ANTHONY PYM TRANSLATION FOR ALL : COMMUNICATIVE TRANSLATION AND ADULT LANGUAGE-LEARNING

A SETTING Beautiful authentic Europe, young and young, playing multiligually with a lingua franca The Nachtseite: the exclusion of social groups, also with its multilingual dimension Greece is Europe but the Greek debt is not. Immigrants have rights, but let them not enter to have them. The structures of belonging are changing: the nation-state-language principle is no more And policy-makers live in denial. © Intercultural Studies Group

TO UNDERSTAND THE OTHER To translate is to help others understand, the law to be known, commerce to reach all, some payment to be made. To translate is more profoundly to enter the worldview of the other, an enemy, real or potential, and to think with that otherness. In the texts most deserving of transcendence, this translating mind is understood through the commonness not of grammar, but of suffering, Empathy (Quine), not “charity” (Davidson): feel the suffering of the other. © Intercultural Studies Group

A REVOLUTIONARY SUBJECT? Intermediaries do what is needed, then move on. Their power is that of the hidden. In French-German school groups, the interpreters leave interpreting to get power. In the extermination camps, momentary power was a lack of belonging. The professional intermediary is not a revolutionary subject – translators will not bring liberation (pace Venuti’s “call to action”, or Baker’s multiple boycotts… of Loréal?) © Intercultural Studies Group

BREAK WITH THE PROFESSION A long philosophy to get you to understand this: Education in the service of a labor market? Professionals as our models of success (process research) © Intercultural Studies Group

THE GAME IS NOT THERE The game is not there. Everyone translates, or assumes to understand their other. Even George Bush “comprendo”. Translation is in all interactions across structures of belonging. It is hard, tortuous, and common. © Intercultural Studies Group

EVERYONE TRANSLATES The people who subtitle your online series for free. The younger generations of Chinese who have the open world online illegally. The restaurant owners who think Google Translate is enough. Everyone who has ever learnt a foreign language as an adult. That is, everyone, or almost. © Intercultural Studies Group

EVERYONE TRANSLATES The people who subtitle your online series for free. The younger generations of Chinese who have the open world online illegally. The restaurant owners who think Google Translate is enough. Everyone who has ever learnt a foreign language as an adult. That is, everyone, or almost. © Intercultural Studies Group

HERE IS THE CHANGE Let the professions teach themselves The really big market is adult language learning Our pedagogy should reach that market. Here is the pedagogy: © Intercultural Studies Group

1. TRANSLATION IS ONE THING One pedagogy for all modes and levels of translation, both spoken and written, professional and social. For example: Reformulation exists in L1, so it can operate in L1/L2 mapping. © Intercultural Studies Group

2. ALL TRANSLATION IS COMMUNICATIVE “Most teachers prefer something communicative.” An exam is an act of communication. (Move away from the binary oppositions and their sterile debates.) © Intercultural Studies Group

3. LEARNING IS FIRSTLY ORAL Contra the one binarism we have all accepted: translation vs. interpreting (because the latter have duped us all). You break with primitive literalism in situation, and the situations are spoken. Even in the written translation class, oral brainstorming has long been the first step. © Intercultural Studies Group

4. TECHNOLOGY IS NOT AN ADD- ON Contra Mossop: “If you can’t translate with pen and paper, you can’t translate.” Yes you can! Teaching the uses and limits of MT is our most urgent social lesson. Postediting will be the future for most of the population who translates. (Sophisticated TM suites are then add-ons… But everyone should use them.) © Intercultural Studies Group

5. MULTI-COMPETENCE IS UNNECESSARY The multi-competence models have been justifying long-term training. They change overnight, without reason. There is little to teach, and much to practice, and anyone can practice. An alternative tradition: failure based: Dönner (1996), skills development… You try it, it doesn’t work, you see help, and then knowledge is created. Now you know why some things have to be taught. © Intercultural Studies Group

6. THE GOAL IS COMMUNICATIVE SUCCESS Skopos, but in an indeterministic frame. Teach the risks of different communicative situations. Teach people how to manage risks, and especially how to take risks. © Intercultural Studies Group

PEDAGOGICAL PRINCIPLES All translation is communication. One pedagogy for all modes and levels of translation, both spoken and written, professional and social. The spoken is the primary situation. Online technologies are always integrated. Training objectives are failure-based. Training is in terms of risk management, not equivalence. © Intercultural Studies Group