Translation practices in Morocco ( historial view)

http://www.alalam.ma/def.asp?codelangue=23&id_info=50918&date_ar=2010-7-30

Translation in Language Teaching Is Not Translator Education

"Translation in language teaching has by no means the objective of educating translators; rather, it is an activity which might stimulate the cognitive potential of an adult or adolescent learner and is thus supposed to complement other activities, not to replace them." (Little et al., 2009, p. 2)

This quotation captures an ongoing issue in the orientation of many translation programmes I informally reviewed during my doctoral work. The stated objective of most translation programmes at Gulf universities is to prepare graduates for the translation market. Yet a language-oriented paradigm still reigns over the translatorial, mediation-oriented knowledge and competencies that future language mediators, translators and interpreters, will need when they enter the real world.

Translation Is a Discipline, Not a Language Exercise

Developing cognitive abilities is only one chunk of the complex set of skills, knowledge and abilities professional translators deploy, and which we should prepare our students to deploy. Translation is a disciplinary area of knowledge that has developed tremendously over the last three decades. The knowledge universe of translation as a phenomenon should be made clear to students at both undergraduate and postgraduate level: they should be introduced to the main constructs and concepts in the field and how they interrelate, and to their socio-economic and professional relevance.

Our survey taught us that the concept of translation needs to be re-examined among administrators, students and faculty alike in the region. Housing translation programmes in language faculties should be handled carefully; programme orientation and objectives must be rethought and not confused with the disciplinary boundaries of linguistics or literary studies. A thin, but complementary, disciplinary boundary needs to be drawn. As Durieux (2010) puts it, translation is about translations and translators; language studies is about the study of language.

What Programmes Need

Clarity about where we orient our programmes, and qualified human resources who can deliver praxis-oriented instruction, knowledge and skills, is a hurdle we must overcome. Wasting students' time on decontextualised knowledge, instead of profession-oriented skills and abilities that go beyond the cognitive and the linguistic, costs these programmes their socio-economic relevance.

We adopt a comprehensive, integrated approach to translator education in which all of the above elements are taken into account, in varying degrees, with the focus on the translatorial, mediation-oriented knowledge universe. A design-based model of instruction, centred on facilitating learning environments rather than transmitting knowledge, is ideal. Discipline-specific didactics and pedagogies should take precedence over the one-size-fits-all model higher education has promoted for so long. Lecturing is not the only way to enhance adult learning and transformation; there are active pedagogies that can empower students and instigate significant learning experiences.