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61
“Young Scientist”
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# 24.2 (158.2)
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June 2017
Спецвыпуск
initial state is considered to be undesirable. This type of bar-
rier occurs in the production of lyrical work and also in ev-
eryday life, e. g. in writing letters. According to Nord there
are four categories of translation problems:
— Pragmatic translation problems which arise from the
particular situation and represent a specific contrast. Those
problems can be identified by the extra textual factors of the
text-analytical model.
— Cultural translation problems are a result of the dif-
ferences in culture e. g. specific habits, expectations, norms
and conventions concerning verbal and other behavior.
— Linguistic translation problems which are connected
with the structural differences between languages in lexis,
sentence structure and supra segmental features e. g. «false
friends.»
— Text-specific translation problems are those which may
appear in a particular text and cannot be classified as prag-
matic, cultural or linguistic ones. Translation is a demanding
and intellectually difficult activity. Apart from knowing the
language, it is essential to have general knowledge about
the world. The process consists of many complicated tasks
that people»s mind is able to cope with. Therefore, the main
problem is a feeling of fatigue and frustration among students.
They may go for the easy solutions, e. g. check the answer, or
even give up the task. This work is time-consuming; therefore
using it during the lesson is not effective. The working speed
can be also the problem.
Language learners are needed to acquire rather com-
municative than translating skills, thus that is the case that
among people who are learning a foreign language a con-
cept of equivalence is a big problem, because they do not un-
derstand the difference between synonymity and equipoise.
Many of them have an assumption that a direct one-to-one
correspondence of meaning between the word or sentence
in the target language and those in the source language ex-
ists. Hence, the central problem is concerned with specifying
the nature of equivalence. Equivalence is doubly understood.
It is an agreement between a word or a group of words in a
second language with a word or a group of words in a spe-
cific context in a teaching language. Common words carry
many problems for learners, particular for children. For ex-
ample, the verb «to get» in all its versions cover even several
columns in a dictionary.
To guess the meaning from the context appears as a
problem for young people. Words are untranslatable, texts
can always be translated», the next problem comes into view.
Untranslatable» words may be translated by description, e.
g. «Living room» is a room when people spend a day, watch
TV, have a rest etc. Finding an appropriate word for Eng-
lish «lunch» in Polish seems to be unrealizable too, because
in England it is a light meal or a sandwich usually eaten at
people»s place of work around one p. m.
To sum up, translation needs to be practiced in favorable
conditions under the supervision of the teacher. Learners
should have a possibility to exchange their knowledge and
compare their choices of words. In this way, every task will
develop their translating skills. Only systematic treatment of
translation leads to a success.
Classroom activities involving translation
The importance of translation in language learning is im-
plicitly recognized in the fact that almost all university first-de-
gree programs in foreign languages include at least one course
in it. This is because translating is one of the things that a stu-
dent might want to do, professionally or paraprofessionally,
with their foreign language after graduation. To that extent,
the fact that our respondents have generally accepted transla-
tion as a «fifth skill» should come as no surprise. As should be
clear from the literature review and case studies, translation is
rarely seen as a language-learning method in itself. It was part
of the nineteenth century grammar-translation method, but it
has since evolved into one kind of activity among many.
As such, we must accept that it can and usually is com-
bined with a number of general teaching approaches. In this
context, the question is no longer whether or not transla-
tion should be used in the second language class, but how
it can be used effectively and creatively. Our aim here is to
present a series of variables with which teachers and cur-
riculum designers might be free to experiment. We also
present a few suggested activities, in the hope that they
might provide a basis for further experimentation. These ac-
tivities seek to stress that translation can be used in ways
that are communicative (so there is no conflict with com-
municative language teaching), adaptable to new technol-
ogies, and possible in situations where there are multiple
L1s in the classroom. They are also formulated in the be-
lief that, in an age of user-developed online cultures, trans-
lating is one of the things that students might actually want
to do with their second languages, both in class and in their
future lives, be it professionally or as motivated volunteers.
General models of translation activities
Leonardi [1, p 43] offers the following «pedagogical
translation framework», which is a set of classroom activities
that can be associated with the use of translation:
— Pre-translation activities: brainstorming; vocabulary
preview; anticipation guides (where a question-and-answer
process establishes the students» level of prior knowledge).
— Translation activities: reading activities; speaking
and listening; writing; literal translation; summary transla-
tion («gisting»); parallel texts (the study of texts in L2 on
the same topic as the text in L1); back-translation (a text is
translated from L1 to L2, then back into L1, by a different
person); grammar explanation vocabulary builder and facil-
itator; cultural mediation and intercultural competence de-
velopment.
— Post-translation activities: written or oral translation
commentary; written or oral summary of the L1 text; written
composition on the topic of the L1 text.
— The main point is that any learning activity you can
think of, or almost, can be associated with translation. A
second message is that «translation» can involve much more
than the mere exercise of «literal translation», which here
very clearly becomes just one possibility among many.
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