VIII.

PRAGMATICS

Translating can be used to teach various aspects of pragmatics including the different rhetorical
conventions in learners' mother tongue and foreign language, the way speech acts may be differently
realized, and problems arising from unfamiliar schemata.

A. Speech Acts
o Learners are likely to transfer features of mother tongue speech acts to the speech acts of the
foreign language. The methodology involved the use of questionnaires and participants were
asked to formulate requests which had been contextually framed within the text of the
questionnaire.

B. Rhetoric
o Widdowson (1979) - translating could be exploited to draw out the distinctions between what he
calls deep pragmatic/rhetorical equivalence, deep semantic/grammatical equivalence and
surface structural equivalence.
o He proposed that in translation, there must exist not only a deep grammatical/semantic structure
but also a deep rhetorical/pragmatic structure.
o Bringing learners' prior knowledge to bear on the learning task is more successful than
presenting foreign language learning as entirely divorced from previous learner' experience.
o Translating is one efficient way of integrating in a holistic manner relevant prior knowledge with
the new learning task or presenting language "not as the acquisition of new knowledge or
experience, but as an extension or alternative realization of what the learner already knows".
o Tudor (1987) noted that the effect of the German L1 material was to define more precisely the
communicative goals of L2 production and that these goals encouraged the learners to acquire
new L2 resources and encouraged achievement rather than reduction strategies.
o Tudor also makes the point that translation as cross linguistic communication is a highly
communicative activity.

C. Schemata
o Learners could acquire such schemata by translating texts in groups which were culturally
distant, thereby gradually accustoming themselves to both distance and difference.
o Mohammed (1990) emphasized the use of parallel texts as a methodology to uncover
similarities and differences between the foreign and native languages.
o Mage (1978) claimed that to be able to illustrate the rhetorical patterns in Spanish and English
scientific texts using parallel texts from both languages and maintained that his pedagogical
results were good.
o Theil (1985) has attempted to use parallel texts in second language teaching using the following
framework:
1) Students analyze the source and target texts at the level of content, expression, and
intentionality.
2) The results are compared noting the way the above three levels are realized in both
languages.
3) The students use the information gleaned to produce a third parallel text.
 Thiel's suggestions are useful. The idea is potentially valuable and the following sample material
based on this work would be of help in developing appropriate schemata in learners.

D. Cultural Awareness
It is important to include a cultural component within language teaching pedagogy how then can
translating be used to help orientate learners to the foreign language culture.

IX. STRATEGIC COMPETENCE

o Translators like language learners and other language users do use strategies. They use more
second language based strategies than first language based. It does foster development away
from first language based strategies towards more effective use of second language strategies.
o Bialystok (1983) Good learners and good translators use more second language based
strategies than first language based and that beginners were characterized by an over
dependence on first language based strategies notably transfer and language switch

X. TRANSLATING AND INTERPRETING AS COMMUNICATIVE SKILLS

o People learn languages in order to be able to communicate with others who speak these
languages directly; they also learn them in order to enable others who cannot communicate
directly to communicate through them.
o Klein-Braley and Smith (1985) believe that certain kinds of activity involving translating deserve
a place in the communicative classroom by using activities that would occur in an authentic
setting which function would be emphasized rather than grammatical/semantic aspect of
translating.

REFERENCE: Thomas, S. (1992). The Pedagogical Application of Translating in Second

Language and Foreign Language Classrooms. In The Implications of Translation Theories for
Language Teaching Pedagogy. London: University of London.