Benefits of translation in foreign language learning and teaching

Apart from the role of the mother tongue as the vehicle for TL explanation, one also needs to recognise the benefits of translation as a potent consciousness-raising tool. With the advent of CLT this activity, despite its well-established history, fell out of favour into neglect and was given a bad press (Atkinson 1993:54; Dakowska 2005:29f.; Stoichkov 2006): it was deemed uncommunicative, tedious, difficult, inane, irrelevant to everyday practice developing a special skill—that of converting texts—that only professional translators will need, more often than not treated as a routine chore assigned as punishment for misdemeanour. Translation also suffered from too close a connotation with grammar (hence the Grammar-Translation Method), thumbing through a dictionary, literary study, interpretation of difficult literary excerpts or concocted texts, overreliance on backward translation, and reading out loud – all of these additionally taking up a sizeable amount of class time. Moreover, in the traditional classroom translation would focus on the literacy skills rather than speaking and listening and expressing and understanding meaning, and it encourages the learners to think in terms of two languages rather than the target only. Yet, whilst probably true of bygone epochs, these charges need not be valid if translation activities (which should mainly be limited to translation into the TL; cf. Dakowska 2005:30) are designed wisely, while we can at the same time recognise that such valuable activities:
-    with text taken as the basic linguistic unit, force the learner to pay careful attention to—and render meaning in—context, rather than merely on manipulating form as in mechanical, imitative, nonsensical grammar drills^[1] (Atkinson 1993:53), thereby developing his/her semantic abilities when pushing the learner to use passive knowledge in an active way (Zannirato 2006);
-    reveal how selected semantic and pragmatic concepts and functions are syntactically realised in the languages under comparison,^[2] thus enabling the learner to find equivalence of meaning in different formal devices, which is more important than similarity of form (Atkinson 1993:56)^[3];
-    allow the learner to think comparatively and develop their FL knowledge—not to produce a skilled translator, but to sensitise the learner to significant functional semantic and pragmatic differences between the NL and the TL and the ways to bridge them (Rabadán et al. 2006), and to focus on typical mistakes and areas causing particular difficulty (Zannirato 2006), thereby helping ‘customise’ the learning process;
-    enhance language learning when more attention is being paid to the interaction between the known language(s) and the target one instead of focusing on the TL only (Rawoens 2006:9), by making students cognizant of typical translation errors that are e.g. due to the influence of the L₁ (Tomasello & Herron 1988, 1989), thereby counteracting interference (Dakowska 2005:31) and showing how the errors can be forestalled by offering alternative translations;
-    sensitise the learner to the limits in drawing analogies – differences in the frequency, distribution, and stylistic connotation of certain linguistic items and constructions (Levenston 1971). Translation exercises thus control the learners’ natural tendency to rely on their intuitive knowledge of the NL (W. Marton 1979/81:180);
-    “lead to an increased metacoginitve awareness: learners find out what they know, should know and do not know about the target language” (Kuiken & Vedder 2002:346); thus, expose the ‘gap’ between the learners’ IL and the target;
-    help students develop adaptive and effective work habits (Rabadán et al. 2006);
-    have clear impact on the students’ understanding and information processing of the source language (ibid.);
-    effectively contribute to the development of the student’s linguistic self-awareness (Whyatt 2006), improving both the understanding of the source language and the accuracy in the production of the TL (Rabadán et al. 2006);
-    provide “an easy avenue to enhance linguistic awareness and pride in bilingualism” (Malakoff & Hakuta 1991:163)
-    through forcing the learner to find the most appropriate equivalent, they have very positive impact on the students’ TL production developing language analysis skills, accuracy, naturalness, and flexibility, and promoting clarity in language (Rabadán et al. 2006; Stoichkov 2006);
-    rather than insisting on fidelity to the original, translation activities can instil the precious capacity to concentrate on high-risk, globally important areas of text (Pym 2006);
-    encourage and promote risk-taking rather than avoidance strategies (which in translation are customarily impossible), hence pushing learners to ‘stretch’ whatever they already know in the TL and encouraging them to develop confidence and communicate as much as possible (Atkinson 1993:53, 57, 59);
-    can help recast transfer—above all interference—as an illuminating learning strategy, developing metalingual awareness through coercing the learner to attend to and reflect on structural features of the TL and the NL (Rabadán et al. 2006), thereby also helping him/her identify regularities in the input they will be exposed to in the future;
-    invite discussion and speculation in the classroom (op. cit.), thereby markedly raising the level of class interaction;
-    are a real life activity – something that the students will probably need to engage in if they intend to use the language in their occupation (Atkinson 1993:53);
-    may serve as the most efficient and effective elicitation device and method of assessing both learners’ comprehension of lexical items and the mastery of a given area of grammar (Dakowska 2005:31). On occasions, the simplest and clearest way is asking the learners to think of a translation;
-    provide feedback as a therapeutic measure, and check whether the meaning expressed in the learner’s utterance matches his/her intended one, otherwise indicating the mismatch and allowing for a modification (ibid.);
-    not to mention their utility in the teaching of cognates and steering clear of false friends.

State-of-the-art translation activities may thus involve e.g. (Rabadán et al. 2006):
-    rewriting of low-quality translations by the students, which gets them to focus intensely on problem areas and makes clear the dangers of verbatim translation (Atkinson 1993:61);
-    comparing original writings and their translations to identify differences in the use of lexical, phraseological and terminological units;
-    identifying differences in comparable texts (abstracts, advertisements, CVs, job offers, obituaries, recipes, etc.) in rhetorical and textual conventions, which encourages students to consider contextual aspects as well as the ‘social’ meanings of words and phrases (Atkinson 1993:61);
-    consolidating translation – practice in a recently covered area of grammar or lexis, offering training in its production and not merely comprehension (ibid.);

As some schools already cater for their students’ linguistic needs through interpreter training techniques, there is no reason why elements of this paragon should not be carried over to language programs in general.^[4] House (2003:130 ff.), too, calls for a reappraisal of the role of—so far strongly underrepresented—translation and its benefits for language acquisition, for its “clear and aggressive” promotion in the FL classroom. Enhanced employment of translation in the syllabus implies, of course, that multilingualism be not merely paid lip service by the teachers, but that they themselves follow the directive. This reinforces the requirement that the instructor be competent both in the TL and the NL of the learner, and in the respective ‘cultural filters’.

source: Paradowski, Michał B. (2007) Exploring the L₁/L₂ Interface. A Study of Polish Advanced EFL Learners. Institute of English Studies, University of Warsaw, pp. 102–5.