On didactic and methodological implications of teaching translation to undergraduates

Abstract

The aim of the research in this paper was to assess the didactic and methodological specifics of teaching translation in English undergraduate studies, with a particular focus on the compound and complex sentence structures that are considered to be the greatest challenge when performing translation tasks. The paper consists of three parts: The first provides an overview of the relevant references in translation studies, the second presents a discussion of specific didactic and methodological models in teaching translation, and the third illustrates the types of restructuring of parts of the surface structure in the source language into the target language. The empirical part of the paper was conducted using a sample of undergraduates who had attended translation courses during the academic year 2019/2020. The main premise was that the syntactically specific form of a complex sentence in both the source language and the target language (English and Serbian, respectively) represented the biggest challenge in the comprehension and translation of particular text types, and that the success of the translation was dependent on the teaching material selected, the teaching models and the linguistic competence of the students, as well as on the ability of the teacher to evoke some extralinguistic elements in the students’ personalities, such as empathy, stereotypes and curiosity. Another premise was that the restructuring of the relevant elements would be partially successful. The main finding of the assessment was that the best results of the detailed planning, preparation and evaluation of the translation teaching process were achieved via careful and detailed class planning. The interactive model was shown to be the most appropriate and most curiosity-provoking teaching model with regard to teaching translation, while its application and applicability implies multifaceted material and technical class planning.