Multiple Voices in the Translation Classroom: Activities, tasks and projects (Benjamins Translation Library)
By Maria Gonzalez Davies, Maria Gonzalez Davies
* Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Co
* Number Of Pages: 275
* Publication Date: 2004-07
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 1588115275
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9781588115270
Fortunately, over the last fifty years, the voices of translation theorists, researchers
and practitioners have been heard more frequently and more powerfully.
Not so those of the professionals who prepare the future theorists,
researchers and practitioners: their teachers. At least not to the extent for them
to have become really visible. The same can be said about the students who will
occupy a place in academia or in the profession. The voices that belong to the
preparatory stage should gradually make themselves be heard loud and clear in
their essential role in the forming of professionals in translation.
How much has translation training changed in the last hundred years?
Has it kept up with research in pedagogy or in psychology? Can it be taught?
An overview of the literature reveals that, although much has been written
about the translation process and product, there is very little about class
dynamics. Preparation of trainers seems to focus either on a prescription of
how translation should be taught – paradoxically, without giving any practical
ideas on how to go about it – or on a description of what happens in
translation, but not of what happens in the classroom.
A typical statement on the difficulties involved in translation training
usually declares that teachers need to have a background in a variety of areas,
such as communication theory, linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics,
neurolinguistics and cognitivism, or translation studies. There is nothing
wrong with this perception – in fact, it is quite true. The point here is that
pedagogy and psychology have been left out. As is often the case, the fact
that the mentioned areas are to be explored in an educational context does
not seem to have been considered. How can these two areas be included in
translator education? The former can offer clear scaffolding for the teaching
focus if it is based, for instance, on the steps that Richards and Rodgers
(1986/2001) suggest should be followed while planning a course. The teacher
should reflect on three aspects: (1) the approach, or theories and beliefs
about the nature of the subject – in our case, translation – and about how
competence can be acquired, (2) the design, or actual classroom dynamics,
which include the selection and sequencing of aims and contents (syllabus),
ideas about the classroom setting, and decisions about the teacher’s and the
student’s roles, and (3) the procedures, or activities, which will draw from
the previous two and may range from teacher-centred lectures to studentcentred
authentic projects. As to the area of psychology, key points could be,
on the one hand, to observe, explore and practise the mental processes that can
improve the students’ translation competence and performance, and, on the
other, to explore issues related to emotional intelligence such as the students’
personalities, backgrounds, and learning and translating styles. Both areas can
complement the teacher’s knowledge and develop the students’ aptitude and
attitude. Research into psychology and pedagogy points to an improvement
of the students’ competence and performance if motivation and participation
are encouraged and if the diversity of learning and teaching styles is respected
(Gardner 1985; Gardner & Lambert 1972; Woodward 1992; Wright 1987). A
translation teacher – any teacher, really – plays, or should play, a double role:
as an expert in a given field and as an expert in teaching.
All the areas mentioned above can be taught either following the “read
and translate” approach or following an interactive approach that encourages
student participation and dialogue. The latter can be carried out by means of
activities, tasks or project work that eithermirrors the professionalworld or actually
enables the students’ participation in authentic translation assignments.
These procedures can be designed to develop reading and writing skills, problem
spotting and problem solving, resourcing, computer skills, professional
skills and any of the other elements usually considered as part of a translator’s
competence (for an overview of studies on translation competence, see Orozco
2000). As teachers, it is up to us to adopt one approach or the other. In a teaching
context, the procedure chosen to teach a content can be as important as the
content itself. Here we are talking about exploring ways to make appropriate
procedural planning improve the declarative knowledge we want our students
to acquire: efficient teaching not only answers questions, it also raises them.
Another point to consider is the often-voiced opinion that translation
training depends on a specific translation theory and that until translation
competence has been fully explained, it cannot be taught properly. If we consider
language learning, a similar predicament arises: do we really know what
lies behind language competence? In spite of this, languages are taught world
wide. It could be argued that, just as there is no one and only valid translation
theory, there is no one and only valid method of teaching translation.
Since the publication of Robert C. Gardner’s and Wallace E. Lambert’s
groundbreaking work on motivation in 1972, Howard Gardner’s on multiple
intelligences in 1986, and of Daniel Goleman’s on emotional intelligence in
1996, we have come to operate in what is sometimes called the Post-Method
Condition (Block 2000; Kumaravadivelu 1994; Prabhu 1992). Ideologically
in consonance with postcolonial times, concepts such as catering for diversity,
multicultural and multilinguistic teaching, respect for the learner and for
learning and teaching styles have become commonplace, as well as the notion
that different pedagogical approaches can be effective depending on the
teaching circumstances.
