Resources in translation: towards a conceptual and technical apparatus

Abstract

In mathematics education, translation of resources from one language to another occurs in a wide range of situations. This paper explores how conceptual and technical apparatus from contemporary translation studies may be of use in guiding and analysing such translation. Key concepts—including those of source, target and intermediate text, of paradigms of equivalence, purpose, uncertainty and localisation, and of semantic, syntactic and epistemological equivalence—are introduced and illustrated, primarily with reference to translation of a series of school mathematics workbooks. Significant types of tool to assist translation—translation protocols and machine translation—are examined. A more detailed case study illustrates techniques (and associated tools) for analysing translation shifts and terminological translatability, applying them to examine translation of documentation of a framework for researching teachers’ interaction with resources—the Documentational Approach to Didactics. Specific insights that emerge are how translation is shaped by attention not just to fidelity to the source text but to the audience for, and function of, the target text; and how challenging it can be to formulate terms translatable across languages in such a way as to consistently anchor meaning in existing wordforms.