Addressing polysemy in translation pedagogy

Reviewed by: Beyond the ivory tower: Rethinking translation pedagogy ed. by Brian James Baer and Geoffrey S. Koby Shaoxiang Wang Beyond the ivory tower: Rethinking translation pedagogy. Ed. by Brian James Baer and Geoffrey S. Koby. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2003. Pp. xvi, 259. ISBN 158811399X. $132 (Hb). Although recent years have witnessed a tremendous growth in the literature on translation, the area of translation pedagogy, described by Jean-René Ladmiral (‘La traduction dans le Cadre de Institution Pegagogique’, Die Neueren Sprachen 76.489–516, 1977) as performance magistrale, remains a somewhat underinvestigated field within the now full-fledged translation studies (TS). Beyond the ivory tower: Rethinking translation pedagogy offers to remedy the situation by providing fresh insights into the ways of establishing close links between theory and practice in translation teaching. The volume consists of twelve papers organized into three parts. The first part centers on translation as process, the second focuses on translation as product, and the last highlights the opportunities and challenges brought about by translation-related technologies. Part 1 begins with Donald Kiraly’s proposed replacement of the traditional teacher-centered, transmissionist approach to translator education with a student-centered socio-constructive one in order to foster translator competence. With a similar goal in mind, Sonia Colina illustrates the need for a research-based teaching model to facilitate communicative translational competence. Judy Wakabayashi explores the pedagogical potential of think-aloud research by applying it to the translation classroom as a diagnostic device and trouble-shooter. In his paper, Alexander Gross suggests that translation should be taught as a form of target language writing. The first article in Part 2 is Julie Johnson’s discussion of the advantages of portfolios as an assessment tool in the translation classroom. Fanny Arango-Keeth and Geoffrey Koby’s article draws our attention to the gap between the evaluation standards and procedures used in academic settings and the workplace [End Page 669] respectively by presenting an analysis of the results of a survey they conducted in 2002, arguing for greater harmonization and coordination between the two. Jonathan Hine documents a multilingual text revision course and shares his findings and experiences by elucidating the structure of the curriculum. With three illustrative workshops, Carol Maier explores the best way to sensitize students to the issue of gender and encourages translators to reflect on and discuss the working of gender in translation practice. Through comparative text analysis, Natalia Olshanskaya compellingly shows one of the many possible ways to teach communicative translation competence. Beginning Part 3, Lynne Bowker demonstrates the possibilities of developing a collaborative approach to translation corpora-building in the classroom setting by drawing on her own experiences. Geoffrey Koby and Brian James Baer endeavor to integrate task-based instruction (TBI) in a translator training program by offering a number of task-based learning modules for use in teaching software localization. Recognizing the disparity between the growing demand for localizers and the availability of relevant translator training programs, Takashi Kosaka and Masaki Itagaki describe two courses for training Japanese localization translators as the models for building a market-driven localization translation curriculum. Touching upon many of the phenomena that currently affect translation pedagogy, this volume provides a valuable opportunity for translation educators to reconceptualize their mission. As such, it makes a significant contribution to translator education. Shaoxiang Wang Fujian Teachers University Copyright © 2006 Linguistic Society of America

The basic competence a translation education program aims at providing the students with is that of translation competence. Most translation studies scholars working in the field of translation education have declared four competences to be among the basic indispensable sub competences of “translation competence”; namely, cultural competence, critical reading competence, linguistic competence and critical thinking competence. One of the most effective ways of getting students to acquire these competences is including literature courses in the curricula. When the curricula of Applied English Translation Programs that provide associate degree translation education in Turkey are examined, it is seen that English Literature courses are offered in very few universities and vocational schools. In addition, translator candidates graduating from these associate degree programs can have the right to take the vertical transfer exam and receive undergraduate education in the departments of English Language and Literature, American Culture and Literature where they further specialise in such fields as literature and language. This is another reason why acquisition of literary competence may be one of the intended objectives of these programs. Within the framework of these discussions, drawing from the analysis and comparison of the concept of “translation competence” with the competences provided by literature courses, and the intended program outcomes of Applied English Translation Programs, this research aims at arguing that English literature courses are necessary and useful components of the curricula of these programs.

