The ' I can teach any course in translation' syndrome ( Arabic context)

In my experience of teaching translation at many departments of translation in the Arab context (Oman, Qatar, Morocco and Saudia), I always end up  meeting colleagues coming from neighboring disciplines of translation studies ( Literature, linguistics, TEFL..etc) volunteering or willingly choose to teach a course in translation ( or even in translation studies ). In other parts of the world( Canada for instance), this practice is non-existent. It will never happen if the instructor does not have solid evidence of his translation background. Practicing translation is not enough. There must be an epistemological commitment as well. An updated one, rather .Translation Studies is an inter-discipline that is constantly gaining pace and weight. Sticking to the early years approaches, philosophies, concepts and conceptions of translation will not help the learning curve of the student in the translation classroom. This is an issue in the Arabic context, whereby a great number of faculty are still impacted by their baseline disciplinary orientations ( literary, linguistics, applied linguistics, TEFL). Some of them have embraced their new new discipline; others, operate within translation and translation studies from the lenses of comparative linguistics or literature or even EFL.That might lead to mis-informing the translation students population who are themselves transmitting these insights to society ( other work context, classrooms, ...etc), leading to negative impacts on the emerging discipline in theory or practice. Society's perception matters. 

OK. In early stages of translation teaching (50's in Europe and Canada) and 80' or 90's in many countries of the Arab word,  we can accept  that the ' I can teach any course in translation'  syndrome holds due to -simply-  the nature of the texts books used and the fact that instructors coming from neighboring disciplines could easily understand and teach them in a lecture based type of courses if it is a theory course. In case of a practical course, the traditional model of apprenticeship ( usually teacher based and oriented) applies. Instructors resort to ad hoc or the 'read and translate' methods. Hence, at the time when translation teaching and translation contents were closely related to linguistics and literary studies, we can say that ' the I can teach any course in translation' applies, but not since a couple of decades ago or so'. Translation programs in the Arab world need to revise their practices and approaches to the interdisciplinary type of translation. Also, instead of teaching from a text book, we need to make extra efforts ( provided the workload is reasonable) to diversify our pedagogies and teaching methods through finding innovative resources and techniques to enhance students'' motivation and increase learning. These statements are not intuitive. i dedicated the last 10 years to study this phenomenon. it ended with   a PhD and three peer reviewed articles; two published one is in process.

Translation Studies has started to take new shapes and thence yielded different concepts not common in other neighboring disciplines. It started from the linguistic turn in early 50' and 60', then the communicative, cultural, textual, sociological, pedagogical and now technological turn ( Autermuul, 2004,  2010; Ohagan, 2019). First, translation is a professional practice as well as an academic discipline. It should be treated like other professions in academia. Only specialists can teach it: be it a course in theory or practice ( things may different for a foreign language department where translation is taught to only improve students foreign language competence). Evidence of this expertise should be demonstrated: publication, working as in-house and freelance in translation, participating and attending translation conferences, professional membership..etc. Second, some instructors/ administrators need to re-configure their view and conception of the multilingual domain through professional developments and taking of further training about the knowledge framework adopted by recent approaches and schools in translation. The profession changes, academia changes , so why sticking to the old models in teaching translation that are currently taking places in many undergraduate/postgraduate programs in translation in the Arabic context as per the result of our very recent doctoral thesis ( EL-Karnichi, 2017). Third, informing teaching/learning practices in translation classrooms from mainstream education studies ( adapted to adults and higher education) is also crucial.

To end up this short commentary I would like to stress that such syndrome underestimates and downgrades the translation profession and discipline, and that teaching is not a simple text-book delivery operation, it is an entire pedagogical design operation that requires the integration of various elements ( cognitive abstracts, situational contexts, realities, codes of ethics, reference frameworks...etc). It seems that there is a need of faculty/teacher development activities to work on in translation programs. I presume this is the case in many higher education contexts.

INTERDISCIPLINAITY

Corpus ( cont)

https://mediaserver.unige.ch/play/109599

CORPUS RESEARCH

Research methodologies in Translation or Interpreting Studies

My recent experience training on research methodologies in translation and interpreting studies with the Universite de Geneve ( School of Translation & Interpreting) has been an outstanding experience. It allowed me to cross check and update my knowledge in the field and eventually planning the designing of a course for graduates and undergraduates specifically on Translation/Interpreting research methodologies at my university. Hopefully, next year!.

Let us now regulate the predominant transfer of other research patterns from neighboring disciplines ( Linguistics, Applied linguistics, Literature). Faculty involved in research methods/methodologies should update their approaches ( not easy a task in humanities) and adopt a discipline specific paradigm. The need to align with international standards is crucial, although in emerging contexts of translation and interpreting studies.

Fouad

On the appropriation of a theoretical approach in translation studies.

On the appropriation of a theoretical approach in translation studies.

What to focus on in the theoretical aspects of teaching translation? theories, models, approaches, or perspectives...or all of them? should we balance our instruction on theoretical schools/trends to allow students to choose the theoretical hub they wish to belong to  or stress one aspect of the theoretical aspects of translation and let students appropriate it accordingly?

According to Gonzalez(2005), instead of privileging a theoretical school or approach in translation studies, the translator educator needs to survey in a balanced way in his or her instruction on the various existing and emerging approaches in the field to let student choose the approach he or she wishes to adopt or appropriate. In this regards, she criticized Hatim's heavy focus on the text typology as a model to adopt in undergoing translation research .

I think this is a sound approach, which is student focused rather than faculty's ( teacher's). What do you think ?

