levels by extending it to human thought and experience (Shuttleworth, 2017, p. 31).In American studies, the theory of conceptual metaphor (CM) was advocated by Kövecses (2005).In his view, a cognitive approach to American studies can resolve the problem of paradigms and methodologies.On the one hand it allows to achieve "a remarkable degree in the unification of American studies as a discipline" by focusing on "the study of the "old-new" notion of the "American mind."On the other hand, through a cognitive approach "more unification can be achieved by the metaphor analysis of texts and discourses in American English-the fullest expression of the totality of the American experience" (p.189).In fact, "most aspects of American culture are described in (metaphorical) language, and thus we can turn to this language for help in discovering how these aspects are metaphorically structured by the American mind".Therefore, "American English often provides a reliable clue for discovering the conceptual metaphors Americans use to create and comprehend their experience" (p.189).The CM theory is relevant to transnational American Studies and translation studies.Actually, from a cognitive approach, particular attention is paid to "both the unique and the crossculturally shared aspects of the American mind".
Concerning the operation of conceptual metaphor vis-à-vis religious experience in American culture, Gallagher's idea that some American NRMs used conceptual metaphors by taking "materials from the Hebrew Bible to describe the experience of African Americans" (p.146) is fundamental.For these NRMs "Moses and the Exodus […] were often put to powerful symbolic use in the interpretation of another group's experience of slavery".
In his article "Applying Conceptual Metaphor Theory in Cross-Linguistic and Translation Research" (2015), Schmidt presents his CM translation procedure model.The model is a combination of the metaphor translation procedure typologies of Toury ( 2002) and that of Kövecses (2005).It comprises six procedures.The first procedure (m →m) is a case where "a metaphorical expression is translated by a metaphorical expression of the same conceptual metaphor with the same mapping and the same meaning" (Schmidt, 2014, p. 832).Another case treated under the first procedure is the case (m →m') in which "a metaphorical expression is translated by a metaphorical expression of the same conceptual metaphor with a different mapping and a similar meaning".The second procedure is represented by a case (m →m1) where "a metaphorical expression is translated by a metaphorical expression of a different conceptual metaphor with a different mapping and a similar meaning" (p.833).The third procedure (m →non-m) is when "a metaphorical expression is translated by a non-metaphorical expression with a similar meaning".This procedure is also referred to as paraphrase.The fourth procedure (m →φ) is referred to as deletion, omission, or zero-translation.This is when "a metaphorical expression is translated by a zero-element".The fifth procedure (non-m →m) corresponds to a case where "a non-metaphorical expression is translated by a metaphorical expression with a similar meaning".The last procedure (φ →m) is concerned with a case where "a zero-element is translated by a metaphorical expression".In addition to these symbols, notations of implication (m →m-) and explicitation (m →m+) will be added to represent cases where a conceptual metaphor in the ST is maintained in the TT with similar mapping and similar but explicit or implicit meaning.The CM translation analytical model will be implemented by comparing Paul's Malta narrative in Jehovah's Witnesses' American English New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT) and its Kirundi Translation.In addition, the CM translation procedures are used to compare the conceptualization of island identity in the Standard Bible (NASB) which is used by many Protestant denominations, and the American (original JW Bible) New World Translation of the Scripture (NWT).In other words, island identity is first studied by making a comparison between a bible translation used by mainstream stream Protestant denominations and one translation used by an NRM (JW bible or NWT) in the United States.Then the island identity is further scrutinized in the biblical translation made in the peripheral zone (Burundi) of the JW global evangelical movement.
A lot of studies have been conducted on island identity and religion.Recent studies include Bocci (2019), Keane (2021), Moore and Gibbon (2021), Papantoniou and Depalmas (2022), Stoddart (2022), andVionis (2022).These studies used Archaeological, historiographical, and ethnographic approaches and methods to study the construction of island identities including individual and communal differentiation from various insularities and coastal contexts.Concerning JW bible translation and identity construction, researchers have been interested in the way Jehovah's Witnesses relate to such issues as blood transfusion, civic and moral education policies, and gender and family issues in their interpretation of the holy scriptures.Most recent works on Jehovah's Witnesses identity and bible translation include Knox, Z. (2017), Melton, G. J. (2021), Ransom (2021), Vagramenko, T. (2021), andIngersoll-Wood (2022).The researchers draw from religious, theological historiographical, and sociological approaches to discuss the attitudes of Jehovah's Witnesses towards the scriptures and their gospel environment and sociocultural institutions.To the best of my knowledge, no research has been carried out on American NRMs and their translation construction of Island identity by focusing on the Burundi JW bible.
