bs_bs_banner

Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 46, No. 2, 2012

The Pedagogue as Translator in the Classroom

STEPHEN DOBSON
Translation theory has faced criticism from professional translators for adopting an ivory tower stance to the real world challenges of translation. This article argues that a case can be made for considering the challenges of translation as it takes place in the school classroom. In support of such an argument the pedagogue as translator is seen to occupy a pivotal position, such that the insights from translation theory, understanding translation as an inter-linguistic act, can be combined and bridged with the burgeoning eld of translation pedagogy, focusing on how the practice of (inter-linguistic) translation might be taught and learned in the school classroom. Extending the sphere of inuence of translation, it is argued that the pedagogue as translator is concerned with teaching pupils in the classroom how to engage in making meaning in their respective subjects. This requires acts of translation from and with something heard or seen with respect to the subject concerned, in order to make into personal knowledge. After an initial presentation of a particular understanding of translation theory inspired by Walter Benjamins famous essay on The Task of the Translator, examples of bridging are presented in the teaching of translation skills in two classroom subjects: teaching English as a foreign language and teaching natural science. In a professional sense, and more narrowly dened, translation is an occupation with its own certication process and collegiate membership associations. As certied and registered the holder of the title is permitted to translate texts, to translate in court and in other less public contexts, such as the meeting between a case worker/policeman and a refugee/asylum seeker. For the academic such as the educational philosopher, it has less to do with witnessing scenes of surveillance and those making pleas and refers to those who translate, not necessarily for remunerative purposes, the work of colleagues for publication in learned journals or books. The terms of the debate between professional and non-professional translator have been couched in terms of the practice versus theory dichotomy where translation
2012 The Author Journal compilation 2012 Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

272

S. Dobson

professionals have been sceptical about the focus on translation theory from within the ivory tower of academia (Baer and Koby, 2003). Translation theory, focused on inter-linguistic translation, has debated the need for principles and rules for the translation of gurative language, cohesion markers, and the rhetorical twists and turns of the text (Naganuma, 2008). To cite an example, Quine in his famous intervention on radical translation introduced the behaviourist notion of sensory stimulation prompting assent (or dissent) as translators sought, and yet never reached complete access to semantic meanings in the language of the other. A degree of indeterminacy will always remain in the course of the following:1 The recovery of a mans current language from his currently observed responses is the task of the linguist, who, unaided by an interpreter, is out to penetrate and translate a language hitherto unknown (Quine, 1960, p. 28). With the rise of translation studies in higher education in recent decades there has also been a growing call to supplement and to some extent sidestep the dominance of translation theory by exploring the parameters of translation pedagogy (Carrov, 1999). This has moved the primary focus from the conventional understanding of translation as an inter-linguistic act to an interest in how the practice of inter-linguistic translation can be taught and learnt. The assertion of these pedagogues is simple: translators are made not born and the role of learning processes must be understood and structured. This form of pedagogy has postulated among other things a paradigm shift from instruction and the transmission of an accepted body of knowledge and skills to the novice to one in which the teacher and student translator collaborate in learning. The teacher of translation is increasingly considered to be a facilitator in a learner-centred classroom. As Kiraly has put in openly social constructivist terms: All input from the environment, including a teachers utterances, will have to be interpreted, weighed and balanced against each learners prior knowledge (Kiraly, 2003, p. 10). In other words, to be a translator requires acts of making meaning. A number of points can be made about this presumed shift in paradigm. Firstly, while the shift in focus towards translation pedagogy counters the dominance of translation theory it still returns to translation theory in debates about the curriculum content of translation pedagogy and the role of different materials accessible on the Internet or elsewhere. What is required, and I shall return to this, is an exploration of the bridge connecting translation pedagogy (teaching the practice of inter-linguistic translation) with translation theory (translation understood in the conventional inter-linguistic sense). Ruitenbergs (2009) work on the translation as philosophical method is about inter-linguistic and inter-discursive translation, but I would argue it can be developed and used to provide insight into bridging. She explores how the phrase ways of knowing translated into
2012 The Author Journal compilation 2012 Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain

