The Importance of the Basic Philosophy Teaching within the Framework of the Translation of Philosophical Texts in Academic Translation Teaching

Abstract

The objective of this study is to prove that the basic philosophy teaching on an academic level is compulsory in translation and interpretation departments by taking into account the challenges encountered in the translation of philosophical texts and besides the ways to solving them. At the end of their training, students in translation and interpretation departments cannot be expected to translate or interpret every sort of texts owing to the fact that the translation of every text requires specialized knowledge in different fields. Considering that the undergraduate may not gain an opportunity to be specialized at every field, it is sometimes impossible for him or her to understand the source text wholly and translate it to the target culture. As a natural consequence of what he/she has learnt during his/her training, the translator may compensate his/her lack of knowledge in ordinary texts with finding suitable equivalents in each culture. In other words, the translator can further develop his/her skills in the translation of ordinary texts after she/he has graduated from the department. However, in the translation of text types such philosophical ones encompassing an important part of a culture, both internalization and questioning are required other than finding accurate equivalents in source and target texts. This can only be achieved if students take the basic philosophy education. The fact that each course in translation and interpretation departments is offered by a different field specialist and the philosophy is regarded as an area of specialization make easily understanding of translation challenges encountered particularly in the translation of philosophical texts possible.