Previous to this, in some countries, the Communicative Approach substituted
the Grammar-Translation Method in foreign language learning with the
result that, since the late eighties and the nineties, concepts such as learner autonomy,
self-confidence, peer work, decision-making, learning to learn,meaningful
learning and student-centred classes have taken over. All of these can
certainly be relevant to translation training.
A further point is that translation trainers often complain that their
students do not perform adequately. On the one hand, we should remember
that pedagogical logic tells us that learning requires time and that the average
student cannot have acquired the competence of an experienced translator.
On the other, perhaps the time has come to adapt to the new generations by
including texts and activities in our classes not only in the written form, but
also in the oral and non-verbal and, what’s more, in those that integrate both,
in consonance with the culture the students have grown up with and in which
they will be working: TV and radio talk shows, e-mail and cell phone messages,
and so on. It could almost be suggested that, nowadays, the “read and translate”
directive to teach translation is probably as obsolete and unproductive as the
Grammar-TranslationMethod is to teach a foreign language. As a well-known
saying goes “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what
you’ve always got”!
The teacher’s role that we are talking about here is close to that of a guide
and counsellor.Most questions simply do not have a closed answer and require
discussion, negotiating and team work, as well as introspection. All this can be
taught using procedures based on learning and communication strategies, and
research in creativity and psychology.
Here, perhaps, lies a key question: if translation is now considered “a
dynamic process of communication” (Hatim & Mason 1990: 52) to be carried
out in a professional context with speed and efficiency, skills such as text
analysis, paraphrasing, summarising, adapting the source text to the client’s
commission or to the reader’s or listener’s potential expectations, resourcing
and using software adequately, or overcoming constraints are basic and require
an open, flexible and questioning attitude, an attitude that can be fostered and
encouraged at the learning stage “. . . because the university is the only place
where people have the time and willingness to insist on proper methodologies
and strategies.” (Gouadec 2000).
Not all students and teaching contexts are the same even though, in the
literature on translation training, one often receives the contrary impression.
In real life it may even be the case that different translation centres in the same
countries adapt their syllabi according to a needs analysis of their particular
environment. The differences, of course, increase in further distanced geopolitical
areas. Perhaps, in a positive vein, in translation training a situation can be
envisaged similar to that suggested by Hervey et al. (1995: 17) when exploring
the issue of translation loss: “Our approach, then, assumes that the translator’s
ambition is not an absolutist one to maximise sameness, but a relativist to minimize
difference . . . and therefore to forget the mirage of gain and concentrate
instead on the real benefits of compensation.”We need to share more ideas for
the classroom, ideas based on different approaches, not only to translation, but
also to pedagogy. Bridges can surely be built to share common ground while
respecting local and individual differences.
This introduction must include a mention of another aspect that is intrinsic
to motivation and successful learning: the ludic aspect. As Cronin (forthcoming)
observes:
Strangely absent in the theoretical speculation on translation teaching have
been theories of play and game in language. This is all the more surprising in
that any attempt to theorise intuition in thought and creativity in language
must surely take into account the enormous cognitive contribution of play in
human development.
Many of the procedures presented here include this ludic element and contribute
to relaxation, to a certain reduction of inhibition, to undoing creative
blockage and to group binding (see also Ehrmann 1999).
Multiple voices should be heard in the classroom: those of the teachers and
the students, as well as those of different theorists and researchers, and those
of the practitioners and initiators. New paths should be explored instead of
keeping to one approach to translation or to its teaching. At this point, it is
not only a question of encouraging the translators’ visibility, but also of giving
support to these other voices.
Why this book?