There has been some research at the intersection of beliefs and translation (as a form of applied language knowledge) in recent times. Investigations have focused on translators’, students’ and teachers’ beliefs about different aspects of translation, including translation as a product, a process or a subject of teaching and learning. The topics of interest have ranged from translators’ beliefs about the professional world of translators (Katan 2009), the impact of translators’ beliefs on translation quality (Araghizade 2016, Yousefi 2017), teachers’ and students’ beliefs on the nature of knowledge and learning (Li 2017), teachers’ practices and beliefs about inclusion in the English language classroom (Al Siyabi et al. 2024), teachers’ and students’ beliefs about translator competence and training practices (Wu et al. 2019), to teachers’ beliefs on the role of machine translation in translator education (Hellmich and Vinall 2021, Rico and Pastor 2022). This paper aims to add to this body of knowledge by exploring teachers’ and students' beliefs about translator competence and training practices in the Macedonian context.The purpose of this paper is to identify and compare the beliefs held by translation students and their teachers with reference to translator competencies as well as to explore the way in which these are addressed in existing training practices. The study presented in this paper is conducted among students and teachers at the Department of Translation and Interpreting at the “Blaze Koneski” Faculty of Philology in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia, using a mixed method approach following Wu et al. (2019). The paper addresses three research questions: what teachers and students believe are the components of translation competence, how much they think these are addressed in current training practices and the similarities and differences between the beliefs of both groups. The results of the study have pedagogical implications. They help teachers become aware of their own beliefs about the importance of the different subcomponents of translation competence and whether these are reflected in their teaching practice. The results also help increase teachers’ awareness of the translation students’ beliefs about translation competence as well as their perception of the teaching methods. Finally, the results show if there are any mismatches between the beliefs of the two groups that need to be addressed in future practice and research.

The primary focus of using GBL in translation is to incorporate gamification strategies to augment the learning process and enhance the proficiency of translation abilities. By integrating components of play, competition, and incentives into the educational procedure, translation learners are stimulated and incentivized to acquire proficiency in the complexities of translation, ultimately resulting in the development of their translation skills. However, this study emphasizes the implementation of gamification strategies in the process of acquiring translation skills. This study investigates the perspectives of pertinent stakeholders in the field of translation education regarding the efficacy of this learning approach in enhancing the translation competencies and learning outcomes of translation students. A total of 103 research participants, including translation educators, translation students, and game developers, provided vital data through the administration of a questionnaire. The research also used Jamovi statistical software to compute the data, a t-test to verify the research hypothesis, and compiled the data into a descriptive statistics table. The results suggest that both hypotheses developed for the study were supported. On the other hand, this suggests that the use of GBL fosters motivation and engagement among learners of translation, thereby ensuring enhancements in language proficiency, translation competencies, and cultural comprehension. The findings indicate that the integration of GBL methodologies can facilitate the creation of interactive and stimulating educational settings for translation instructors. This, in turn, can promote the cultivation of skilled translators who possess language proficiency, cultural awareness, and translation expertise. Keywords: Game-Based Learning, Translation Education, Motivation and Engagement DOI： https://doi.org/10.35741/issn.0258-2724.58.5.35

With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, translation education faces both new opportunities and challenges. This paper examines the cultivation model of critical thinking in translation teaching within the context of the AI era. It aims to shift the focus from skill-based instruction to the development of critical thinking, thus enhancing the core competencies of translators in environments where humans and machines collaborate. The study underscores that critical thinking is a vital component of translation competence. It is not only crucial for addressing complex translation problems but also serves as the intrinsic value of translation education itself. In order to cultivate this skill, the paper suggests a comprehensive approach: establishing a collaborative translation learning community, integrating content that promotes critical thinking, guiding the teaching process to foster this cognitive skill, and developing an AI-enhanced evaluation system. This approach advocates that translation education should align with the principle of using technology as a tool, while preserving humanity as the foundation. By achieving a balance between technological tools and humanistic literacy, the field can ensure the harmonious development of both. This paper offers theoretical insights and practical recommendations for developing well-rounded translation professionals in the age of artificial intelligence.

