Oxford Applied Linguistics features books providing thorough yet accessible coverage of controversial topics related to language use, including learning, teaching, research, and policy. All titles are based on extensive research and include comprehensive bibliographies. The authors are noted authorities in their fields.
For at least a century, attitudes to the use of translation in language teaching have been predominantly negative, the deprecators of the methodology having been particularly vocal at the turn of the 20th century and again in the 1960s and 70s. Yet, for all of this time, translation has remained a significant component in the teaching of many languages in many parts of the world, and the 1980s saw a revival of support for the practice among a number of applied linguists. Language teaching for translators has been rather less contentious. It has always been assumed that translators must know their languages thoroughly, but little has been written about how they, as a special group, might be taught their languages. In the final quarter of the 20th century, attention among translation scholars and pedagogues has turned so decisively away from linguistics that even teaching translators about their languages and how they can be put to use has been frowned on in many quarters. This book takes a fresh look at both issues. Part One addresses the question of the place and nature of language teaching in translator training programmes. Part Two deals with the issue of how translation might best be used as a teaching and testing methodology in language classes. Finally, the papers in Part Three address the relationship between translation and language teaching from the somewhat divergent points of view of the translator trainer and language teacher.
Drawing upon convergences between translation studies and foreign and second language (L2) didactics that have emerged as a result of recent research, this volume continues the dialogue between the two disciplines by allowing for epistemological two-way traffic, marrying established, yet so far unrelated or under-researched, conceptual approaches, and disseminating innovative scientific evidence from different continents. A unique feature of the volume is the sub-section presenting the most recent empirical studies in the development of linguistic and other professional competences for translators, with suggestions for re(de)fining translation curricula. The contributors to this volume include representatives of various spheres, including academics, researchers and practitioners. Their underlying theoretical and empirical research is informed by multiple perspectives: linguistics, didactics, and translation-related. This book shows how integrating insights from translation studies into language teaching and vice versa can effectively respond to the challenges of contemporary language and translator teaching and training.
The revival of translation as a means of learning and teaching a foreign language and as a skill in its own right is occurring at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in universities. In this book, Sara Laviosa proposes a translation-based pedagogy that is grounded in theory and has been applied in real educational contexts. This volume draws on the convergence between the view of language and translation embraced by ecologically-oriented educationalists and the theoretical underpinnings of the holistic approach to translating culture. It puts forward a holistic pedagogy that harmonizes the teaching of language and translation in the same learning environment. The author examines the changing nature of the role of pedagogic translation starting with the Grammar Translation Method and concluding with the more recent ecological approaches to Foreign Language Education. Translation and Language Education analyses current research into the revival of translation in language teaching and is vital reading for translators, language teachers and postgraduate students working in the areas of Translation Studies and Applied Linguistics.
Proceedings of a conference, "Translation in second language teaching and learning", that took place at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, March 27-29, 2008
This book provides a historical overview of approaches to translation in language education. It explores the functions and scope of translation in the L2 classroom. Translation, as a valid resource and an indispensable skill in today's multilingual communication, should become an integral element of contemporary foreign language learning.
Translation and Own-language Activities provides structured, practical advice and guidance for using students' own languages within the ELT classroom. Translation and Own-language Activities provides structured, practical advice and guidance for using students' own languages within ELT classrooms. Taking into account both the growing interest and concerns about use of translation in English lessons, the book presents effective ways of integrating carefully chosen activities, covering themes such as tools, language skills, language focus and techniques. The practical activities range from using bilingual dictionaries to translating long texts, with a number of tasks drawing on easy-to-use web tools. The book also considers the relationship between translation and intercultural understanding.
The aim of this volume is to record the resurgent influence of Language Learning in Translation Studies and the various contemporary ways in which translation is used in the fields of Language Teaching and Assessment. It examines the possibilities and limitations of the interplay between the two disciplines in attempting to investigate the degree to which recent calls for reinstating translation in language learning have borne fruit. The volume accommodates high-quality original submissions that address a variety of issues from a theoretical as well as an empirical point of view. The chapters of the volume raise important questions and demonstrate the beginning of a new era of conscious epistemological traffic between the two aforementioned disciplines. The contributors to the volume are academics, researchers and professionals in the fields of Translation Studies and Language Teaching and Assessment from various countries and educational contexts, including the USA, Canada, Taiwan R.O.C., and European countries such as Belgium, Germany, Greece, Slovenia and Sweden, and various professional and instructional settings, such as school sector and graduate, undergraduate and certificate programs. The contributions approach the interplay between the two disciplines from various angles, including functional approaches to translation, contemporary types of translation, and the discursive interaction between teachers and students.
While many professional translators believe the ability to translate is a gift that one either has or does not have, Allison Beeby Lonsdale questions this view. In her innovative book, Beeby Lonsdale demonstrates how teachers can guide their students by showing them how insights from communication theory, discourse analysis, pragmatics, and semiotics can illuminate the translation process. Using Spanish to English translation as her example, she presents the basic principles of translation through 29 teaching units, which are prefaced by objectives, tasks, and commentaries for the teacher, and through 48 task sheets, which show how to present the material to students. Published in English.
This book brings together an international team of leading translation teachers and researchers to address concerns that are central in translation pedagogy. The authors address the location and weighting in translation curricula of learning and training, theory and practice, and the relationships between the profession, its practitioners, its professors and scholars. They explore the concepts of translator competence, skills and capacities and two papers report empirical studies designed to explore effects of the use of translation in language teaching. These are complemented by papers on student achievement and attitudes to translation in programmes that are not primarily designed with prospective translators in mind, and by papers that discuss language teaching within dedicated translation programmes. The introduction and the closing paper consider some causes and consequences of the odd relationships that speakers of English have to other languages, to translation and ultimately, perhaps, to their "own" language.