Didactics of Translation: Text in Context

The main pedagogical principles of Kiraly’s model

Kiraly’s model has shed some light on new areas of translation pedagogy which call for further research. He has particularly identified two major areas for pedagogical intervention, namely, the relationship between source text input and long-term input, and the relationship between uncontrolled and controlled processes. In addition to this, he has revealed some general principles which can contribute to “the building of a translation pedagogy”. Of these general principles, three stand out as particularly important:

1. 
   emphasizing spontaneous associations
   
2. 
   enhancing students’ awareness of their mental processes
   
3. 
   developing a translator self-concept
   

Concerning the first principle (spontaneous associations), Kiraly stresses the fact that translation teaching should concentrate on helping students acquire interlingual, intercultural and intertextual associations since “most translation processing occurs in the intuitive workspace” (Ibid: 110). It is the task of the translation teacher, Kiraly maintains, to construct forms of teaching that involve spontaneous associations.
With regard to the second principle (enhancing students’ awareness of their mental processes or raising their consciousness), Kiraly states that this should be a part and parcel of translation teaching as it would allow the students “to reflect on the strategies they actually use, recognize which ones work in particular situations, and evaluate those that seem to be less

effective” (Ibid: 113). One way to raise students’ consciousness of their psycholinguistic processes, according to Kiraly, is to use TAPs in translation classes. This means that students would listen to their recorded translation verbalizations and these would be evaluated by the teacher and by the students themselves as a group in terms of the various strategies used. Kiraly, however, does not mention the other important way for raising students’ consciousness of their mental processes, namely the psycholinguistic processes of language comprehension, i.e. top-down vs. bottom-up, already referred to by Kussmaul above.

Developing a translator self-concept is the third general principle which Kiraly tackles. This principle refers to “a clearly defined sense of the translators’ duties, what is expected of them when they begin translating” (Kiraly 1995: 113); it also involves instilling in the translators’ minds the notion that “in becoming translators, they are becoming autonomous intercultural and interlingual mediators”. (Ibid: 114)
To achieve this goal, Kiraly suggests that the first step is to introduce a course in translation studies, and the second is to break away with old translation teaching practices in which the performance magistrale is used as the main teaching technique.
Concerning the introduction of a course in translation studies, Kiraly suggests that such a course should cover the issues of contemporary translation theory such as culture and the translator, scenes and frames semantics, text analysis for translation purposes, the relationship between translation and linguistics, text typologies and the social aspect of a general model of translation processes, such as that proposed by Kiraly himself. By incorporating a course in translation studies, Kiraly maintains, students will realise “what it means to translate and to be a translator.” (Ibid: 114)
With regard to old translation teaching practices, he argues that helping students acquire a translator self-concept will necessarily entail giving them “real and realistic professional translation tasks in the classroom”. In other words, students “must be confronted with the task specifications and other constraints that real translators constantly deal with” and not be simply given “arbitrarily chosen” texts with a complete absence of task specifications.
(See note 8 for a summary statement of the similarities and differences between Kussmaul and Kiraly).