The Pedagogue as Translator in the Classroom

273

French and German gives rise to different inter-linguistic and interdiscursive meanings. Students speaking different languages might be actively involved and encouraged in similar processes of distance and defamiliarisation when translating new phrases. This is to evoke a focus on the teaching of the practice of translation. The connection of her translation theory with translation pedagogy is provided by reections on how to determine what counts as a good translation, e.g. students might select and judge on the one hand, as a point drawing on translation theory, the relevance of different metaphors in their translations.2 And on the other hand, as a point drawing on translation pedagogy, students might explore how their translations give rise to new forms and levels of understandings when used in different discursive and linguistic contexts. In other words, translation theory is bridged with translation practice in different user-oriented contexts. Secondly, the shift in paradigm presented by translation pedagogy has appropriated insights from new methodologies developed to teach foreign languages in school classrooms. And yet the focus of their concerns has remained translation studies in higher education, and it will be argued that the role of the pedagogue as translator is equally pertinent to practice in the primary and secondary school classroom in different subjects. This point is crucial to my argument. Namely, translation pedagogy (in the specic sense of the praxis of teaching translation) offers, and more strongly implies, the corresponding idea that any pedagogue can (metaphorically speaking) be considered a translator interested in teaching their pupils how to engage in making meaning in their respective subjects and how this requires acts of translation. Thus, just as translation pedagogy has borrowed insights from second language acquisition literature, pedagogy in general can borrow in return insights from translation pedagogy, expanding it to encompass classroom practice in the teaching of different subjects and how meaning is made. With a basis in these introductory points this article sets as its goal the return of philosophical debate on translation to the everyday work of the pedagogue as translator in the school classroom. This is a sphere of activity where many cultures meet and interact and it can be tempting to resign oneself to the belief that in the act of translation something will always be lost and remain untranslatable in this meeting (Bergdahl, 2009; Quine, 1960). To begin with I will locate my argument in translation theory and in so doing draw upon Benjamins famous essay on the translator in order to talk of the act of destruction and the challenge of untranslatability. With the goal of considering how the pedagogue as translator can provide a bridge for the combination of translation theory with educational practice (read translation pedagogy) in the classroom, I will explore in the second part of the article two examples: the teaching of English as a second language and the teaching of natural sciences. A temptation I will resist in this article is to widen the argument of bridging to include pupil experiences outside of the classroom. This was a topic close to Benjamins heart; in his urban wanderings in the passages of Paris he sought the company of Surrealists, Marxists, authors and theologians (Dobson, 2006).
2012 The Author Journal compilation 2012 Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain

274

S. Dobson

In my argument bridging invites and offers the opportunity of a form of translation pedagogy grounded in the active involvement of children in the classroom learning of different subjects. They can, if offered the opportunity, collaborate with teachers in acts of translation and making meaning. In such a context acts of translation are not therefore reduced to the simple one-directional transmission of texts, events and experience, as sources of knowledge and skills, between the pedagogue and pupil. Furthermore, in the course of these acts of translation the opportunity for personal and shared Bildung presents itself to both the pedagogue and the pupil (Steinsholt and Dobson, 2011). As Saito (2009, p. 265) has noted, the work of translation offers the opportunity of creating oneself, auto-bio-graphy is the historical and cultural record of the I, one inheriting the voices of the past, while projecting its own voice in prophesy. Following Saito, translation becomes a project of Bildung that is at once intensely personal and socially shared. My point of departure in translation theory is the argument that it is difcult, if not impossible, for pupils to attain knowledge of the original as it is has actually been brought forth in a foundational manner, especially when the foundational moment lies beyond the classroom in terms of space and time. The original is always open to re-interpretation in the classroom acts of translation, it decays or the context of its original production and consumption change, such that its present and future consumption also come to differ. The original refuses to be xed (Cadava, 1997, p. 92). In the collaborative re-interpretations undertaken by the teacher and pupil (informed by translation pedagogy), in shared acts of translation (rooted in translation theory as an inter-linguistic activity), the pedagogue as translator becomes a central guide and facilitator.

THE PEDAGOGUE AS TRANSLATORS UNDERSTANDING OF RESPECT3

It has become commonplace to cite Benjamins essay, The Task of the Translator, in discussions of the act of translation. Derrida (2001, p. 199) to take an example, writes of: . . . the survival of the body of the original (survival in the double sense that Benjamin gives it in The Task of the Translator, fortleben and berleben: prolonged life, continuous life, living on, but also life after death). Benjamins essay is a rich source of perspectives on translation, perhaps because he had undertaken much translation himself (the Tableaux Parisiens edition of Baudelaires Les Fleurs du mal and the rst volumes of Prousts la recherche du temps perdu), giving him cause to reect on its many facets, and he could easily have become a professional translator translating many more texts.4
2012 The Author Journal compilation 2012 Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain

