A new pair of glasses
-
Miriam Shlesinger✝
Abstract
Ever since 1989, students in some secondary schools in Israel have had the option of participating in the two-year Translation Skills Program, focused on written translation from English (L2) into Hebrew (L1), with particular emphasis on developing their meta-linguistic awareness while enriching their command of the two languages. Classes are taught by English teachers, who are first required to participate in a two-semester (112-hour) teacher training course focusing on translation skills, methods of teaching translation and the meta-linguistic insights one may glean from the process of translation. Throughout both courses – the one administered to the teachers and the one they then teach to the secondary school students – the point is made that the course is neither a foreign language (English) class, as such, nor a program for training full-fledged translators. Rather, it is a self-contained module aimed at enhancing students’ grasp of inter-linguistic similarities and differences and exploring relations between language and culture. The paper reports on a study of the direct and indirect effects of the program on fourteen novices’ development of meta-linguistic awareness. The study is based on both qualitative and quantitative data, including questionnaires, interviews and test results collected over the year during which the program was administered, and points out the advantages of introducing the translation skills program as an elective enrichment course at secondary school level and to its potential contribution to language-related skills in general.
Abstract
Ever since 1989, students in some secondary schools in Israel have had the option of participating in the two-year Translation Skills Program, focused on written translation from English (L2) into Hebrew (L1), with particular emphasis on developing their meta-linguistic awareness while enriching their command of the two languages. Classes are taught by English teachers, who are first required to participate in a two-semester (112-hour) teacher training course focusing on translation skills, methods of teaching translation and the meta-linguistic insights one may glean from the process of translation. Throughout both courses – the one administered to the teachers and the one they then teach to the secondary school students – the point is made that the course is neither a foreign language (English) class, as such, nor a program for training full-fledged translators. Rather, it is a self-contained module aimed at enhancing students’ grasp of inter-linguistic similarities and differences and exploring relations between language and culture. The paper reports on a study of the direct and indirect effects of the program on fourteen novices’ development of meta-linguistic awareness. The study is based on both qualitative and quantitative data, including questionnaires, interviews and test results collected over the year during which the program was administered, and points out the advantages of introducing the translation skills program as an elective enrichment course at secondary school level and to its potential contribution to language-related skills in general.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword xi
- Methods and strategies of process research 1
-
Part I. Conceptual and methodological discussions
- Interpreting in theory and practice 13
- Reflections on the literal translation hypothesis 23
- Tracking translators’ keystrokes and eye movements with Translog 37
- Seeing translation from inside the translator’s mind 57
- Metonymic language use as a student translation problem 67
- Sight translation and speech disfluency 93
- Time lag in translation and interpreting 121
-
Part II. Process research in interpreting and translation
- A new pair of glasses 149
- Are primary conceptual metaphors easier to understand than complex conceptual metaphors? 169
- Innovative subtitling 187
- Errors, omissions and infelicities in broadcast interpreting 201
- On cognitive processes during wordplay translation 219
- “Can you ask her about chronic illnesses, diabetes and all that?” 231
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Part III. Studies of interpreting and translation expertise
- Effects of linguistic complexity on expert processing during simultaneous interpreting 249
- Process and product in simultaneous interpreting 269
- Developing professional thinking and acting within the field of interpreting 301
- Results of the validation of the PACTE translation competence model 317
- “This led me to start thinking about how this happened, and what the process behind it would be” 345
- Publications by Birgitta Englund Dimitrova 361
- Notes on contributors 367
- Index 373
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword xi
- Methods and strategies of process research 1
-
Part I. Conceptual and methodological discussions
- Interpreting in theory and practice 13
- Reflections on the literal translation hypothesis 23
- Tracking translators’ keystrokes and eye movements with Translog 37
- Seeing translation from inside the translator’s mind 57
- Metonymic language use as a student translation problem 67
- Sight translation and speech disfluency 93
- Time lag in translation and interpreting 121
-
Part II. Process research in interpreting and translation
- A new pair of glasses 149
- Are primary conceptual metaphors easier to understand than complex conceptual metaphors? 169
- Innovative subtitling 187
- Errors, omissions and infelicities in broadcast interpreting 201
- On cognitive processes during wordplay translation 219
- “Can you ask her about chronic illnesses, diabetes and all that?” 231
-
Part III. Studies of interpreting and translation expertise
- Effects of linguistic complexity on expert processing during simultaneous interpreting 249
- Process and product in simultaneous interpreting 269
- Developing professional thinking and acting within the field of interpreting 301
- Results of the validation of the PACTE translation competence model 317
- “This led me to start thinking about how this happened, and what the process behind it would be” 345
- Publications by Birgitta Englund Dimitrova 361
- Notes on contributors 367
- Index 373