The paper discusses the results of a survey of a translation teacher profile in the context of Russian academia. It reveals that there is no integral profile of a translation teacher in Russia today. Translation teachers can be categorized into certain groups according to their initial training, practical experience in translation and age. The survey shows that a significant number of translation teachers have had no translation training. Regardless of their initial training, almost all translation teachers are engaged in practical translation, however only few of them perform translation or interpreting on a regular basis. Among those who teach Translation Theory there are some who have never been taught it, thus they may be regarded as self-educated theorists. Virtually no translation trainers in Russian universities have ever been professionally educated in translation didactics. 75% of the total number of translation teachers have completed short-time advanced training courses, which does not seem to be sufficient to become an experienced translation teacher. A large number of those who do have initial translation training teach translation copying their own teachers. It is doubtful that all of them possess translation mode of thinking and are able to develop it in their students. The overall conclusion is that a comprehensive system for training and retraining translation teachers is required.

The article presents a study on the role of journalistic translation (press translation) in translation teaching using a questionnaire in November-December 2016 on a sample of 52 translation teachers. The aim of the survey was to find out the role of journalistic translation in translation teaching in Hungary and three neighbouring countries: Croatia, Romania and Slovakia. The importance of the survey lies in the fact that no research has been published so far on this topic in Hungary, and only minor research has been done on the topic of journalistic translation itself (primarily limited to the field of text linguistics). Despite these facts, the study has revealed the importance of journalistic translation in the teaching of translation: more than 85% of the teachers surveyed use press texts in teaching due to different motivations, and nearly 50% of respondents use them during the entire period of translation education. The inclusion of journalistic translation in the teaching of translation is also confirmed and justified by the fact that more than 80% of those surveyed consider the subject to be relevant for the students’ future work as a translator due to the wide range of application areas of journalistic translation.

By applying presentation approach in C-E translation class for vocational English-majoring students, this paper probes into the effectiveness of giving presentation of lexical translation on C-E classes. Through study, it was discovered that giving presentations could not only help students boost their vocabulary storage, both vertically and horizontally, but also spur their interest in C-E translation, which would add to their C-E translation competence.

Translation assessment, referring to evaluating various aspects related to translation, is crucial to the improvement of translation competence and quality. This study, taking valid papers on translation assessment published in WoS core collection from 2000 to 2022 as research samples, visualizes and reviews the research theme, research evolutions and emerging hot topics of translation assessment through bibliometric analysis. The number of annual publications shows that despite the general growth, the number of articles on translation assessment fluctuates from year to year. By Cite Space-based analysis of keywords co-occurrence, keyword clustering, time zone and burst detection, it finds that translation assessment mainly covers five themes, namely translation competence, translation quality, machine translation, translation teaching and training, and others. The overall evolution has been a gradual shift from concepts, metrics and evaluations of topics related to translation assessment into a topic of in-depth and interdisciplinary study. The hotspots in recent years include translation competence acquisition, neural machine translation and translation quality estimation. The findings reveal research evolutions and hot spots, propose implications for further translation assessment research and provide references for scholars who are interested in this topic.

This study focuses on reflections by students of ‘English Translation Practice,’ within the Study Plan of Languages and Business Relations at UTAD, Portugal, in 2018–2019. The main purpose is to 1. reflect upon the process of building Translation Competence through formal academic training; 2. discuss some of the difficulties that the students were faced with in a specific task, and the way they struggled and overcame their obstacles, thus 3. Proving that mediators between two languages and cultures are better prepared if they use more than just intuition and they have systematic training in the field. By comparing the students’ translation of the last 00:05:47 of S03E05 of Forged in Fire (History Channel) and the original subtitles, we came to conclude that portfolios are key to understanding critical approaches to problematic situations; they are iterative and dynamic working documents that exemplify the students’ search for solutions to their puzzlements and reveal fascinating insights into the development of Translation Competence. Keywords: translation didactics, translation competence, subtitling, portfolios, critical reflection

While current translation theory is beginning to reconcile cultural and linguistic approaches to translation, this is far from the case in translation pedagogy and curriculum. This paper will argue in favour of a socio-cultural turn in translation pedagogy and curriculum design with specific reference to the Canadian/Québec context where the social, political and economic dimensions of the practice of translation, and its place within the broader area of inter-cultural communication in Canada differ depending on whether one is working into English or into French. Issues examined include redesigning curriculum to highlight the socio-cultural functions of translation, integrating culture and pedagogy, and identifying the theoretical implications of a cultural turn in translation teaching.

