This document discusses the pedagogical uses and arguments for and against using translation in foreign language learning. It was traditionally argued that translation interfered with natural language acquisition, but theories now suggest it is normal to switch between languages. Translation can help explain meanings, increase confidence, and develop language awareness. It is also argued that translation develops communicative competence and can involve producing original texts. The document then discusses translation as intercultural communication, research methods in translation studies like think-aloud protocols and corpus studies, and the role of translation in globalization and localization.

1. Pedagogical uses of translations
Translation can be looked at from different points of
view, and can operate at different levels of
languages.
Translation
may
be
needed
to
facilitate
communication between speakers of different
languages or acquaint speakers of one language with
literary works written in another, or to disseminate
information originally produced in one language to
speakers of many other languages.
Another important purpose is pedagogic: translation
has been proposed as a means for learning and
teaching a foreign languages.

2. Arguments against translation
The use of translation provoked fierce opposition
in the latter half of the nineteenth century by
members of so-called Reform Movement.
Opponents of the use of translation in foreign
language learning claimed that translation into the
foreign language interfered with the natural process
of learning.
Interference was also thought to occur when learners
translated from the foreign language into their native
tongue.

3. Arguments against translation
On the contrary, theories of how languages are
learnt, stored, and recalled suggest that it is
natural and normal to switch into bilingual mode,
where the two languages are active at the same
time, and where it is perfectly natural to switch
from one to another.
The use of translation from the foreign language
as a means of explaining words and phrases was
also rejected because it was thought to promote
mostly passive knowledge about the foreign
language.

4. Arguments against translation
Translation per se was claimed to be not only an
unnatural activity but a highly specialized one,
which far from being a help was hindrance to the
desired development of the four basic skills:
listening, speaking, reading, an writing.
Translation was seen as a special fifth skill, to be
used only after learners had acquired a superior
knowledge of the foreign language.
Audio-lingual method was mainly based on the
assumption
that
proficiency
in
oral
communications is the primary purpose of all
language learning.

5. Arguments for translation
Translation can be viewed in a new light as an
activity with a number of advantages:
Translation helps in the development of
proficiency by economically and unambiguously
explaining the meaning of foreign language
items.
In exploiting their knowledge of a language they
are already familiar with translation activities,
learners
increase
their
confidence
and
motivation to learn.
Translation promotes explicit knowledge about
foreign language and helps develops awareness
of differences and similarities between the
native and the foreign language systems.
Language awareness enhanced by translation has
also broader educational benefits since it
promotes cross cultural understanding.

6. Arguments for translation
Translation activities can be used to
develop communicative competence in a
foreign language
Communicative translation activities can also
involve the production of original source
texts.
Learners start from function of a
text in accordance with this
function as well as on the basis
of
other
information
characterizing the content of
the text and the three register
dimensions field, tenor, and
mode that contribute to the
given text function.

7. Translation as a intercultural communication
Translation is both a linguistic and a cultural
activity involving communication across
cultures. In this sense, translation is
necessarily an example of intercultural
communication.
The nature of intercultural communication differs in overt and
covert translation.
In covert translation, a «cultural filter» is applied in
order to adapt the source text to the communicative
norms of the target culture.
In overt translation, intercultural transfer is
explicitly present and so likely to be perceived by
recipients. They are presented with aspects of
foreign culture dressed in their own language, and
are thus invited to enter into intercultural dialogue.

8. The nature of the translation process
Thinking aloud or introspection.- One method
used in this internal or process approach to
translation is to ask translator what they are
thinking while they are translating.
Retrospection.ask
translators
immediately
after
they
finish
translating about difficulties, reasons
for hesitations and delay, a particular
choice of word, and so on.
Verbal reports also known as thin-aloud
protocols.- elicited from translator are
usually taped, transcribed, and often also
presented to the translator at some later
stage for comment and evaluation.

9. Corpus studies in translation
A corpus.- is a collection of
texts, selected and compiled according
to specific criteria. The texts are held
in an electronic format that allows
different kinds of software to be used
to analyse them in various ways.
Corpus methods also allow us to focus on a combination of lexical,
syntactic, and discoursal features while comparing large numbers of
translations into different languages by different sociocultural
settings, and across different time frames.
Corpus methods are useful for analysing translations as parallel
corpora. These consist of a set of text in one language and a set of
their translations into another language.

10. Corpus studies in translation
One of the benefits of work with parallel or translation corpora is
that is helps identify the type of routine translation shifts by
comparing instances of lexical or syntactic structures in both source
and target text using so-called “concordancing software”.
Another use of corpora in translation studies is to compare texts
translated into a given language with original texts in that language
(non-translations)
A major aim of work with comparable corpora is to establish
patterns that are either restricted to translations or occur with
different frequency in them.

11. Translation and globalization
Globalization processes have not only had
an impact on world economy and
international politics, they have also
dramatically altered the role of translation
in the modern world.
Contemporary processes of information distribution via processes of
translation now rely heavily on new information technologies such as
the internet.
Translation plays an important role in multilingual news writing and in
the provision of tourist information worldwide, where text are retrieved
from many different sources, and where the process of translation needs
to be extremely fast.

12. Localization is arguably the field in which the translation needs
generated by modern information technology in global markets is
most visible and most influential
It lies at the heart of the global economy in that it tailors products
to meet the needs of a multitude of specific local markets in what
is now often called glocalization.
The demand for glocalization is the cause of a continuous growth
in translation, particularly in the world market for software and
web localization.
The development of the World Wide Web has spread the need for
translation activities into e-commerce glocalization, another field
of growing importance.