This article aims to investigate in what ways JW's texts signify island identity based on their experience as a historically marginalized American NRM with a perception of American national identity and character that are different from the views of the mainstream American Protestant denominations.This aim is elaborated through three research questions: (1) To what extent is abjection manifested by American English NWT in resisting the dominant religious groups' construction of island identity?( 2) In what ways does Burundi JW's Kirundi NWT subvert the construction of island identity that is made in the original American English NWT? (3) why is island alterity identity constructed through NWT in both the center and periphery of the JW global evangelical movement and related to American national identity discourses?

Method
In this research, an inductive descriptive qualitative method design is used.American studies interdisciplinary method is followed and implemented by first relating Kristeva's intertextuality to American NRMs' text (JW bible) and their translations.The texts are then situated in the sociocultural and historical dynamics of American society by applying Kristeva's notions of identity, abjection, and revolt.
The primary data consisted of words and sentences from Paul's Malta island narrative.These data were obtained from the New American Standard Bible (NASB 2020), the American English New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, and the Burundi New World Translation of the Scripture (2010).The NASB is a Bible translation within the Tyndale-King James Version tradition (Naudé and Miller-Naudé, 2022, p. 2).It is a retranslation of the Revised Standard Version (RSV) which in turn is a revision of the American Standard Version which was produced "as the linear emergence of the Tyndale-King James Version tradition".This Anglo-American scripture translation tradition developed independently of the Catholic, Jewish, and ecumenical bible traditions.The NASB was first published in 1971 under the auspices of the Lockman Foundation.It was revised successively in 1972, 1973, 1975, and 1977.Its publication aimed to produce an update of the American Standard Version (ASV) that was published in 1901.Like the American Standard Version, "the NASB is a translation from the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek incipient text".The preface of the bible states that the translators had a fourfold brief, namely to be true to the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, to be grammatically correct, to be understandable, and that 'no work will ever be personalized" (p.3).In fact, the translators envisaged "to produce a contemporary English Bible while maintaining a word-for-word translation style".
The NASB was further revised into the Updated New American Standard Bible (1995).In this revision, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and Nestle's Novum Testamentum Graece (26 th ed.) were used as incipient texts.The new version uses modern English without such Elizabethan English words as 'thy' and 'thou'.In addition, verses with difficult word order were restructured (p.3).The most recent edition is the New American Standard Bible (2020).This edition is a revision of UNAST (1995).It aimed at modernizing the language and improving readability.
This edition is pertinent in the study on American NRMs because it "was done by a committee sponsored by the Lockman Foundation, consisting of people from Christian institutions of higher learning and from evangelical Protestant, predominantly conservative, denominations".Based on its incipient texts, its representation by American conservative protestant denominations, and its concern with sociocultural minority groups, the NASB is pertinent to the study of how national character influences biblical writing among Protestant denominations in the United States.
Based on information available on the Jehovah's Witness website (Augustus 13 th , 2023), the current New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT) was published in 2013 by Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania.It is available in 240 languages.Up to the 2023 printing, including all editions, a total of 244,746,446 bible copies have been produced.The English NWT was first published in 1950 with the title New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures.It has been revised to adapt to the English language evolution and ipso facto produce a translation that is "faithful to the original texts" and easily readable.Among the principles followed in the translation were the premises that no two languages have the same grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structure; that a wordfor-word bible translation produces unclear texts with wrong meaning, and that words and expressions vary in meaning with the context of use.
In addition to these primary data sources, secondary data sources were also consulted.This was done to support approaches and theories and to make a strong argument on the results and discussion.The secondary data were collected from books and articles that are related to American studies, American NRMs, conceptual metaphor translation, and island identity.

