لماذا الحاجة إلى إعادة النظر في تدريس وتعلم الترجمة بالجامعات المغربية؟
فؤاد الكرنيشي
By Fouad El Karnichi
Translation programmes are growing everywhere in the world. In Morocco, one school still holds a near-monopoly, and our universities have barely begun to treat translation as a discipline in its own right. This article argues that institutionalising translation at university, and integrating theory with practice in the postgraduate curriculum, is the first step towards the recognition the profession deserves.
The Need to Institutionalise Translation at Moroccan Universities
Recent reforms in Moroccan higher education call for a review of pedagogical and curricular practice at tertiary level, so that educational output serves durable social and economic needs. Yet only a few postgraduate programmes have been created to serve both professional and academic purposes. The Fahd School of Translation appears to hold a monopoly on training translators in the country, even as translation programmes (BA, MA and PhD) grow constantly worldwide. In the words of Susan Bassnett (2002: 1):
Today interest in the field (of translation) has never been stronger and the study of translation is taking place alongside an increase in its practice all over the world.
To equip future translators with an education that eases their entry into the profession and the job market, two things are needed: a careful rethinking of teaching methodologies, and the institutionalisation of the discipline. The second is the focus of this article. If methodology provides the tools and aptitude the student translator needs, institutionalisation provides the social recognition, respect and face value that every profession is worthy of. As Anthony Pym (2010: 198) puts it:
Regardless of whatever the theories (of translation) might actually say, the institutionalisation of this field within the social sciences is a supportive correlative of the professionalisation of translation.
In the same vein, Caminade and Pym (2001: 1716) note the "dramatic" increase in institutions offering translation diplomas in the West over three decades: from "49 in 1960 up to 250 in 1995". They add (2001: 1717) that once translator training entered the academic arena it gradually became "attached" to translation studies, "as a result of which pedagogical programmes gained greater legitimacy within the university environment". Ulrych (1996: 253) likewise argues that "trends in translation pedagogy are increasingly in favour of interfacing vocational and educational components", adding to the literature that a balance between the professional and the academic is feasible.
Have Moroccan universities responded to these advances in a discipline that has been underestimated in academic corridors for so long?
The Situation in Morocco
Unlike elsewhere in the world, including the Arab world, university translator training has taken a very slow path in Morocco. Apart from the Fahd School of Translation (1986), later annexed to Abdelmalek Essaadi University, only timid attempts have been made to establish Master's programmes in translation at the Faculties of Arts and Human Sciences in El Jadida (Chouaib Doukkali University) and Mohammedia (Hassan II University), and more recently at Sultan Moulay Slimane University in Beni Mellal.
Algeria has gone much further. Following a state decree and major reorganisation of the University of Algiers in the 1980s, universities in the major cities (Oran, Algiers, Annaba) created translation units and departments or annexed existing translation institutes to their foreign languages departments. In the new millennium they added postgraduate degrees, including a doctoral programme, to the existing four-year undergraduate programmes (Aïssani, 2000: 482–484). Our neighbours are doing better.
Despite the modest surge in translator training programmes within Moroccan foreign language departments over the last ten years, we still lag behind on the fundamentals needed to institutionalise this interdisciplinary field:
- integrating an adequate and viable theoretical framework;
- establishing pertinent databases for corpus studies and terminology;
- providing pedagogical tools and methods that draw on both theory and practice;
- introducing authentic, real-life situations into the practical translation classroom;
- training teaching staff to deliver sound and appropriate methods.
We need to catch up actively with the fast-growing body of work in translation practice, theory and research, especially since Holmes (1972/2000) proposed his map of translation studies as a theoretical framework for the practice of translation. Holmes classified translation studies as a field of scientific research into three categories: descriptive, theoretical and applied (the last of which includes translator training). Our field falls within the last category.