The Pedagogue as Translator in the Classroom

275

In my reading of his essay, the translators object of concern wasnt so much the information contained in the original, what we might call knowledge or semantic meanings of the foundational text, event or experience. The translators object of concern was instead the language of the original. But, the translator was not out to reproduce the language of the original in a new language with such mirror-like consistency and efciency that the originals language would become obsolete. He proposed the following: The task of the translator consists in nding that intended effect (intentiona) upon the language into which he is translating which produces in it the echo of the original . . . The intention of the poet is spontaneous, primary, graphic; that of the translator is derivative, ultimate, ideational (Benjamin, 1992, pp. 7677). The translator should reveal and echo how the poet has achieved his graphic experiences, hence the derivative project (Jacobs, 1993, p. 137). Or, to put it differently and to extend the argument to the practice of the pedagogue as translator, at once incorporating and transcending the practice of the professional translator and the task of the pedagogue traditionally conceived as a transmitter of the work of others, one should desire to echo and show the methods used by the original to communicate its content. And such an endeavour will of necessity lead to a focus on language itself. Hence Benjamins point: A real translation is transparent; it does not cover the original, does not block its light, but allows the pure language, as though reinforced by its own medium, to shine upon the original all the more fully. This may be achieved, above all, by a literal rendering of the syntax which proves words rather than sentences to be the primary element of the translator. For if the sentence is the wall before the language of the original, literalness is the arcade (Benjamin, 1992, p. 79). In other words, the translator works with the words of the original, source language, such that a literal rendering of the syntax in a new, target language will permit an insight into precisely the language effects of the original and its content. Hence his view that the sentences of the original are in fact a wall or barrier preventing a deeper contact with the original language. It is necessary to break down these sentences and reconstruct them through a literal syntax (ordering) in the new language. Such a literal syntax will reveal language, that of the original and of the new, not to be a walled, restrictive barrier, but an arcade permitting numerous encounters and effects. Benjamins point reverberates with Brechts concept of verfremdungseffekt, translated as the estrangement effect or defamiliarisation (Brooker, 1994). Brecht was a valued friend of Benjamin. George Steiner remains sceptical to Benjamins literal translation because he understands his goal as the pursuit of the spirit of the original. Nevertheless, he seems to agree on the importance of emphasising the
2012 The Author Journal compilation 2012 Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain

276

S. Dobson

necessity of a dislocation between the original (source) and the translation (target), despite suggesting some essence or spirit of the original. His denition of the supreme translation therefore emphasises the importance of the translation being similar to, rather than the same as the original: Supreme translation . . . it can illuminate the original, compelling it, as it were, into greater clarity and impact . . . by deploying visibly, elements of connotation, of overtone and undertone, latencies of signicance, afnities with other texts and cultures or dening contrasts with theseall of which are present, are there in the original from the outset but may not have been fully declared (Steiner, 1996, p. 206). To summarise, the translator, and by extending the argument, the pedagogue as translator in the classroom interested in translating not only texts, but also events or experiences as forms of knowledge with ever new groups of pupils, should according to Benjamin concern himself/herself with echoing and showing the methods of the original. Through literalness for example, the intention to reproduce in mirror-like fashion and make the individual, source language obsolete would be thwarted. The source language and the target language remain separate, and the semantic content of the original language has its own place, connected more directly with the original language and more indirectly with the new language. Respect for the original is maintained, and in the words of Derrida (2001, p. 199), it becomes possible to bring about prolonged life . . . life after death. To repeat, should the pedagogue as translator therefore attempt to make himself/herself invisible in the classroom and let the light of the original shine ever more brightly? Drawing on Benjamins line of argument the answer would be that this could only be desirable if the pedagogue intended to reproduce totally the language and semantic content of the original in the target language of the classroom. And this is impossible, to begin with, the classroom context of the now will never reproduce in mirror-like fashion exactly that of the original. One argument in support of this position is that there can be no eternal return (Nietzsche) or return of the ever same (Benjamin), which is other than a mythical illusion designed to deny the ow of time and history. Hence the view that the pedagogue as translator should respect the original and the translation as two recognizably different entities, separated by context and time. And yet, the pedagogue as translator might regard the task differently: as analogous to the professional translator working to translate a contract of law for a foreign company, or, a person desiring that their school diplomas should be translated to assist their application to a foreign university, such that the semantic content of the text assumes prominence over and above its linguistic form. The pedagogue with such acts of translation in mind will seek to strive to make himself/herself and the difference between their target text and the foundation, source text invisible. It may be the case that the translation Benjamin had in mind dealt not with meeting the pragmatic demands of the global capitalist in an enterprise or the university registrar,
2012 The Author Journal compilation 2012 Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain

The Pedagogue as Translator in the Classroom

277

but with the less overtly utilitarian demands of the aesthetic work of art. The subtitle of his essay on the translator was an Introduction to the Translation of Baudelaires Tableaux Parisiens. If this argument holds force, the pedagogue as translator is faced with a choice between to translate in an act of translation and strive not to overlay and make obsolete the language and content of the original source.5 That is, a goal whereby the pedagogue in the classroom, together with pupils, is concerned to leave his or her mark upon the original and mark their difference. Alternatively, the pedagogue must strive to leave no trace of his or her presence: to communicate in the act of translation both the language and content of the original with such a strength and intensity that the ame of an independent identity uttering them becomes extinguished. The latter type of pedagogue offers an avenue into Benjamins reections on the destructive character, which the destructive character obliterates even the traces of destruction (1979, p. 158). Take for example the following experience: some may have experienced teachers who communicated texts, experience and events as forms of knowledge we have had cause to return to at a later date, but cant remember their names or faces. All that remained was the aura of the original and not a mark of the translation or the translator. To strive after not leaving a mark of presence upon the translated and communicated knowledge in such a manner will require a destructive act in the sense that the pedagogue as translator must actively destroy her or his presence. But, it can also be argued that the destructive character is also present when the pedagogue as translator desires to leave her or his mark of difference on the original. In this latter case, the distancing and defamiliarisation (Ruitenberg, 2009) from the original source and its inclusion in a new target language and translation will destroy not only the real or imagined context of the original, but also older or previous semantic meanings in the course of making a space and context for new ones. As Nietzsche put it, it is a case of creative destruction, and this becomes a trait identiable in the pedagogue as translator: . . . the destruction of phenomena, now appear necessary to us, in view of the excess of countless forms of existence which force and push one another into life . . . (Nietzsche, 1969, p. 104). However, it is important to note that this destruction in order to create doesnt lead to the nal imposition or choice of a once and for all new version to the exclusion of all alternatives. The new version is always re-negotiable at a later point in time. Or, to put it differently the closure is never permanent.6 In Benjamins phrase (1979, p. 158), perhaps inspired by Nietzsche, the destructive character sees nothing as permanent . . . no vision . . . few needs, and the least of them is to know what will replace what has been destroyed. Understood in spatial terms each act of translation therefore expresses and realises the desire to create a space for the new translation. In the context of our argument the space is the learning space of the classroom
2012 The Author Journal compilation 2012 Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain

278

S. Dobson

shared and potentially co-authored by the pedagogue as a translator with his or her pupils. This space, thus offers the opportunity for a translation pedagogy where the teacher (read pedagogue as translator), can teach the praxis of translation. Heidegger formulated this spatial component existentially, much as Benjamin sought to with the conception of the destructive character. Heidegger emphasized a presencing and a clearing of the space of Being (Ge-Stellletting-come-forth-here), and he also connected it at the same time with the desire for closure and concealment, the conict of clearing and concealing (Heidegger, 1971, pp. 55, 84). It is precisely this concealment as closure, which Benjamin (1979) would deny, the destructive character sees nothing as permanent. Inter-twined with these spatial concerns there are, as argued above, deliberations about respect for the original source text, event or experience to be translated in the act of translation and the role played by destruction and the pedagogue as translators intention to erase or alternatively mark his or her presence.

QUESTIONING THE UNTRANSLATABLE

My conception of translation theory, which connects the actions of the pedagogue as translator with violence, destruction and the obliteration of traces might be anathema to teachers who believe that they must uphold their professional standing as practitioners of creative processes, even though we might moderate it to creative destruction. Another strand in my conception of translation theory involves untranslatability, of which Jakobson (2000, p. 116) was famously scathing, calling it the the dogma of untranslatable: All cognitive experience and its classication is conveyable in any existing language. Whenever there is deciency, terminology may be qualied and amplied by loan-words or loan-translations, neologisms or semantic shifts, and nally, by circumlocutions. But it might still be argued that even if the desire is to adopt Jakobsons position, the untranslatable still haunts as an excess or residue of meaning lost in the process of commuting between source and target language. Octavio Paz, the well-known poet, phrased it in the following terms: . . . translation of the denotative meanings of a text is possible; on the one hand, opinion is near unanimous that translation of the connotative meanings is impossible . . . I confess that this idea repels me (Paz, 1991, pp. 190191). For Bergdahl (2009, p. 37) untranslatability is contextualised and present in the meeting between secular and religious citizens. It is not simply a linguistic operation transporting semantic meaning, but about me approaching you, as an ethical encounter with the sacredness of the Other, and in the process seeking to develop respect for their secular and religious
2012 The Author Journal compilation 2012 Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain

The Pedagogue as Translator in the Classroom

279

positions.7 Her argument is particularly pertinent in a classroom with pupils from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. In their regular interaction there will be limits to the translatable and an encounter with the untranslatable demonstrated on a daily basis. An arguably more complex example of the untranslatable, at once integrating and transcending the linguistic (Paz) and socio-cultural (Bergdahl) understanding of the untranslatable is found in the work of Joyce in Finnegans Wake; a book with over sixty different languages. He was not interested in marking the mutual presence of the source and target, and letting one become subservient to the other as a (Anglo-Saxon) master language might assume a position of dominance. One strategy he adopted to communicate and explore the untranslatable was the crafting of portmanteau words comprising many mother tongues. Mother tongue of course in this context is a misnomer.8 Joyce becomes a playful, gaming postmodern exponent of the manner in which language and meaning develop through borrowing and transformation (Steinsholt and Dobson, 2009). Here is an example from the scene in the book, where the children in the act of doing their homework reect upon history as the movement of conict and war, sexual intrigues and motivated by money or prot: da, da, of Sire Jeallyous Seizer, that gamely torskmester, with his duo of druidesses in ready money rompers . . . (Joyce, 1975, p. 271). Some notes are necessary in an attempt, always failing, to understand and pin down the semantic meaning of the text in a once and for all manner: from the Russian da means yes; Jeallyous Seizer is a pun on Julius Caesar immersed in jealous intrigues; gamely meaning in the game of, but also close to the Danish word for an old man in Danish; torskmester meaning task, master and leader, but also meaning cod master and sherman; and money rompers referring to the role of money as a motive in history, as well as sexual desire in rompers, revealed in one of Joyces notebooks as connected with a womans skirt. Joyce lets the many languages run riot, like disobedient and rebellious pupils in a classroom where the teacher is unable (or unwilling) to exert control. In the context of my argument Joyce potentially disrupts the work of the pedagogue as translator in the classroom and in the course of doing this demonstrates a lack of respect for the source text and its language.9 My argument, without going as far as examples to be found in Finnegans Wake, is that the untranslatable will always be present as the potential excess or residue of meaning lost in the process of commuting between source and target language in acts of translation. In the remainder of the article I will explore the manner in which my understanding of translation theory (heightening the presence of the original, source text, event or experience or the opposite, and additionally coming to terms with the untranslatable) can impact upon the pedagogue as translators praxis of teaching translation in the classroom. Two examples are chosen, one with an overtly linguistic focus, the other less so: the teaching of English as a second language and the teaching of natural
2012 The Author Journal compilation 2012 Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain

280

S. Dobson

sciences. This returns me to my primary concern, namely the connection of translation pedagogy (the praxis of teaching translation) with translation theory (inter-linguistic translation); it must be added that this is not in the context of translation studies in higher education, as has been the concern in much of the literature to date, but in the context of teaching and learning in primary and secondary schools. From translation pedagogy I take the point that pedagogues interested in translating knowledge, events and experiences are to be increasingly understood as facilitators rather than instructors, and together with pupils they collaborate in learning and the making of meaning in acts of translation.

TEACHING ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE AND TEACHING THE NATURAL SCIENCES

In order to further conceptualise translation pedagogy as the active involvement of the pupil the argument is made in the following terms: The move to actively involve the pupil in the learning process is by no means new, but it has gained a new twist in the Assessment Reform Group (www. assessment-reform-group.org/) in the UK over the last two decades. This loosely connected group of intellectuals have gained a global inuence as they have developed and communicated the principles of assessment for learning (Bennett, 2011; Black et al., 2003; Stobart, 2008). Assessment for learning highlights the involvement of pupils in their own learning through self-assessment, utilising feedback strategies from teachers and peers, the sharing of assessment criteria with pupils and classroom assessment based upon the posing of questions to generate close listening and reection. In teaching English as a second language in the 196070s discrete-point testing occupied a dominant position in classroom practice (Chvala and Graedler, 2010).10 The pedagogue as translators goal was to teach and assess different skills, such as the use of grammar or vocabulary in separate tests. There was in such cases an objective assessment with only one correct answer and the pupils accumulated points independently of the teachers input and judgment, e.g. in vocabulary tests or national tests. In this form of classroom practice the pedagogues role was not to leave her or his mark on the text and accuracy with respect to the source text, event or experience was paramount. There was little space created for the admission of the untranslatable. From the 1980s and to the present a different form of classroom practice has assumed a more dominant position (Simensen, 2007). Commonly known as Communicative Language Teaching the central focus is upon classroom teaching and assessment that focuses on meaning-oriented language and its use in authentic contexts. It directs attention towards a more continuous form of assessment and the desire to guide the development of the pupils communicative competence. Assessment for learning plays a key role and in particular the manner in which the pedagogue utilises feedback strategies to assist pupils in the co-construction of meaning and
2012 The Author Journal compilation 2012 Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain

The Pedagogue as Translator in the Classroom

281

understanding. Assessment scores are judged on the basis of appropriacy rather than correctness; marking a clear breach with the discrete-point form of teaching and assessment. The pedagogue as translators role becomes more that of a facilitator, leaving a mark together with the pupil upon the translated text, event or experience. Admissions of pupil (and also it must be added, teacher) difculties in translating, as evidence of the untranslatable, are permitted and encouraged as valuable learning experiences. There is a move away from accuracy and the demand to meet Jakobsons (2000, p. 114) denition of an interlingual translation or translation proper is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language. Chvala and Graedler (2010, p. 80) support this move with the following argument: . . . feedback on language needs to focus not just on overall accuracy but on errors versus mistakes. An error is a category of inaccuracies which repeat themselves and reect a systematic problem in the learners language. A mistake, on the other hand, is an inaccuracy which occurs randomly and could be the result of a slip-of-the-hand or could occur as the result of the learner being focused on something else at the time. Errors can be subdivided into two types: Language 1 (L1) interference errors and developmental errors. L1 interference errors are those errors which occur as a result of differences between the L1 and English. Developmental errors, on the other hand, are errors which occur mostly consistently as a result of a learners move from one stage of mastery to another. The pedagogue as translators goal is to determine which types of inaccuracies are present in the translated work of the pupil and to offer formative assessment as feedback to assist the pupil in the development of their prociency in English as a second language. In this example it is possible to see how the classroom practice of the pedagogue as translator in the case of second language acquisition entails specic forms of inter-linguistic translation (e.g. leaving or not leaving marks on the text) and these are bridged with a form of translation pedagogy where the pupil is taught to collaborate with the teacher in the creating and learning of meaning. Put differently, there is a move from a pedagogue who is more reserved and seeking accuracy to one who embraces a more collaborative, relation oriented engagement with the learning processes of the pupil. The translation theory I have introduced earlier is therefore expressed in the classroom context of this example in terms of the move from accuracy to appropriacy. In broad terms the pedagogue as translator creates a scaffolding, a term favoured by Vygotskyinspired social constructivists, to support the learning processes of the pupil. In the second example on the teaching of natural sciences11 there is a similar weighting towards the pedagogue as translator who facilitates and actively engages with pupils as they explore their own experiences of learning and translation. Assessment for learning guides, as in the example
2012 The Author Journal compilation 2012 Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain

282

S. Dobson

above, a collaborative form of translation pedagogy. The choice of this particular form of translation pedagogy marks a deliberate choice to counter a form of translation pedagogy still found, and arguably still somewhat dominant, in the practice of the natural science pedagogue as translator. Namely, one in which instruction and transmission is dominant as the pedagogue utilizes intralinguistic12 acts of translation to rephrase difcult ideas in a language and terminology that become accessible to the pupil. In this case the pedagogue as translator actively leaves a mark upon the source ideas; but tones down the pupils collaborative participation in the learning and creation of meaning. In the European Commission report from 2004 Europe Needs More Scientists it was noted that when pupils encounter natural science as a well-established set of facts without a connection to experiments and observations, pupils have fewer opportunities to form their own interpretations and are less motivated to learn the subject.13 This is the background for the 2007 European Commission Report (Science Education NOW: A Renewed Pedagogy for the Future of Europe) that called for a re-orientation of science pedagogy, placing a greater emphasis on the role of scientic inquiry.14 This is in line with ndings of the [US] National Research Council (2007) report, which found that children master natural science when they learn to understand what are scientic explanations/ concepts, how evidence is produced, that natural science knowledge can be revised and modied and lastly, that just as science is a social activity discussed among scientists in the scientic community, so can pupils share their ideas and conceptions about science in groups in classroom activity. These children undertake translation in the sense of re-casting existing knowledge, theories and assumptions in the face of evidence and experiences from discoveries mediated by experiment, eldwork and other classroom activity. They put their own personal marks on their newly acquired knowledge. When embedded in curricula, such as the Norwegian Knowledge Promotion Reform curriculum,15 these insights lead to activities where the pupil is encouraged to more actively research and make discoveries. The term used in the Norwegian curriculum is forskerspiren, which can be translated as researcher germination or researcher sprouting.16 The pupil is encouraged, with the support and guidance of the teacher, to form hypotheses, undertake experiments, make systematic observations and evaluate critically. A learning progression is sought: in the lower grades the pupils curiosity in natural science is stimulated through discussions about experiences of science, while for higher grades the pupil as researcher is in focus as pupils explore their own ideas and observations. To support such a goal Holt and Kvammen (2010) advocate a form of assessment pedagogy that emphasises open tests, rather than forms of multiple choice with closed questions. The latter, representing lower order forms of taxonomical thinking, lean towards the understanding of concepts and testing factual knowledge. The former demonstrate higher order thinking and make it possible to explore how pupils make their arguments, develop knowledge and apply it in new situations. Such applications within the framework of researcher
2012 The Author Journal compilation 2012 Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain

The Pedagogue as Translator in the Classroom

283

germination (forskerspiren) enable translation acts, as knowledge discovered is translated and re-translated to modify a pupils existing knowledge, theories and assumptions. And this all takes place under the guidance and feedback of the pedagogue during peer group activities in the classroom. The National Research Council report agrees on this point, where guidance and feedback is termed instructional support: Students need instructional support and practice in order to become better at coordinating their prior theories and the evidence generated in investigations (2007, p. 157). What both these examples share is the desire to break with the view that accuracy and correctness should dominate over and exclude the making of mistakes and trial and error in acts of translation (translation as interlinguistic and supporting a theory of translation). They also highlight how the pedagogue as translator is faced with a number of choices about how to manage the classroom learning of pupils e.g. the degree to which they are to actively engage with pupils in co-translating. In both examples we encounter a pedagogue as translator whose translation pedagogy implies a praxis of teaching translation that moves from predominantly instruction and the transmission of knowledge to one in which facilitating, through feedback and guidance, comes to occupy a more dominant position. But the choice will remain with the pedagogue, who can still choose to occupy centre stage and discount or underscore the role of active pupils who are willing or encouraged to co-translate.