Island identity abjection in American NWT
The analysis of the translations object of the research showed that the island identity is construed differently by American mainstream Protestant denominations following the Tyndale-King James tradition and the Jehovah's Witnesses, an NRM that emerged in the nineteenth-America century and grew into a global evangelical movement following its marginal biblical interpretation based upon another alternative of the American millennium narrative.The following table displays the variation rate in island identity construction by NASB and NWT about Paul the Apostle's Malta Narrative (Acts 28: 1-10).As the table shows three forms of identity were identified in Paul's narrative on Malta island.They include colonial identity, spiritual identity, and multicultural identity.The analysis of the translation against the backdrop of Conceptual Metaphor Theory revealed that in the mainstream Protestant bible or the New American Standard Bible (NASB) the narrative develops through three specificlevel conceptual metaphors (CM) that underlie the construction of island identity, namely THE ISLAND IS WILD (67.56%);RELIGION IS A CONDUIT OF HEALTH (27.02%); and RELATIONSHIP IS CARE (5.40%).These CMs are subverted by American English NWT and its Kirundi counterpart.In Kristeva's term, the NRM's text, that is the NWT is an abject that confronts the mainstream biblical translation of the island identity (Gieni, 2016, p. 40).The NWT construes island identity in a way that confronts NTSB's rendition.
By comparing the NASB and the American English NWT it is discovered that 27 metaphorical expressions manifest the underlying concept of THE ISLAND IS WILD (to be colonized or civilized) in the former whereas the latter retained 19 only.Regarding the conceptualization of the colonial identity in the Malta narrative, the differences between the two biblical translations are represented in Table 1 (see appendices).The cases that are resisted in the NWT are metaphorical expressions suggesting wilderness or indigeneity.This can be illustrated by the expression 'the natives' that is used in the NASB to refer to islanders.The use of this metaphor ensures that the translation agents think of islanders through the lenses of the traditional Western thought of civilization.This alterity metaphor is replaced by 'foreign-speaking people' in the American English NWT.The difference between 'the natives' and 'foreign-speaking people' is that the former suggests the idea of uncivilized people like the Crusoe's Friday and his father, Indians in Christopher Columbus's New World or 'cannibals' in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness whereas the latter implies a degree of multicultural encounter and exchange.The conceptual mapping in the NASB projects islanders (target domain B) into the domain of physical objects (source domain A) including physical features.Thus the mapping is islanders → physical object.In this conceptualization, the islanders are conceived through orientational metaphors as occupying the bottom of the civilization ladder.The narrative follows the metaphorical construal LIFE IS A JOURNEY, but from a colonial perspective, the island community is in the DOWN instance of the journey.On the contrary, in its abjection, the NWT maps islanders into movement and direction domains (islanders →location).The foreigners and islanders differ in communication due to geographical location rather than physical features, morality, human bodies, or skills.The two groups merely differ in language codification.There is therefore an implication of multicultural encounters rather than civilization in the NWT.
Another instance is a recurring fever and dysentery.The use of this metaphorical expression in the NASB is based on the mapping: islander →bad health or weak body.In the NWT, the present participle 'recurring' is omitted.The deletion of the metaphor generates the noun phrase 'fever and dysentery' which insinuates the usual health conditions of the islanders as susceptible to sicknesses like mainlanders or people in general.
Regarding their spiritual identity, the islanders and the sojourners undergo a spiritual transformation.On the one hand, in the perception of the islanders, Paul changes from criminal to god and deliverer.On the other hand, the crew traveling with Paul are made to observe his transfiguration from a shipwreck wretched to a preacher, deliverer, and healer.Contrary to the colonial identity, the rate of metaphorical expressions representing spiritual identity that are used in NASB is approximately equal to that of the NWT.