Holmes's initiative paved the way for translator training programmes to mushroom at tertiary level in the West, followed by Asian countries such as China and India, and then the developing world: Africa, the Middle East and South America. As far as Morocco is concerned, the question remains: have we made use of that broad body of "translatorial" knowledge? Have we integrated it into our postgraduate programmes as a reference framework for teachers and students, opened the door to research in translation, and geared teaching and learning objectives towards professional ends? Has any teacher ever drawn on translation studies to explain and justify translation problems in workshops, group work or the classroom? Have students ever used that metalanguage in class discussion or in their BA monographs? Has any practising translator ever embedded it in revision commentaries or in discussing translation choices with clients and colleagues?
In our view, the answers to these questions point the way to an efficient, innovative and realistic translation curriculum for advanced students at our universities. Institutionalising the discipline within the university can serve not only academia but society and the economy as well. In this article I limit myself to the first point: the integration of theory and practice in the postgraduate translation curriculum as a crucial step towards institutionalising the discipline and earning it the respect it deserves.
University, Translation and Society
Universities have a social obligation to equip students with the best education and with durable, lifelong competences and knowledge they can use to contribute to social and economic development. Neubert (1989: 5) states that the translation studied at universities should not stay within the confines of "an intellectual ivory tower" but should serve "social needs".
A clear example of the social benefit translation can deliver is the dubbing of South American soap series on the national channel 2M. After years of French and then Egyptian series and films, localising foreign programmes into a language most of the population understands, Moroccan dialect, makes perfect sense and could well benefit both the country's social and economic development and the translation industry. From the perspective of translation studies, which encompasses standard languages and local varieties alike, this is an innovative and welcome move. Translation is a professional activity that satisfies communicative social needs. Still, there is resistance from conservative views that regard the use of non-standard Arabic or indigenous languages in public discourse as politically motivated and part of a colonial campaign against standard Arabic.
A second example is the work of NGOs reaching remote and neglected communities in Morocco to fight poverty or aridity through humanitarian and sustainable development activities. These organisations always rely on local intermediaries to mediate with the population, and perhaps to translate documents too. Translators and interpreters thus facilitate communication between the organisations and the beneficiaries. Structuring that activity through appropriate professional training, in community interpreting, sight translation and the like, would benefit the system, the NGOs and the beneficiaries. On the other hand, some of these organisations have gone as far as spreading missionary work, taking advantage of untrained interpreters (untrained in ethics, at the very least) and of the poverty and ignorance of the local population. This is a point to reconsider, as it threatens a major pillar of our identity: Islam and our system of beliefs.
Finally, given Morocco's strategic geopolitical position, language mediation is an important product in demand for business, international cooperation and socio-economic development. At present the market seems chaotic: it is unclear who the real actors are and what mechanisms govern the translation and interpreting industries. We want to project to investors, foreign governments and foreign entities of every kind a professional image of the quality and standards of our written and oral communication. We therefore support the idea that actors in the translation industry, whether aspiring translators or those already practising, should receive education and training, short-term or long-term. They need to be recognised and visible.
Well-structured, quality professional education in translation may therefore benefit society and the economy remarkably. In what follows I examine the current translator training environment at Moroccan universities and the viability of existing syllabuses and course content, both for the Moroccan context and against ongoing practice worldwide. The central issue is the existence, or absence, of an adequate theoretical component proper to translation as a practice in its own right and as a field of research, one that can supply the metalanguage future professional translators and researchers will need.
Current Issues in Teaching Translation at Moroccan Universities
In terms of course content, the teaching of translation to advanced students at Moroccan universities has been portrayed as lacking a structured and adequate theoretical component that could be of great use to teachers and students alike. It has been argued that teachers rely neither on current models and approaches in the field nor on "the recent developments in functional and text linguistics": text linguistics, register analysis, pragmatics and discourse analysis (Mehrach, 2003: 105).
We strongly support this point after our own experience of teaching translation practice and theory to undergraduate and postgraduate students in Morocco. Some programmes include a theoretical input such as discourse analysis, contrastive linguistics or comparative stylistics, but it is taught from a linguistic, prescriptive perspective and not applied to translation practice. Its scope is insufficient for an interdisciplinary and multifaceted course like translation. The translator's role in making conscious choices and strategies is excluded from classroom activities, and real-life workplace tasks are excluded from the practical course. This needs revising, with an appropriate teaching methodology.
