ABSTRACT

Recent studies have brought attention to the potential of translation as a symbolic activity to improve students’ translingual competence. This study contributes to this growing field of study by examining students’ voices in class discussions in translation classrooms. Five translation sessions were implemented with beginner and intermediate learners of Japanese at a UK university. Based on thematic analysis of students’ learning journals and post-session interviews, this study highlights how class discussion provides a site for sharing multiple perspectives and meaning-making processes that each student brings to the same text. It also enables students to reflect on these interpretations and find and refine their own translations. This study suggests the potential benefits of class discussion in reframing translation activities from those that require students to seek the ‘correct’ answer to those that prompt reflection on the symbolic value of the text, which is often overlooked in communicative language teaching (CLT).

摘要

最近的研究引起了人们对翻译作为提高学生跨语言能力的象征活动的潜力的关注。通过在翻译教室的课堂讨论中检查学生的声音，这项研究为这一不断发展的研究领域做出了贡献。在英国大学，针对日语的初学者和中级学习者进行了五次翻译会议。基于对学生学习期刊和课后访谈的主题分析，本研究强调了班级讨论如何提供一个站点，以共享每个学生带给同一课文的多种观点和意义生成过程。它还使学生能够反思这些解释，并找到并完善自己的翻译。