Teaching the Metalanguage of Translation for Translation Learners as a Way of Promoting Self-Regulation

Abstract

This research aims to link the teaching of the metalanguage proper to translation in an introductory translation discipline to the promotion of self-regulatory learning behavior. The general objective is to discuss not only the role of metalanguage in promoting self-regulation in translation learners, but also how the systematized translation metalanguage teaching can contribute to the transition of other-regulation to self-regulation throughout the student's learning process. This paper explores the specific metalanguage linked to the notion of Translation Competence (TC) and its Acquisition (TCA) and to the concept of self-regulation. I start from the understanding that the teaching of metalanguage allows increasing the metacognitive processes, more specifically, the student's self-regulatory learning behavior. The theoretical basis is informed by the translation concept presented by Hurtado Albir (1999, 2005, 2015); as a methodological foundation, this work uses the concepts of other-regulation and self-regulation (Wertsch, 1979, 1985) and the notions of spontaneous and scientific concept (Vigotski, 2018). The teaching materials are based on cognitive-constructivist premises (Hurtado Albir, 2015), drawing methodologically upon the translation task-based learning, and the tasks being organized into Teaching Units (TU). This methodological approach was chosen because the tasks provide students with the necessary instruments for the acquisition of Translation Competence and are permeated by the specific metalanguage of translation. The present work highlights some of the results obtained after investigations carried out in one of the courses taught at the ‘Curso de Letras’- Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) dedicated to the teaching of translation. Those results suggest a relationship between the teaching of metalanguage and the development of the learners' metacognitive processes, particularly the promotion of self-regulation. The metalanguage teaching helped learners to reflect autonomously on the translation process they performed.