Language skills play a vital role in academic achievement and support reading and writing acquisition. Language skills also enable children to interact with others and develop social abilities. Given the predictive value of early language skills for academic attainment and their connection to social interaction, they have been suggested to be an indicator of well-being as well. However, children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds present lower scores than their peers with a majority language background on standardized language tests, such as vocabulary assessment. In the current study, we examined the relationship between language and self-reported well-being in the school context, based on data from a community sample of 85 five-year-old children attending eight preschools in three Swedish municipalities. Language skills were assessed through measures of vocabulary (receptive and expressive) and narrative skills (MAIN) and were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Narrative ability and vocabulary skills were correlated, but they appear to be distinct constructs. Exposure at home to the majority language was positively associated with vocabulary skills, while narrative ability was not strongly associated with language background. Language skills and well-being were not significantly correlated in the total sample, but post hoc analysis revealed that language background may affect the association. A novel contribution of this study is empirical data on language performance from a community sample with a large proportion of children with diverse language backgrounds. The relationship between subjective well-being and language skills warrants further investigation.

Assessing translation competence or its components is one of highly debatable issues of translation pedagogy. In the Ukrainian context, this issue has been particularly neglected despite considerable progress achieved in teaching vocational translation. As a result, conventional quantitative and error-based assessment schemes prevail in most national translation training environments. Thus, the objective of this article is to reconsider generally accepted approaches towards translation quality assessment and suggest the instruments for assessing the textual competence in translation from Ukrainian into English. This study relies on the experimental training of the first-year Translation Majors of the Master’s program (n = 33). Tools included a general language proficiency test, a pre- and post-training test in translation skills, assessment scales and the survey of translation teachers. The assessment procedure of the experimental training had a strong correlation (89%) with the expected learning outcomes and training objectives of the course. The research results indicate that the suggested instruments are effective in measuring the textual competence of Translation Majors in the classroom focused on translation as a process rather than a product. The experimental training has also revealed the impact of the trainer’s profile on the assessment procedure, which can become the object of further research.

One of the aims of academic translation education is to enable students to gain translation competence. Translation competence indicates that the translator specializes and acts consciously in the process from understanding the text to producing the target text. Therefore, it requires a number of sub-competences. This study defines all of the sub-competences forming the translation competences, i.e. language competence, text competence, cultural competence, research competence, subject and expertise competence and finally technology competence. Also, in order to make the technology competence (which is the focal point of the study), more understandable, this study examines studies on technology education in Turkish literature and translation competence models in foreign sources. After determining the borders of technology competence, courses including technology in the curriculum and the course content of the Translation Studies and Translation and Interpretation Departments of Turkey's 13 state universities are examined. In this way, an attempt has been made to open to discussion the concept of technology competence (which is not commonly mentioned as a sub-competence in the source), to offer suggestions for students to gain or develop technology competence in academic translation education at the undergraduate level, and to associate technology competence with translation competence.

Translation starts with a document in one language and ends with a document with the same meaning in another language. Technical communication entails designing and writing a document from scratch in one language. The answer to the question of “Which, of translation or writing, comes first?” seems relatively obvious – the document needs to be written before it can be translated. However, when looking at translation and technical communication as professions and examining how the professionals are trained, the answer is not quite as clear-cut. In the United States, translators and technical communicators have different qualifications, different skills – in particular different language skills – and have degrees in different fields. Only recently has there appeared a certain convergence between the professions. In Europe, and more specifically in France, the profession of technical communicator is quite recent, as are the corresponding academic programs. Many technical communicators came to the profession from translation. The convergence therefore is perceived as being far greater. The purpose of this paper is to launch a comparative study of the competences or skills of translators and technical communicators, based on the existing European Master’s in Translation (EMT) list of competences for translators. The goal of this study would be to define the core skills for technical communicators, to examine to what extent they overlap with the competences of translators and ultimately, to establish a referential for training programs in technical communication.