In the NASB 10 out of 37 metaphorical expressions manifest the concept of spirituality (27.02%).On the contrary, the NWT increased the metaphorical expressions manifesting the underlying concept RELIGION IS A CONDUIT OF HEALTH to 11.In other words, out of a total of 38 metaphorical expressions used in NWT, 11 (26.31%)support the conceptualization of the spiritual identity.Some of the metaphors used to represent the colonial identity by the mainstream Protestant bible are subverted in the JW bible to emphasize the spiritual transformation that takes place in the narrative.The difference is the metaphorical expression 'justice'.The NWT uses 'Justice' with the capital letter 'J' whereas the NASB uses 'justice' with a lowercase 'j'.Through the use of 'Justice' to signify the universal judge or jurist of the supreme court, NWT is here enacting its premillennial and Adventist orientation to American society and the world.From this perspective, the island and the world outside it depend on the Justice (deity).This derives from Jehovah's Witnesses' pessimistic view of human justice and legal institutions.Domestically, JW has been in confrontation with the American government and judiciary system following their refusal to salute the national flag and to comply with blood transfusion medical laws.On the contrary in using 'justice' to signify inescapable judgment, the NASB in its colonial orientation is conceptualizing the island through the metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY IN WHICH THE EVIL IS PUNISHED AND THE GOOD REWARDED.As an abject, the NWT construes Paul through the mapping: the religion →deity.So a servant of God is a deity or a god.The conceptualization in the NASB is relevant to the American Protestant optimistic view of the world that is nationally concretized through the discourses of the American dream and social mobility.From this perspective, all prosperity and welfare are possible in the United States if one observes the biblical law, social law, and the work ethic.This optimism is denied by JW who view the possibility of achieving welfare in the Messianic New World only.
Last, there is a representation of multicultural and migration identity in the narrative of Paul the Apostle in Malta.The underlying concept of metaphorical expressions representing multicultural identity can be stated as RELATIONSHIP IS CARE (5.40%).The mainstream Protestant Bible used 2 (5.40%) metaphorical expressions whereas the NWT used 8 (21.05%).This difference points to what extent religious texts by Jehovah's Witnesses are embedded in the American postcolonial and global tradition.The two shared metaphorical expressions are 'and when we were about to set sail' (NASB) versus 'and when we were setting sail' (NWT) and 'they supplied us with everything we needed' versus 'they loaded us up with whatever we needed'.These metaphors point to the issue of migration and cultural exchange in the narrative.Using Kovecse's source and target domains, these metaphors are mapped as a nation (migrants) → travel; human relationship → travel (2010, p. 17).The point of discordance between NWT as an NRM's text and NAST can be illustrated by such instances as 'natives' (NASB) versus 'foreignspeaking people' (NWT) 'entertained us warmly' (NASB) versus 'entertained us hospitably'.The JW bible translation is grounded in the postnational, global, and transnational American discourse.Islanders' communication instrument is recognized as a foreign language.
Contrary to the NASB that perceives the islanders like Christopher Columbus's Arawak as savages using barbaric sounds to communicate, JW situates island identity in the multicultural universe whereby English or any other Western language ceases to be a measure of human communication (Zinn, 1980).In addition, in the expression 'entertained us warmly', the islanders are represented through the lenses of colonial discourse in the NASB.Their humble and benevolent ways are viewed as bare necessities.This is resisted in the NWT where a host-guest relationship is stressed to redress the subjecthood of the islanders.This is achieved by using mapping, and nation → movement, to highlight the island as a space of migration encounters and exchanges.
From this multicultural perspective the 'native' becomes the 'local' who responds to the transnational movements through the exchange of goods and ideas.Rather than a colonial encounter where the civilized or master exploits and enslaves the autochthonous, the island becomes a space for cultural exchanges where Paul preaches to the islanders and in turn benefits from their hospitality and cultural patterns.This translation is related to the postnational and transnational American discourses where gender, race, religion, ethnicity, class, and other forms of sociocultural marginal groups are integrated into the American national character.

Island Identity Revolt in Kirundi NWT
The translational construction of the trope of the island in the narrative of Paul the Apostle in Malta in Kirundi NWT conserves a high percentage of the metaphorical expressions (57.89%) used in the American English NWT.In other words, using Kristevan's concept, the Kirundi NWT is greatly a nihilism of the American English one.Nonetheless, a degree of revolt (42.36%) is remarkable.The distribution of occurrences for revolt culture and nihilist culture based on the CM metaphor translation procedures is displayed in the following table.The metaphorical concepts used to conceptualize the three forms of island identity, that is, colonial identity, spiritual identity, and multicultural identity are conserved in the TT.The only exceptions are cases where a metaphorical expression is converted into non-metaphorical expressions and non-metaphorical that are transformed into metaphorical expressions.In addition, some techniques such as mapping change, paraphrasing, and implicitation are used to subvert the source meaning.