The few BA monographs written by students of the English department at Mohammed V University (Rabat) on the way translation was taught to them all agree on one point: the very poor use of translation theory or of the linguistic, functional, text-linguistic and discursive approaches long established in the literature. The students made it clear that their workshops should be better structured and commented on by the teacher, and that relevant, applied theoretical content should be added to support their commentaries and reflections. They were also unhappy with the material (texts) and with a teacher-centred, monotonous methodology. So is it the administration's fault for appointing unsuitable staff to deliver such a diverse course? Are its objectives for the course limited to language proficiency? Is there simply a lack of innovative methods and adequate personnel? Or is the course regarded as of minor importance, even though many scholars in literature and linguistics seem highly interested in translation?
Although Mehrach used the components above as assessment criteria in his research on novice and trained translators, we believe they could be an important tool for competent teachers in the classroom, especially in an advanced specialised translation course. The critical issue is how to apply that theoretical component and bridge it with practice during a translation practicum, or during a dynamic non-translation cours magistral for translation students using corpus methodology as a pre-translation warm-up for advanced students. Whether the functional/textual approach is too narrow for authentic translation assignments and projects is a question I leave for a forthcoming article on teaching methodology.
In the same vein, Messaoudi (2003) identifies the factors behind "the stagnation" of translation teaching in Morocco: the stifling of the translation act, or its teaching for inappropriate ends (such as a means of teaching foreign languages); the lack of pertinent translation manuals; the "timid" and "discrete" presence of research publications in translation studies; the delay, shared with other countries, in teaching ethics in translation education; and the delay in developing pertinent professional translation programmes.
Messaoudi's diagnosis is curriculum-oriented: it tackles the programme's objectives, teaching material, research, and the ethical and professional side of the discipline. Properly addressed, these elements could bring major improvements to our tertiary translation programmes. She contends that the solution lies with the authorities and course planners, who should see translation as an end in itself and teach it as such, not as a "didactic support". She also argues that reflecting on translation studies in Arabic is strongly encouraged and could be the way ahead in our context.
We adhere to Messaoudi's broad coverage of the issues, with one reservation: the use of manuals for advanced students. At an advanced level, where research is at stake as much as practice, students should be consulting current readers in the discipline (Munday, 2000; Venuti, 2000) and insightful theoretical works such as Christiane Nord's (1997), which many teachers use for dynamic text types like marketing documentation, advertising and other commercially oriented texts. Add to this the need for authentic, up-to-date texts, a different classroom pedagogy, and activities organised in a more collaborative and cooperative way rather than a purely teacher-centred one.
From the above, we can sense the flaws we are in and the urgent need to revise the curriculum, reorganise the syllabus and rethink the pedagogy, both for full translation programmes and for the independent translation courses taught to final-year undergraduates in modern languages departments.
How Much Theory, and Where?
Ulrych (1996: 257) asks: "What kind of theory is to be presented, and how much?" She suggests presenting translation theory first as a product (a body of knowledge comprising history, principles and so on) and then as a process (the actual act of translating). She adds:
Members of all professions have a historical and theoretical component to their expertise. It is only against a theoretical background of translation that effective decision making and production can take place (…) the problem arises, therefore, of how to integrate a course on translation theory within the curriculum.
In answer to Ulrych's question, and drawing on our experience of teaching theoretical inputs at Moroccan universities, we propose teaching translation theory and principles either in the first semester of a Master's course or, preferably, in parallel with the translation course in the third year of undergraduate studies in English departments. That means two course elements for final-year undergraduates: the translation practicum and a course on the principles and techniques of translation. This would:
- equip English department students who wish to embark on a translation programme with a sufficient grounding in the principles and strategies of the field they will represent in the real world, knowledge that will serve them for life as professionals, teachers or researchers;
- give students a basic metalanguage to address their assignments in the classroom with their teacher (provided a more interactive pedagogy is applied), or a theoretical framework for a final BA project in translation.