I see this is crucial for Masters students who are going to undertake their research projects. For undergraduates, it is good to highlight and discuss with them the historical development of translation theory and all its inherent concepts, especially at the method level ( strategies, techniques). A case to consider is surveying the concepts highlighted by Catford ( 1964); Nida( 1060'); Newmark( 1988); Jackobson( 1959)....then , at the end of the semester tackle the developments ( in brief) in the new field of translation studies.

The above is an illustration of a student centered approach to information dissemination. We all have our preferences and biases, but let us leave this for our research initiatives. In the classroom, let us think about the student profile and needs.

European Society for Translation Studies

European Society for Translation Studies: European Society for Translation Studies

Please post your comments.

Interview with Tessa Woodward Q6: Is there still a role for translation ...

Please post your comments.

Guy Cook on Translation

Please post your comments.

Teaching " Introduction to translation"

We often stumble in most of undergraduate university programs in the Arab world (and elsewhere) upon mainstream and core courses such as the one entitled ' introduction to translation'. This course has been taught in the same way and with, more or less, the same contents for years. It is usually about teaching to students the practical issues in translation, including principles, techniques, strategies with minimum theoretical input (leaving this little gap for another course called 'theories of translation; or so and so...). Since, most students in this course - in the context of languages departments- can either end up majoring in linguistics, translation or literature ( or another track in other universities), it is suggested ( in the syllabus) that the main thing they should do is practice basic translation; i.e pedagogical type of translations. In terms of content or scholarship, we find the use of the usual suspects : textbooks of Mona Baker, Hatim, Munday and some others ( Ghazal...etc)...most of them standing for the linguistic ( functional or text linguistic paradigm in the discipline).....In addition to traditional references  such as beaugrande and Catford to teach basic elements and techniques as well.

If we would like to approach the course from another angle whereby updated scholarship, innovative pedagogy and insights from the profession could be added, we may find ourselves in front of another map of that same course that is called ' introduction to translation'. In my current argument here I will only stress the point that whatever level of the student enrolling in a course called ' introduction to translation' what we should do is not following the old tradition of teaching the course. The field has changed at various levels and new insights have been introduced in it. Even translation or interpreting practice have changed and still keep changing due to many factors such as technology and globalisation. In saying this, I take  into perspective the fact that no additional load should be allocated to faculty beyond his usual load, other wise the suggested endeavour to improve the course and its pedagogy will definitively fail. Teaching a course needs to go through a lengthy pedagogical engineering process whereby vibrant and stimulating learning and performance environments need to be created. Also, the instructor or faculty need to be closely acquainted with the universe of the course ( knowledge framework). 

​
Translation has now become a matter of building and constructing sets of complex skills, knowledge and behaviors. So, introducing the student to translation needs to cater for the aforementioned elements instead of relying heavily/soleley on specific sets of textbooks to disseminate a narrow set of information and knowledge. The course ‘ introduction to translation’ should be about:

- Introducing the students to the universe of translation (theory and practice) via real examples using print, multimedia or oral/narrative/journal mediums.

- Educating the student and develop in him / her the 'self-concept' since he or she is studying a discipline that is presented by a professional body in society. That includes the teaching of KEY HISTORICAL elements preferably via the use of multimedia resources to EDUCATE the future translator to be and welcome him to his or her new community ( of learners and then of professionals)

- Introducing him or her on the critical issues and ongoing practices in TRANSLATING texts ...various genres. It is advised that students should do this in groups, although it is a challenging task. Still, faculty with exceptional and updated pedagogical 'know how' and 'know what' could do it.

Well! The question here is how to do it? The answer is : you need to know how to integrate both traditional and new scholarship into the course as well as have the pedagogical skills and abilities to do so ( to engineer your course and set significant learning performance environments).

So, introduction to translation should not be about teaching students how to translate following an exclusively linguistic conceptualization of translation dating back from the seventies and eighties (including early nineties), but it should embrace the new concept of translation: competence. Hence, how can we educate, train and teach at the same time new entrants in the discipline? A course on translation should be more hybrid and diverse to allow students to have a broad idea about the field of translation as theory/academic field as well as practice ( profession). Faculty needs to use his or her pedagogical and disciplinary ( updated) knowledge to engineer that very important course. No point adding other courses such as techniques, strategies of translation or even theories of translation.

We presume that teacher knowledge and beliefs about the field and the practice is crucial . The usual thing we witness in a university context is that faculty uses his or her subjective perception of what should be included in the course 'Introduction to Translation' instead of relying on updated scholarship, established practices and innovative or adapted pedagogical skills and insights to develop the course.

Fouad

NB: At the pedagogical level, the course can be taught in a diversified way ( Mixed method of teaching, Anderson, 2000). For instance, one can use the classroom lecturing for discussion and then place the lecture on specific concepts and elements that  students need to know and appropriate about the translation phenomena and concept in year 1. Faculty can have recourse to deposit selected contents, multimedia files and their own recorded lectures or explanations on either Blackboard or Moodle to allow students to either prepare or post-check and refer to the material afterwards to enhance learning.  Or deposit the lecture and its activities 3 days before the day of the lecture, let students have time to revise and read or listen to the deposited file, and when in class it will be discussion and explanation to deepen learning. The use of mind mapping techniques in the classroom is very useful. It allows students to visualize the information ( theoretical) and make sense of it.....and RETAIN IT.

 THE BELOW VIDEO COULD BE INCLUDED AS MATERIAL
https://twitter.com/AbdulrahmanTR/status/914028750857281537

Translator Education and Training in a University Context : Pedagogy, Practice and Research: Highlights on pedagogical concerns in translation ...

Translator Education and Training in a University Context : Pedagogy, Practice and Research: Highlights on pedagogical concerns in translation ...: In this communication, I would like to share with you some reflections on a series of recent interviews I had with potential employees (... Please post your comments.

The Big Picture View on the Translation Industry

Please post your comments.