What should the theoretical side of translation teaching focus on: theories, models, approaches, perspectives, or all of them? Should we balance our instruction across theoretical schools so that students can choose the hub they wish to belong to, or stress one aspect and let students appropriate it?
A balanced survey, not a favourite school
According to González (2005), rather than privileging one theoretical school or approach in translation studies, the translator educator should survey the existing and emerging approaches in a balanced way and let each student choose the approach he or she wishes to adopt or appropriate. In this regard she criticised Hatim's heavy focus on text typology as the model for translation research.
I think this is a sound, student-focused approach rather than a teacher-focused one. What do you think?
Master's students and undergraduates
This matters most for Master's students about to undertake their research projects. For undergraduates, it is good to trace and discuss the historical development of translation theory and its core concepts, especially at the level of method (strategies, techniques). One option is to survey the concepts set out by Catford (1964), Nida (1960s), Newmark (1988) and Jakobson (1959), then, at the end of the semester, briefly cover developments in the newer field of translation studies.
This is a student-centred approach to sharing knowledge. We all have our preferences and biases, but let us keep them for our research. In the classroom, let us think about the student profile and the student's needs.
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