Recently I was lucky to participate in a webinar given by Guy Cook, a celebrated author, on translation in ELT. The presenter published a book on the topic last year and is a strong supporter of the technique. He finds a lot of convincing arguments in its defense, reminding us that translation is one of the most common real-life situations involving communication, especially in today's multicultural world. To get a small sample of what Guy Cook has to say about translation, listen to him here:
Go to OUP Teachers' Club website to see what webinars have been planned for the nearest few months. The one on translation has been recorded and is to be available for playback soon.
3 comments:
Interesting point about cultural issues. I came across a different issue, but still connected with Translation, in the context of ESP. Such a course of events may occur, in which the students will find
it difficult to recognize the usage of general vocabulary items used in specialized way.
Example: to rotate in general English means to turn around; in aviation to rotate means
to pull the stick/steering column in order to get the nose wheel off the ground. The pilot
uses this word at exact moment of pulling the nose of the plane up, reporting: Speed is
120 knots, Rotate. Another problem which may occur at the stage of learning the word
is that it does not exist in the student's native language (of course it depends on the L1,
and this word is not always a case; in Polish, the word rotate does not have its equivalent).
In such a course of events, the teacher's role is to give further examples, context
and finally if the students do not grasp the meaning or consider it unclear, to give them
explanation in their native language.
Good point! ESP is a special case, in which translation needs to be very accurate and is particularly difficult. As you've pointed out, the target language may not even have rich enough nomenclature to render the meaning of the source text. Translators then end up using borrowings or calques, or even coining new words in the field. What Cook talks about, however, is bilingual teaching in general English classes, where engaging students' knowledge of L1 is simply one of many techniques the teacher can use. Finally somebody says I don't need to feel guilty when I do this! :)
Not only you! Believe me. I'm not a teacher, but the rule 'never translate' was quite common in our methodology classes.
Referring to my previous comment - I haven't met a good equivallent of the word rotate yet :)
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