Theorizing a postmodern translator education
Published online: 20 July 2023
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.21163.was
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.21163.was
Abstract
The goal of this article is to unite the different strands of postpositivist thinking about translator education,
including both axiological and epistemological, as well as the often-neglected political dimensions. Accordingly, the study
considers evidence-based versus values-based education, performativity, dialogue, deconstruction, reflexivity, emergentism, border
pedagogy, complexity, pluralism, and the enactment of “multiple voices” (González-Davies, Maria. 2004. Multiple
Voices in the Translation Classroom: Activities, Tasks, and
Projects. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ). Thirteen postmodern notions and their implications for translation pedagogics are surveyed, including ethics,
intersubjectivity, shifting classroom power structures, and the dilemma of canon. How are uncertainty and fragmentariness
reconciled with the inherent progress-orientedness of the educational project? And significantly, how is postmodern consciousness
enacted in classroom practice? In seeking what Torres del Rey (Torres del Rey, Jesús. 2002. “Encuentros y desencuentros posmodernos con la didáctica de la traducción: lenguaje, cultura, poder y
pedagogía [Postmodern meetings and mix-ups with translation teaching:
Language, culture, power and pedagogy].” In Cartografías
de la traducción: Del post-estructuralismo al multiculturalismo [Cartographies of
translation: From poststructuralism to multiculturalism], edited by Román Alvarez, 233–278. Salamanca: Almar., 271) calls a more
participatory and reflexive educational context, I entertain postmodern teaching and learning in the discipline as a possible
approach to active, flexible, creative, collaborative, and inclusive roles and identities for both facilitators and learners.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The postmodern and translation: Thirteen postmodern notions and their implications for pedagogics
- 2.1The partiality, uncertainty and subjectivity of knowledge
- Implications for the classroom
- 2.2Emergent versus aprioristic knowledge
- Implications for the classroom
- 2.3Postmodern ethics emphasizes intersubjectivity and fluidity
- Implications for the classroom
- 2.4Shift from monologue to dialogue
- Implications for the classroom
- 2.5Dehierarchized power roles in the classroom and uncovering the hidden curriculum
- Implications for the classroom
- 2.6Space and time unmanaged
- Implications for the classroom (and beyond)
- 2.7Student empowerment
- Implications for the classroom
- 2.8Teacher empowerment
- Implications for the classroom
- 2.9Language and power in (and around) texts
- Implications for the classroom
- 2.10Elusivity of ‘originals’
- Implications for the classroom
- 2.11Laying bare of the device (the Russian formalist term for self-reflective foregrounding)
- Implications for the classroom
- 2.12Inclusivity of marginal voices
- Implication for the classroom
- 2.13Complex systems
- Implications for the classroom
- 2.1The partiality, uncertainty and subjectivity of knowledge
- 3.Potential problems and a tentative conclusion
- Notes
References
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