Cultural Translation in Language Teaching

The aim of this chapter is to examine the place and role of cultural translation in the multilingual classroom community of practice at university level. Firstly, I survey the theoretical principles underpinning the revival of pedagogical translation from the 1990s to date. Secondly, I focus on the ecological perspective on educational linguistics (van Lier 2004; Kramsch 2019) and holistic cultural translation (Tymoczko 2007). The teaching practices I recommend are framed within a multilingual and ecologically oriented approach to language and translation pedagogy, the aim of which is to hone translingual and transcultural competence. Finally, I point to future developments in the interdisciplinary study of cultural translation in language teaching.