Didactics of Translation: Text in Context

Chapter IV

1. 
   In this group there are Harris and Sherwood (1978), Toury (1974) and Lörscher (1986).
   
2. 
   e.g. Hönig (1988a)
   
3. 
   Diane Larson-Freeman (1986: XI) provides a clear definition of the term “method”:
   

a method is seen as… comprising both principles and techniques... Taken together, the principles represent the theoretical framework of the method. The techniques are the behavioural manifestation of the principles; in other words, the classroom activities and procedures are derived from an application of the principles.

4. 
   Communicative Method is the term used to describe teaching procedures which have developed in relation to Communicative Language Teaching. In this method, a lot of importance is attached to class activities that imitate the conditions of real life communication. One of the techniques used is that of information gap. The Communicative Method also subsumes the notions of language function and communicative competence.
   
5. 
   According to Chau, this division into three areas is not necessarily the only one that is possible. There could be other possible ways for dealing with translation and translation teaching; “individual preferences on the part of the translation educator, former training and T/I experience, as well as the teaching context, undoubtedly would shape one’s views to a considerable extent. Besides, the very nature of these models can be misleading. Anything so tidy and clear-cut can hardly reflect life... It is when there is a need to divide up teaching units and to sequence them that these models can serve as a possible solution.”(Chau 1984: 158)
   
6. 
   Translation:
   

“When one considers the present situation of translation in the teaching of languages in France, one has to admit that it is a pedagogy which has not evolved

throughout the centuries and which at all levels from the 6th form to the university can be summed up in the words ‘read–translate’. In secondary schools, this activity takes place at the end of classes in a hurried and almost a shy way.”

7. 
   Translation:
   

“If we ask our students to translate, we rarely train them to carry out this activity in a systematic way. The problems dealt with in a translation class are most of time encountered by chance in different texts. As for the progression of the course, it most often corresponds to the global degree of difficulty of the passages to be translated.”

8. 
   Both advocate the need first for a descriptive translation pedagogy (process- oriented research) that draws its principles and techniques from a precise description of translation processes (for instance, through Talk-Aloud-Protocols), and second the need for a merger of the cognitive processes (the psycholinguistic models of comprehension and production) with the pragmatics of translation. This, in their view, would enable students to rationalize their comprehension and translation processes and help them avoid making translation errors which very often stem from the use of unsuccessful mental processes.
   

However, while Kussmaul suggests combining the psycholinguistic model of comprehension with the pragmatics of translation and with componential analysis, Kiraly proposes a combined cognitive and social approach to translation activity which relies on evidence from TAPs and which does not resort to componential analysis. Kiraly is also more interested in the interaction between intuitive and controlled processes.

9. 
   The variations of intentionality and register in Hatim’s representation are shown on one scale of markedness. In the representation given on page 130, however, the variations are shown on two scales of markedness, just to make things look clearer.