Firstly, the colonial identity in the translational conceptualization of the island is subverted through the use of the procedures m →m-, m →m', m →non-m, and non-m →m.For the procedure m →m-, that is an implication or a metaphorical expression that is translated into another metaphorical with similar mapping and meaning, yet with some modification.The expression 'and fastened itself on his hand' is translated into 'ica yibohera ku kuboko kwiwe'.Here the implication which makes a difference in the translation is based on the fact that the word 'hand' that is used in the ST is replaced by 'arm'.Both texts use the same mapping, death →movement, to suggest the death of Paul from the venom of a viper that immobilizes a part of his body to bite it.But the situation is more dramatic in the target language where the viper immobilizes the whole arm rather than a small part of it (the hand).On the one hand, it implies that the viper or venomous creature is long enough to do up itself along the arm of Paul.On the other hand, it is difficult for Paul to shake it, for all his arms are immobilized.The import of this dramatization augments the wilderness of the island and consequently, its untamed nature that calls for the colonization, civilization, and evangelization of the island.
The procedure m →non-m, which is a metaphorical expression that is translated into a non-metaphorical expression can be illustrated by the instance 'and laid it on the fire' that is translated to 'akawushira ku muriro'.The meaning of the original is conserved.But the ST metaphorical expression is paraphrased.Thus while the ST uses the mapping, action →direction, to capture the island as a hostile environment due to the cold weather, the creativity of the islanders, and the individuality of Paul; the TT simplifies it by using a non-metaphorical expression meaning 'putting a bundle of wood sticks on the fire'.
The CM translation procedure, non-m →m can be exemplified by 'he welcomed us' vs 'aratwakira'.While 'to be welcomed' suggests a friendly and generous acceptance into somebody's shelter or a group, 'aratwakira' (he received us) implies a sense of reciprocity.For this particular narrative, 'to be received or be given back' insinuates that there is a reciprocal and asymmetrical relationship between the islanders and the travelers or mainlanders.Metaphorically, the hospitable action done by the principal man of the island is projected into a forwardbackward direction that characterizes the interaction between the host and the guests.This deviation from the ST underlines the multicultural and postcolonial stance that marks the target community.
The TT is also in revolt for some instances of the conceptualization of the spiritual identity in Paul the Apostle's Malta narrative.In the analysis, three cases of revolt are recorded.These include m →m', m →m+, and m →non-m.The procedure m →m' is represented by one instance: 'be cured'.Its rendition into 'barakizwa' (they were restored) applies a different mapping.In the English 'be cured' the life restoration of the islanders is projected into physical object (life →physical object).Health is here connected with taking care or concern for the human body using medical remedies.In the TT, life is mapped into the container (life →container).To be sick for islanders implies that the life in their bodies has been distorted.Paul intervenes to make it whole again.Concerning the procedure m →m+, the metaphorical expression 'Justice' was translated to 'ubutungane budaheranwa' (inescapable justice).Explicitation technique was used in the TT to imply that God's hand to punish wrong deeds is everywhere.In the TT the divine justice is not only supreme but also omnipresent that none can escape it.In American studies, a transnational view of sociocultural forces and migration is construed.Whether people travel or remain in their countries, they are subjects to natural and divine law.There is a view of legal culture that spans national borders.Last, the procedure m →non-m is represented by two instances, that is, 'and suffered no harm' translated to 'ariko, ntihagira ico aba' and 'the rest of the people on the island' translated to 'abandi bantu bo kuri iryo zinga'.In 'and suffered no harm' there is an implication of a deliberately inflicted injury upon Paul.The TT suggests the connection between the narrative and divine justice whose surveillance is everywhere to chastise and to redeem.However, the target text opted for using non-metaphorical expression and ipso facto undermining the legal and democratic layers of the ST.This may be justified by the difference in legal culture perception between the two groups of translation agencies.While Americans' legal thought is entrenched in the republicanism and liberalism (Paine) of the national character of the United States, Burundians are informed by their legal system which lacks a national mythology of systematized notions of democracy and individualism.Likewise, the rendition of 'the rest of the people on the island' into 'abandi bantu bo kuri iryo zinga' reduces the effect produced by the metaphor in the ST.The ST uses an ontological conceptual metaphor to ensure the number of islanders and in what ways Paul deals with it.The islandic nation is mapped into physical objects that are quantified.The expression 'abandi bantu bo kuri iryo zinga' means 'other people on that island'.So the TT lacks an ontological conceptualization to emphasize how people deal with all the islanders.