At Master's level, we propose teaching translation theory alongside the history of translation, before turning to translation studies and its recent developments. History should cover the principles and practices of translation over the ages in both West and East, including the Islamic and Arabic experience, and above all the translation tradition in Morocco. Historical background enhances the future translator's status and awareness of the heritage of the discipline. It is also a crucial step in building professional aptitude, since trainees "develop a self-concept as translators working in a specific historical situation" (Mossop, 2003: 49), as their colleagues did over the ages. Trainee translators should not feel they are entering a "brand new profession" with no historical roots; they should be aware of the roles played by its professionals, East and West, in a profession that has "evolved over time like other forms of human activity". Such an attitude "may also contribute to enhancing the social status of the profession" (Chesterman, 1996: 67).
Metalanguage, Practice and the Professional Character of a Degree
Echeverri (2005: 9) contends that teaching a metalanguage proper to translation should be a strategic factor in syllabus design and curriculum building. Familiarising students with that metalanguage and promoting its use, through classroom discussion, research, assignments, group projects and commentaries, is one of the "determining factors of the professional character of university education".
Echeverri's position combines substance (the metalinguistic and metacognitive baggage) with practice (the transfer, instrumental, generic and relational skills that ease the trainee's integration into the modern marketplace). He elaborates on the pedagogical outcome of collaborative work in a realistic classroom, where students autonomously identify translation problems and use instrumental and non-instrumental means to solve them. In this he follows in the footsteps of Kiraly's (2001) social constructivism applied to translator training.
At postgraduate level, institutionalising and balancing the education and practice of translation, together with better infrastructure and resources, should yield quality output and sustainable results. María González (2005) enthusiastically supports embedding translation studies in university translation programmes, arguing for the benefits that an "intertwinement" and "parallelism" between theoretical developments in translation studies and translation didactics can bring, and advocating a variety of theoretical approaches, not only textual and linguistic ones, in practical assignments.
Hatim and Mason (1997), by contrast, emphasise text types and functional text grammar as the determining factor in translator education: each type of text imposes different "demands" on the translator in terms of choices and strategies. González explains this approach well but finds it narrow within current trends in translation studies, in need of other approaches beyond the textual and discursive dimensions. Still, Hatim's approach may suit an advanced university course in translation involving Arabic, given its academic orientation.
In terms of scope, then, students at university should understand that the translation process and product can be approached from a wide perspective, according to the functional, historical, textual, ethical, social and cultural criteria of the communicative situation in which the text operates. From these options, students must critically build the appropriate strategy for the translation at hand. Flexibility is a feature to build into the training and education of future translators.
Conclusion
This article has highlighted one of the core issues inhibiting postgraduate translator education at Moroccan universities; the same issue may well apply elsewhere in the region. Among the causes of the stagnation is the lack of a pedagogy that gears the advanced translation course towards professional purposes without neglecting the educational component. If the vocational part of a course develops appropriate and tailored skills, the educational elements of the curriculum ensure that students leave equipped with critical thinking and durable competences.
Universities are the best place to give tomorrow's translators in Morocco a balanced education and training. Institutionalising translator training programmes is a major step towards professionalising translation, but it is conditioned by the presence of a viable pedagogical programme, pertinent curricula, adequate teaching methodologies and qualified personnel.
Translation research, moreover, aims to work cooperatively with practitioners. No one benefits from the divide between academia and the profession. Practitioners supply scholars with data and feedback (chiefly translation problems and issues), and in turn they need translation studies as a frame of reference when resolving textual and ethical problems in their work. An institutionalised profession also enhances the social and professional status of its practitioners, as in any other profession. This strategy will produce what postgraduate translation studies badly need: research data and methodologies. Developing and using the metalanguage proper to translation research will contribute remarkably to both institutionalising and professionalising translation at university level.
A planned theoretical component in the translation curriculum, together with the promotion of translation research, can have a considerable impact on the discipline and the profession, and raise its standards in the market and in society alike.
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