Abstract
This paper argues that translation can be an effective method of learning and teaching English. It explores various translation theories and methods to show how the act of translation may enhance the learning and teaching of English. Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Task of the Translator” is analyzed in reference to how translation recreates the values that accrue to a foreign text over time. Vladimir Nabokov’s essay “Problems of Translation: Onegin in English” is analyzed for its emphasis on the value of literal translation. Eugene Nida’s essay “Principles of Correspondence” is analyzed for the different types of equivalence it proposes. Itamar Even-Zohar and Gideon Toury’s ideas of translation are analyzed and their argument that literary translations are facts of the target system is investigated. George Steiner’s essay “The Hermeneutic Motion” is analyzed for its view that translation is an interpretation of the foreign text that is profoundly sympathetic, exploitive, and ethically restorative. I analyze Steiner’s argument that language is not instrumental in communicating meaning but is constitutive in reconstructing meaning. Hans J. Vermeer’s essay “Skopos and Commission in Translational Action” is analyzed for its idea of the translators skopos or aim as a decisive factor in translation. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s essay “The Politics of Translation” is analyzed for its advocacy of literalism in postcolonial translation issues. By exploring and understanding the various relevant translation theories and methods, I will show how the learning and teaching of English may be done through translation.
Recommended Citation
Ghosh, Ritwik
(2024)
"Translation as a method of learning and teaching English,"
International Journal of English Learning & Teaching Skills (IJELTS): Vol. 5:
Iss.
2, Article 2.
Available at:
https://research.smartsociety.org/ijelts/vol5/iss2/2