Last, the comparative analysis of the conceptualization of the multicultural identity in the translation of the biblical Malta island narrative shows differences in mapping.Almost all the ST metaphorical expressions are conserved in the TT.The difference in the conceptualization of multicultural identity in the translational construction of the island trope is realized through the use of the procedure m →non-m (one case).The translation procedure, m →non-m, was used in the translation of 'when we were setting sail' to 'kandi tugiye'.In the ST the action of starting the voyage is mapped into the propelling movement and force of the sail (action → movement).A nautical mental mapping underlies the metaphorical expression used in the ST.But in the TT the maritime dimension is omitted.A nonmetaphorical expression is used to simply mean that the travelers were about to leave the island.The difference in the translation of the instance in the narrative may be due to the difference in the geographical location of translation agents.Contrary to the United States which is surrounded by oceans, in a landlocked country like Burundi people lack nautical intuition in their cognition.This proves that the translation construction of the trope of the island may vary depending on whether or not translators can intuit archipelagic and nautical concepts.Another procedure that is used to resist the biblical translation from the center of the JW global evangelical movement is m →m'.The expression 'were lands belonging to [the principal]' was rendered to "[umuntu mukuru] yari afise amatongo".While the ST suggests territories or vast fields for settlement or plantations, the TT implies small portions of land or simply plots of land.This ensures a capitalist dimension that is linked with the American English translation.Likewise, the translation of 'entertained us hospitably' to 'aduha indaro n'umtima mwiza' subverts the idea of enjoyment and amusement that is insinuated in the original.This difference shows that Jehovah's Witnesses in the central countries and those in the periphery do not conceptualize the ascetic values that the church professes in the same way.As Sprague (1946) admits Jehovah's Witnesses feel that the government of the United States is "under the Devil's control" (p.120).Therefore, their biggest concern is the "rejection of the world" by "placing of great emphasis on ascetic virtues" (p.132).But their religious sentiment and ascetic life cannot be separated from the American milieu that engendered the creation of their Church and whose sociocultural forces still influence it in many ways.

American identity in the translational construal of island
The altered beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses about American national narratives of the millennium and manifest destiny determine their translational construction of biblical alterity narratives.As the following table shows, in the translation of Paul's Malta Island narrative, Jehovah's Witnesses in both the center and peripheral zones of evangelization manifest abjection and revolt.The three conceptual metaphors underlying Apostle Paul's Malta island narrative are realized through 37 metaphorical expressions in the mainstream bible and 38 in the JW marginal bible.The 38 metaphorical are retained in the Kirundi translation.Nonetheless, 16 of them are modified in mapping or paraphrased (41.89%).Hence only 22 are reproduced (57.89%).These variations demonstrate to which extent the center and periphery in American NRMs respond differently to American identity and its relation to the issue of the island.
First, the label 'New World Translation' is an explicit reaction to the American mythic discourses of promised land and millennialism.In JW's thought, their biblical translation is intended to provide an authentic message concerning the New World and ipso facto alter the dominant national approach to Zion and New Jerusalem.Thus their translation of the bible reflects in many ways this marginal view of American society and culture.Actually, in their view "Jehovah God and Christ Jesus" are "shortly to destroy their enemies at Armageddon and establish peace and righteousness on the earth under the Theocracy" (Sprague, 1946, p. 210).This can be illustrated by the change of the expression "Natives" to "foreignspeaking people".This change also points out the deconstruction of American colonial and nationalist discourses in JW biblical translations.A nationalist view like the one that historically negated Indian subjecthood and possession of the American territory before Puritan immigrants settled in the United States is subverted through the translation of island identity in NWT.Actually, in NWT equal subjectivity between islanders and outsiders is redressed.