CLOSING POINTS

The argument I made in the course of this article has sought to highlight a particular understanding of the translation act and its connection with the classroom practice of the teacher. With respect to translation theory I have identied the manner in which the pedagogue can choose to leave her or his mark upon the translated text, event or experience, or the opposite, where such traces are minimized in the move from source to target language. Moreover, a recurring theme in translation theory has been that of the untranslatable, and I have argued that it can be understood as an excess or residue of meaning lost in the process of commuting between source and target language. When it comes to translation pedagogy I have argued for a version that highlights the teachers need to teach the pupil to be active and collaborate with the pedagogue in order to co-author meaning through acts of translation in the classroom. From a conceptual point of view my deeper goal in this article has been to bridge translation theory with translation pedagogy in the classroom activity of the pedagogue; as seen in the examples of teaching English as a foreign language and teaching the natural sciences. My examples of bridging are not exhaustive, and others might be proposed and justied by bridging different versions of translation theory and
2012 The Author Journal compilation 2012 Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain

284

S. Dobson

translation pedagogy. For example, a bridging in which Saitos (2009) line of argument on translation as a form of self-cultivation (bildng) might be explored in subjects such as music or the teaching of literature. What also requires further debate is the manner in which acts of translation in the classroom might vary not only according to the subject but with respect to the pupils age and how this colours the co-translating with the pedagogue. To make such a move is to invite a debate about learning progressions17 and the manner in which they might impact upon acts of translation. Correspondence: Stephen Dobson, Institute of Education, Hedmark University College, Post box 400, N-2418 Elverum, Norway. Email: stephen.dobson@hihm.no

NOTES
1. Dolan (1967) has questioned the premises of Quines translational indeterminacy and found them decient on a number of counts. This point of debate must be returned to in a later essay. 2. Ruitenberg ends the section in her essay on the good translation and metaphors by citing Derrida (2001), who deconstructs the good translation through an exploration of the word relevant. 3. I have presented an earlier version of the argument on translation as respect and translation as questioning the untranslatable in Dobson, 2003. The earlier version was in the context of a sociological selection of papers on Benjamin and the urban. The present argumentation shows a greater engagement with philosophical issues, education and mainstream translation theory. 4. Benjamin didnt translate manuals or academic treatises. Nor did he translate in court or in other public places for ofcials or those in need, as a professional translator might well do. 5. Venuti (2000, p. 5): uses the term relative autonomy of the translation for the textual features and operations or strategies that distinguish it from the foreign text and from texts initially written in the translating language. 6. This has not stopped those who have regarded the creative destruction involved in translation as a type of nation-building project, where the new translation assumes the form of an enclosed set of meanings and delimited experiences. That is, the imposition of a unity founded upon a closure for socio-political purposes. For example, to Germanise the foreign and thereby create a culture and tradition more in keeping with the everyday needs of Germans lay behind Luthers translation of the Bible, to translate was for Luther to Germanise (Ulriksen, 1991, p. 208). But, such ambitions were rarely realised. With Luthers Bible, different interpretations of the text arose and with them the desire for new translations. 7. Bergdhals (2009) argument draws on the inspiration of Derrida and the psychoanalytic desire to be understood and respected by the other. 8. Not so much mother tongue as mothers tongues. 9. Joyce potentially disrupts in the sense that the source becomes ever more distant and diffuse; something not necessarily desirable in the classroom management debates where advocates for clarity in teaching are to be found. 10. In the presentation of this example I make no claim to being an expert on teaching English as a second language and remain indebted to the work of Chvala and Graedler (2010). 11. In this example I am indebted to the work of Holt and Kvammen (2010). 12. Jakobson (2000, p. 114): Intralingual translation or rewording is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language. 13. The Report (2004, p. 135) states the following on sampled science curricula in European countries: The image of science conveyed implicitly by these curricula is that it is mainly a massive body of authoritative and unquestionable knowledge. 14. Scientic inquiry as a pedagogy also faces challenges: this approach faces more reluctance from teachers as they often consider it as time-consuming leading to conict with the requirement to deliver curricula content (2007, p. 17).

2012 The Author Journal compilation 2012 Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain

The Pedagogue as Translator in the Classroom

285

15. In 2006 in Norway a new national curriculum was introduced in all subjects: Knowledge Promotion Reform (Kunnskapslftet) 16. While spiren might also be also be translated with the word cultivation, which in English also has both an agricultural and more general meaning, the terms germination and sprouting are retained because they reect more closely the Norwegian words narrower and more limited meaning. 17. See Heritage, 2008 for a social constructivist approach to learning progressions.

