Applied English translation

1. APPLIED ENGLISH
TRANSLATION P 64
Presented for Dr. Khaleel Al Bataineh
Done by Raghad Al-Kukhun

2. What is translation?
• Translation is one of productive skills and it is one of the
complex skills.
• Its transfer a text from source language to target
language.
• Its aim is to mediate between two languages to
comprehend the massage or information in one language
and to communicate the same content in the target
language .
• In another words translation is a mental activity in which a
meaning of given linguistic discourse is rendered from
one language to onther .

3. • Some language teachers think that translation is boring
and non-communicative activity which makes it not very
popular, this way of thinking can be observed in the
Hungarian examination system because more and more
monolingual exams are introduced to the detriment of
bilingual exams.
• In the new GCSE exam introduced in 2005 translation
skills are not tested at all though in international
cooperation and especially in the European Union the role
of translation keeps increasing .

4. Arguments against translation
• Translation is not popular because it is text bound and confined
to only two-skills (reading & writing)
• Translation also don’t considered as communicative activity
because it involves no oral interaction.
• Some colleagues argue that it is not suitable for classroom
work because the students must do the writing on their own ; it
is also consuming and wasteful .
• Translation also associated with different language, with
literary and scientific texts and it is not suitable for the general
needs of the language learner.
• The widespread use of literary–type texts for translation seems
to us both an anachronistic and wasteful activity.
•

5. Arguments against translation
• During teaching translation the teacher supposed to use
the mother tongue and this is not desirable and as a last
argument it is said to be a boring activity.
• Translation does not have to be a lone ,pointless, struggle
between the student and the text.

6. Arguments against translation
• Translation can be introduced purposefully and
imaginatively into the language learning programme.
• Translation will always be neccessry,without them there
would be no summit talks no cooperation in science and
engineering, no international law, no Olympic games and
no translated versions of famous pieces of literature.

7. Some arguments for translation
• By making students translate texts teachers can develop
their communicative
• competence. While learners are comparing two
languages they can discover a lot of linguistic rules, they
will discover the appropriate use of certain words and
• expressions. Their reading and writing skills will develop
as well and even speaking skills can be improved by
setting a good warm-up activity before translation and if
teachers organize translation as group- or pair work,
students will learn how to cooperate with each other as
well. All these facts are to prove the fact that translation
develops the grammatical competence of learners.

8. Some arguments for translation
• What can language learner acquire from translated texts?
• From a text to be translated language learners can
acquire a lot of pieces of information either about the
target culture or about their own culture.
• For example,the City in London refers to the downtown so
it cannot be translated into ‘város’.
• Translators are supposed to be aware of the cultural
backgrounds of a text so this way learners’ socio-linguistic
competence will be developed as well.

9. Some arguments for translation
• People translating various authentic texts must be familiar with
the various styles and registers. This knowledge will also
support their socio-linguistic competence and language
awareness.
• In Chapter II, where the features of communicative language
• teaching were analysed we mentioned that communicative
language teaching must be intercultural. Translation also meets
this requirement as during translation translators keep in
counter with the intercultural aspects of the target language. A
good translator has to be aware of various discourse markers,
linking words and the ability of structuring a text. This way
language learners’ discourse competence will also be
developed through translating.

10. Some arguments for translation
• The fourth component of communicative competence is:
strategic competence which means that students are
supposed to find the necessary and most suitable
synonyms, antonyms and circumlocutions. While
translating a text the students’ strategic competence will
also be developed. As through translation we can develop
all the four components of communicative competence
and we can make language teaching intercultural, holistic,
experiential by using translation tasks we can state that
translation is a communicative activity.

11. How to teach translation?
• First teachers are supposed to select texts which are age-
relevant, meet the learners’ fields of interest, which are
useful and manageable by the students. In a lesson
devoted to translation the warm-up activity must be
devoted to the topic in the text to be translated. Teachers
can start a lesson with a joke or a humorous story so as to
lower students’ anxiety and to give prompts for
brainstorming about the topic in question.

12. How to teach translation?
• After this lead-in phase, students are expected to get
familiar with the complete text so that they can
understand the context as a whole. Teachers are
supposed to focus on the problem bits of the text to
explain the difficult structures, expressions and phrases
occurring in it. The preparatory work is organized as a
frontal activity so that students can get the same input.
The lockstep stage is followed by group work in which
each group is given a paragraph of the text to be
translated. The groups are supposed to complete the task
which is translating the given paragraph in a limited period
of time. Time limit must be set so that students should not
waste a lot of time.

13. How to teach translation?
• What will students learn while working in groups?
• While working in groups they will learn how to cooperate
with each other and how to accept their mates’ ideas and
suggestions. This way group cohesion and team spirit are
also developed. Students will also learn how to cope with
a challenging task which will develop their metacognitive
strategies. In the next stage of the lesson groups are
supposed to compare their versions and to make the text
coherent by linking the paragraphs with the necessary
discourse markers. This way, they will learn how to
structure a text which is usually a weak point of a
language learner. After this stage students are supposed
to talk about the content of the text already translated.

14. How to teach translation?
• If teachers follow the recommended steps of making
students translate, the lesson devoted to developing
translation skills will not be boring and will develop the
communicative competence of the students.

15. Thank You
Department of English
Language and
Translation
Source: Sárosdy, Bencze, Poór and Vadnay. 2006.
Applied Linguistics I for BA Students in English.