The revival of translation in communicative language teaching can be traced back to the late 1980s, when Alan Duff published the Duke of Edinburgh Award winning volume Translation, "a resource book for teachers who wish to use translation as a language learning activity, just as they might use literature, drama, project work, conversation, role play, writing, or class readers for language practice and improvement" (Duff 1989:8, author’s emphasis). Since then, the merits of translation as a language learning and testing tool have been carefully considered by language educators (e.g. Sewell and Higgins 1996), applied linguists (e.g. Campbell 1998) and translation studies scholars (e.g. Malmkjær 1998). However, it is fair to say that the widespread use of translation in foreign language pedagogy is a recent phenomenon, as testified by a variety of single-authored and collected volumes on the subject (Deller and Rinvolucri 2002; Gonzáles Davies 2004; Malmkjær 2004; Gavioli 2005; Cook 2010). These studies amply show that translation is currently regarded as a valuable learning resource for achieving lexical, terminological, phraseological and grammatical accuracy as well as stylistic fluency and intercultural competence. In the light of these important developments, the aim of this book review is to examine the link between pedagogic theory and practice in the studies contained in the volume edited by Witte et al. (2009). To this end, I will use the three-level model elaborated by Richards and Rodgers (2001) for the description, analysis and comparison of approaches and methods in language teaching.
Review of Translation in Second Language Learning and Teaching by Witte Arnd, Harden Theo and Ramos de Oliveira Harden Alessandra (eds.) Oxford: Peter Lang, 2009. 414 pp,ISBN 978-3-03911-897-7.
LAVIOSA, Sara
2011-01-01
Abstract
The revival of translation in communicative language teaching can be traced back to the late 1980s, when Alan Duff published the Duke of Edinburgh Award winning volume Translation, "a resource book for teachers who wish to use translation as a language learning activity, just as they might use literature, drama, project work, conversation, role play, writing, or class readers for language practice and improvement" (Duff 1989:8, author’s emphasis). Since then, the merits of translation as a language learning and testing tool have been carefully considered by language educators (e.g. Sewell and Higgins 1996), applied linguists (e.g. Campbell 1998) and translation studies scholars (e.g. Malmkjær 1998). However, it is fair to say that the widespread use of translation in foreign language pedagogy is a recent phenomenon, as testified by a variety of single-authored and collected volumes on the subject (Deller and Rinvolucri 2002; Gonzáles Davies 2004; Malmkjær 2004; Gavioli 2005; Cook 2010). These studies amply show that translation is currently regarded as a valuable learning resource for achieving lexical, terminological, phraseological and grammatical accuracy as well as stylistic fluency and intercultural competence. In the light of these important developments, the aim of this book review is to examine the link between pedagogic theory and practice in the studies contained in the volume edited by Witte et al. (2009). To this end, I will use the three-level model elaborated by Richards and Rodgers (2001) for the description, analysis and comparison of approaches and methods in language teaching.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
