The Role of Pedagogical Translation on The Development of Intercultural Communicative Competence in Language Teaching

Abstract

Methods of language teaching have neglected the role of pedagogical translation throughout the twentieth century in order to prevent the use of the L1 in the classroom. With the elaboration of Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) in 2001, there has been a radical shift from an interactional language learning perspective at a bilingual environment to an intercultural perspective at a multilingual level with the recent theories of sociocultural learning and the emergence of intercultural competence. This study intends to redraw the theoretical background of translation in language learning after the traditional grammar-translation method and to deconstruct the neglected role of translation in the emerging methods during the second half of the twentieth century up to communicative and action-oriented approaches. The study aims at reinitiating the translation-based learning in coherence with the action-oriented approach, which is based upon the appropriation of an Intercultural Communicative Competence in language teaching. It was a qualitative phenomenographic research and the researcher examined data collected from ten experts and three main categories had been determined. The main theme was the impact of translation on intercultural communicative competence, which was divided into three categories (role, impact, and awareness via translation) It has been concluded that the translation is a way to surpass cultural boundaries in language teaching and the role of translating is a kind of mediation. Translation is not only an activity of transcoding, but also a complex procedure in which interfere language, culture, but also the inter-subjective pragmatic relations between individuals and the society.