Scholars know pedagogy matters. Why, then, do so many of them ignore it in their own translation classrooms? A recent symposium brought the question into the open.
An admission at Laval
I recently attended a symposium at Université Laval, here in Canada, on literary versus non-literary translation. Participants approached the theme from linguistics, sociology, the profession and the educational sciences. Some are well-known scholars in translation studies, in Canada and worldwide. In this reflection I want to pick up one point that came up in discussion and on which every participant agreed.
One participant contended that it is quite bizarre that faculty, scholars and instructors do not pay enough attention to the pedagogical dimension of their teaching, whether of literary or non-literary translation, and sometimes deliberately ignore it. In my view, and I presume many colleagues would agree, this has been going on in universities for a very long time. It goes back to the Humboldtian model of the eighteenth-century German university, which rests on the predominantly research-driven mission of the university and the primacy of pure science over the human and social sciences.
The university has changed
In the twenty-first century things are different. We are witnessing a paradigm shift in higher education, driven by student mobility, internationalisation, tight budgets and fierce competition. Universities need to be closer to society and ready to respond to social and economic concerns; the service dimension has to be there. The age of the ivory tower is over. Nor do universities hold a monopoly on knowledge any more. Knowledge is everywhere (see network theory in the learning sciences).
Teaching, learning and the delivery of quality outcomes therefore place heavy pressure on universities to revise their approaches, so that their cohorts receive a twenty-first-century education and training.
What needs reconfiguring in translator education
Translation programmes face new concerns. Our recent review of the literature on universities in the Arab context, above all Gulf-based universities, shows that translation programmes need careful revision and remedy (Atari, 2012; Al-Qinai, 2010; Farghal, 2009) at the following levels:
- The content delivered or facilitated, which is decontextualised from the real life of the multilingual service provider
- Programme orientation and departmental identities and ideologies
- Staff profiles and competencies, which need re-examining; professionals with translation-specific academic qualifications need to be brought into the department
- The lack of teaching frameworks drawn from mainstream applied translation studies, rather than only from applied linguistics, linguistics or literary and critical studies, and of theorised, praxis-based knowledge
To these I would add:
- Reviewing the instruction and training modes for specific courses (specialised translation, literary translation, translation studies, revision), together with student feedback
- Checking the alignment of content, activities and assessment in each course syllabus, and triangulating the documents with student feedback or classroom observation; this is crucial and closely tied to quality assurance
- Making the internship an integrated and structured part of the programme
- Integrating the technological and professional dimensions efficiently into the curriculum, and securing the human and material resources to do so
Takeaway: pedagogy is not an optional extra in translator education. It is the mechanism through which programmes deliver, or fail to deliver, on their promises.