Secondly, the existence of a shift in mapping and metaphorization between the American English NWT and the Kirundi NWT highlights the existence of cultural ideals from the evangelization center in Jehovah's Witnesses implicit partaking in the American national mythic discourse of manifest destiny.The metaphorical expression "entertained us hospitably" which implies modern forms of reception and popular enjoyment are subverted in the Kirundi NWT.The expression was replaced by "aduha indaro n'umutima mwiza" which is a neutral noncapitalist phrasing suggesting a traditional way of traveling and resting in one's house before resuming his or her journey.Concerning Jehovah's Witnesses' view of entertainment Sprague posits that the community is "urged to avoid stepping outside the Lord's organization to seek the entertainment provided by the Devil's world at motion picture houses and similar resorts; and it is urged, and some seem to feel, that one can have a pleasanter time with one's brethren out in the field or meeting with them in their homes" (Sprague, 1946, p. 133).This is an indication that Jehovah Witnesses are not spared from the dynamics of popular culture and its connected consumerism and media saturation.This is an indication that in the opportunities of Jehovah's Witnesses to distribute 'New World' message tracts and books all over the globe, American values in which the missionaries and their evangelical center are ingrained are made to travel to the peripheral zones of evangelization.In the same way, the translation and distribution of NWT in Burundi are in themselves acts of spreading of Americaness through its altered form by the minority groups.

Conclusion
The paper purposed to investigate to what extent abjection is manifested by the marginal American English NWT in resisting the mainstream Protestant groups' construction of island identity.The translational construction of island identity in American NRMs' texts in this paper focused on American English NWT and its Kirundi counterpart about Paul the Apostle's narrative in Malta (Acts 28: 1-10).It was found that the American English NWT translation attempts to subvert the colonial dimension that is conveyed in the conceptualization of Malta island.In the NWT, 50% of all the metaphorical expressions used in the narrative represent the colonial identity.But in the NASB which is used mainly among conservative dominant American Protestant denominations, the metaphorical expressions representing colonial identity are 67.57%.Nevertheless, while the rate of metaphorical expressions that manifest the topos of spirituality is almost the same, that is 27.02% for the NASB and 26.31% for the NWT, the rate of migration identity expressions is higher in the American English NWT than in the NASB.In the American English NWT, the conceptualization of multicultural or migration identity is respectively 21.05% whereas it is equal to 5.40% only in the NASB.These results prove that in its construction of alterity in the Malta island narrative, the NWT tends to American postnational, postcolonial, and global thought and identity.
The paper also purposed to examine in what ways the Burundi JW bible or the Kirundi NWT is in revolt against the original American ST.It was found out that the translation agency adopted a nihilist culture that tends to creatively reproduce the original in a different language.There is, however, translatorial revolt, especially regarding metaphorical expressions related to individualism, capitalism, and nautical culture.There is in the TT cultural filtering that attempts to adapt the ascetic virtues from the center to the local gospel setting.
Finally, the results were interpreted to scrutinize the rationale of the resulting island identity about American national culture and identity.It was found that the variation in the translation of the metaphorical expressions of colonial identity and migration identity is in line with Jehovah's Witnesses' manipulation of the biblical narrative of Malta island due to its pertinence to the issue of alterity and its centrality to American national character and the way marginal religious groups perceive it.In addition, the issue of the island and its connection with such notions as nation, land, and migration are crucial to Jehovah's Witnesses' orientation toward American national mythic narratives of the promised land, new world, and millennium.Hence a higher rate of migration identity metaphorical expressions in American English NWT and its Kirundi counterpart than in the NASB.
The issue of island identity and its translation by American NRMs is very heuristic.Since this research is not exhaustive, other studies should be carried out to investigate to what extent American NRMs relate to the national character of the United States in constructing alterity through the translation of other biblical island narratives such as that of Patmos, Samos, Seleucia, Lesbos, and Crete.

Table 1 .
Comparison of island identity conceptualization in NASB and NWT

Table 2 .
Representation of the procedures used in the rendition of American English NWT into Kirundi No.

Table 3 .
A display of revolt and Abjection in NWT