To build the competence we want in our students we have to design precise
pedagogical tools – tools for particular purposes that will yield specific desired
effects. Shreve 1995: xiv
Compared to the literature on translation theory, on the best way to translate a
text or on how to become a professional translator, publications on translation
training per se are scarce. Most of these follow a teacher-centred approach to
classroom dynamics with a bias towards teaching translation starting off with
professional standards. The students, the other protagonists of the learning
process, are often regarded as a homogeneous group starting their translator
education from tabula rasa, with the same aptitudes and attitudes. Their specific
needs and the steps to be followed to achieve a professional standard and
a conceptual framework for them to understand and evaluate their translation
decisions are seldom dealt with expressly: prescriptive texts on what they
should know seldom present paths and means to help teachers guide them
systematically or imaginatively towards the desired outcome. In other words,
there seems to be a need to take a step forward and move from an exclusively
text and teacher-centred approach to translation training to one that includes
the students and their different backgrounds and learning styles on the one
hand, and updated pedagogical tools and techniques to improve their translation
competence and performance on the other. Their role in the classroom –
and that of the teacher – can be determined not only according to beliefs of
what translation is about and who the translator is in society, but also through
the application of relevant research in pedagogy. The activities, task chains and
projects suggested here have been designed, on the one hand, to be used in tandem
with the main curriculum designed by the teacher and, on the other, to
give the students a place in the learning process and present the teacher’s role as
that of guide and counsellor. This does notmean that the teacher is left aside as
some would interpret it, but that there is room for more than one approach to
teaching translation and that lectures, group work and authentic projects can
be combined throughout the course.
Who is this book for?
This book is addressed to translation trainers and students, and also to foreign
language teachers who wish to include translation activities in a communicative
and interactive way in their classrooms, to graduates and professional
translators interested in becoming teachers, and also to administrators exploring
the possibility of starting a new translation programme. It can help
translation students in their initial years to bridge the gap between being foreign
language learners and becoming translation apprentices,2 and it can also
be a means for foreign language teachers to use translation as a useful tool to
introduce, reinforce, practise or reflect on the similarities and differences between
the native and the second or foreign languages, and also for the students’
life outside the classroom, in which they may be compelled to act as occasional
translators or interpreters. It can also, of course, become a first contact with an
academic area in which they may wish to engage as future professionals.
This is both a teacher and a student-friendly book that can be used directly
in the classroom once the teacher has selected and adapted the procedures
and the reflection points to his or her classroom setting. Since the procedures
are woven into a reflective background, they are far from being only handy
recipes for a rainy afternoon. Rather, they stem from research and from
classroom observation and experience, and are related to direct pedagogical
action considering, as has been mentioned above, first, the chosen approach,
then, the design and, finally and mainly, the procedures, or the means by
which the previous are implemented in the classroom, that is, activities, tasks
and projects. This is not a book on a particular translation theory, but one
that puts theories into practice so that the students can experiment, explore
and translate from different perspectives. The weight here lies heavily on the
procedures to help fill a void in the usual publications on translator training.
Many of the activities can also be used for self-study by the learners themselves.
This underlines the principle of learner autonomy and allows them to revise
their work without the teacher, a first step towards becoming self-reliant
professionals. References for further reading on the pedagogical, historical or
theoretical points included can be found in the bibliography.
The aim is not to present an exclusive pedagogical approach. This seems
irrelevant in our afore-mentioned Post-Method Condition days when no one
and onlymethod can be regarded as optimal for teaching or learning. Rather, it
seems that the key to efficient training lies with flexible teachers trained to put
into action different approaches and methods and to adapt to their students
by building an adequate scaffolding that gradually disappears as they become
independent agents. That is, the teacher presents, models, guides, counsels and,
finally, lets go.
Language combination is not a particular starting point for the procedures:
the emphasis liesmore on the transference skills and on the reflection needed to
complete a translation assignment adequately as well as on different conceptual
approaches to translation. Sample material or examples are mainly in the
languages I usually work with in my classes: English, Spanish and Catalan.
Examples in French and German have also been included but, as I have
mentioned, the activities are not based on a specific language combination and
can be applied tomore than one language pair. This volume has been conceived
as an idea book that suggests activities, tasks and projects in such a way that
each teacher can select and adapt them to his or her own environment and
take them further.
In short, this book aims to deal with translation training from a wide
perspective far from a virtuoso performance of the teacher and to contribute
to filling a pedagogical void by presenting motivating ideas that may help
build a positive and effective teaching and learning environment and favour
teacher/student as well as student/student interaction. The procedures have
been designed to lay the practical foundations of interactive translation training,
that is, to help students to move from the most rudimentary level of the
word, to the more complicated issues of syntax and, finally, to those of cultural
difference. Moreover, they attempt to synthesize various translation theories,
not only those based on linguistics, but those derived from cultural studies as
well. |
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