REFERENCES
Baer, J. and Koby, G. (eds) (2003) Beyond the Ivory Tower. Rethinking Translation Pedagogy (Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing). Benjamin, W. (1979) One-Way Street and Other Writings (London, New Left Books). Benjamin, W. (1992) The Task of the Translator, in: Illuminations Essays and Reections, H. Arendt, ed. (London, Fontana). Bennett, R. (2011) Formative Assessment: A Critical Review, Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, 18.1, pp. 525 Bergdahl, L. (2009) Lost in Translation: On the Untranslatable and its Ethical Implications for Religious Pluralism, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 43.1, pp. 3144. Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B. and Wiliam, D. (2003) Assessment for Learning. Putting it into Practice (Maidenhead, Open University Press). Brooker, P. (1994) Key Words in Brechts Theory and Practice of Theatre, in: P. Thomson and G. Sacks (eds) The Cambridge Companion to Brecht (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). Cadava, E. (1997) Words of Light. Theses on the Photography of History (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press). Carrov, M. (1999) Towards a Theory of Translation Pedagogy. Unpublished doctoral thesis. University of Lleida. Chvala, L. and Graedler, A. (2010) Assessment in English, in: S. Dobson and R. Engh (eds) Vurdering for Lring i Fag [Assessment for Learning in Subjects] (Kristiansand, Hyskoleforlaget). Derrida, J. (2001) What is Relevant Translation? Critical Inquiry, 27, pp. 174200. Dobson, S. (2003) The Urban Pedagogy of Walter Benjamin: Lessons for the 21st Century, Part I. (London, Goldsmiths Press). Dobson, S. (2006): Urban Pedagogya Proposal for the 21st Century, London Review of Education, 4.2, pp. 99114. Dolan, J. (1967) A Note on Quines Theory of Radical Translation, Mechanical Translation and Computational Linguistics, 10.1/2, pp. 2637. European Commission (2004) Europe Needs More Scientists (Brussels, The Commission). European Commission (2007) Science Education NOW: A Renewed Pedagogy for the Future of Europe (Brussels, The Commission). Heidegger, M. (1971) The Origin of the Work of Art, in his: Poetry, Language, Thought (New York, Harper and Row). Heritage, M. (2008) Learning Progressions: Supporting Instruction and Formative Assessment (Washington DC, Chief Council of State School Ofcers). Holt, A. and Kvammen, P. (2010) Vurdering av naturfagkompetanse [Assessment of Competence in the Natural Sciences], in: S. Dobson and R. Engh (eds) Vurdering for Lring i Fag [Assessment for Learning in Subjects] (Kristiansand, Hyskoleforlaget). Jakobson, R. (2000) On Linguistic Aspects of Translation, reproduced in: L. Venuti (ed.) The Translation Studies Reader (London, Routledge), pp. 113118. Jacobs, C. (1993) Telling Time (Baltimore, MD, John Hopkins University). Joyce, J. (1975) Finnegans Wake (London, Faber and Faber). Kiraly, D. (2003) From Instruction to Collaborative Construction: A Passing Fad or the Promise of a Paradigm Shift in Translator Education? in: J. Baer and G. Koby (eds) Beyond the Ivory Tower. Rethinking Translation Pedagogy (Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing).

2012 The Author Journal compilation 2012 Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain

286

S. Dobson

Naganuma, M. (2008) A Systematic Functional Approach to Translation Pedagogy in Japan, in: N. Nrgaard (ed.) Systematic Functional Linguistics in Use. Odense Working Papers in Language and Communication, 29, pp. 589600. National Research Council (US) (2007) Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8, R. Duschl, H. Schweingruber and A. Shouse, eds. Board of Science Education, Center for Education. Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (Washington, DC, The National Academies Press). Nietzsche, F. (1969) On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo (New York, Vintage Books). Paz, O. (1991) Literature and Literalness, in his: Convergences. Essays on Art and Literature (San Diego, CA, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich). Quine, W. (1960) Word and Object (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press). Ruitenberg, C. (2009) Distance and Defamiliarisation: Translation as Philosophical Method, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 43.3, pp. 421435. Saito, N. (2009) Ourselves in Translation: Stanley Cavell and Philosophy as Autobiography, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 43.2, pp. 253267. Simensen, A. (2007) Teaching a Foreign Language. Principles and Procedures, 2nd edn. (Bergen, Fagbokforlaget). Steiner. G. (1996) No Passion Spent. Essays 19781996 (London, Faber and Faber). Steinsholt, K. and Dobson, S. (eds) (2009) Verden Satt ut av Spill [The World as Dislocated] (Trondheim, Tapir Publishers). Steinsholt, K. and Dobson, S. (eds) (2011) Bildng. Introduction to an Diffuse Educational Landscape [published in Norwegian as: Dannelse. Utsikt over en ullendt pedagogisk landskap] (Trondheim, Tapir Publishers). Stobart, G. (2008) Testing Times. The Uses and Abuses of Testing (London, Routledge). Ulriksen, S. (1991) Oversettelse som Sprkog KulturskapenedeGlimt fra en Historie [Translation as Languageand Creating CultureGlimpses from a History]. In: P. Qvale (ed.) Det Umuliges Kunst. Om Oversette [The Impossible Art: Translating] (Oslo, Aschehoug). Venuti, L. (2000) Introduction, in: L. Venuti (ed.) The Translation Studies Reader (London, Routledge).

2012 The Author Journal compilation 2012 Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain