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In his note asking for a contribution on this topic Fred Uleman asked "What are the core things that you try to teach your students?" Well, above all, I want to impart my own sense of translation as being lots of fun, immensely satisfying and intellectually (as well as financially) rewarding. If I can 'hook' students on translation-I don't always succeed-the hardest part of my job is done, and the rest then largely boils down to helping them learn the mechanics, which are eminently teachable...
...with one partial exception-i.e., target language competence. It is certainly possible to teach the rules of English grammar and punctuation and to introduce students to accepted or recommended conventions of English style (e.g., the use of synonyms to avoid repetition). Yet it is difficult to change writing habits that are well entrenched by the time students enter a postgraduate program. For students who sign up expecting the focus to be on Japanese, it often comes as something of a shock when we spend so much class time discussing the ins and outs of English correctness, appropriateness, style and register. My aim is to encourage students to be more 'picky' about their English-both the technical and expressive aspects-and to acquire a discerning eye when revising their work. Over and beyond the mechanics, it is particularly difficult to teach the creative 'plus alpha'-the innate flair for English writing that sets a truly outstanding translator apart from competent translators. The best we can do in this respect is to present students with examples of work by brilliant translators in the hope that this will motivate them to at least strive towards that ideal.One area in which we do not provide explicit formal training is source language competence. The assumption is that students who manage to pass the rigorous entrance test (more than half of the applicants fail each year) already possess adequate comprehension skills. Nevertheless, their Japanese inevitably does improve over the two years as an outcome of intensive training using highly technical or sophisticated Japanese source texts. The only aspect of Japanese on which we focus overtly is the old-fashioned ability to 'parse' complex sentences, as I find that when faced with lengthy sentences or multiple embedded clauses students tend to resort to the hit-and-miss method of cobbling the meaning together on the basis of lexical units, without fully grasping the relationships amongst the various syntactic elements.
In addition to a sound knowledge of the source and target languages, translators need an awareness of the contrastive differences between the two languages, as well as transfer competence (the skill that distinguishes translators from people who are merely bilingual). It is not difficult to teach the translation-relevant differences between Japanese and English at the lexical, syntactic, stylistic and discourse levels, and over the years I've compiled extensive class handouts on these problems. Imparting transfer competence is also surprisingly straightforward once students realise what translation is all about-i.e., conveying the sense in a manner appropriate for the intended audience and the purpose for which the translation is to be used. Specifically, training here entails acquainting students with common textual techniques (e.g., transposition, modulation, compensation, paraphrasing), cognitive strategies (e.g., deverbalisation, contextualisation, monitoring) and translation conventions (e.g., when and how to use translator's notes, whether to reproduce errors in the source text, how to handle culture-specific terms). Imparting all this knowledge is easy, but problems in comprehending the Japanese or in expressing the meaning in natural English often have students scuttling back to the supposedly 'safe' option of a literal rendition of the words or form.
Another skill we teach is textual competence-i.e., the ability to recognise and translate a range of genres and text types, as well as familiarity with their different conventions and requirements. Related to this is subject competence, which is one of the most challenging areas, as it is impossible to teach an assortment of specialised topics to the depth required, given the restricted time available and the limits to my own expertise. In addition to the introductory translation course, our program offers separate courses in economics/financial translation, sci-tech translation, legal translation and medical translation. Over the years we have built up a solid foundation in each of these areas and can now provide students with substantial handouts on particular topics such as the translation of contracts or patents or package inserts, but it is impossible to go into many fields in any great detail. Instead we emphasise the importance of learning how to research a topic effectively-e.g., how to search the Internet for information and glossaries, and how to use specialised databases such as Medline. This brings us to terminological competence, which involves not just familiarity with the key terms in various fields, but also basic skills in terminology retrieval, verification and management.
Much of the learning that takes place in our classrooms originates with the students themselves as they dissect each other's translations and acquire critical faculties that can then be applied to their own work. Quality control competence develops from experience in vetting the work of other translators and learning to identify good and bad translations and the causes of each.
Despite the ivory tower image of universities, the primary focus of our program is vocational, and professional competence is a key component of our teaching. This involves imparting a sense of professional responsibility and professional standards and an awareness of how to act in real-life situations, including in teams. Students are introduced to the business aspects of working as a translator (e.g., how to estimate and charge, tax and insurance matters, how to avoid payment defaulters, how to certify translations). We constantly emphasise the connection with the professional world (all of our teachers continue to work professionally in addition to their university teaching)-but often it is only when students are faced with particular situations in the real world that what they have learnt in the classroom takes on immediate reality for them. (Once students are accredited we occasionally pass professional jobs on to them.) Students also receive training in areas that most practitioners have little formal background in-i.e., professional ethics and translation theory.
The word 'theory' tends to be met by translators with cynicism, dismissal or even antagonism. I am constantly amazed at how intelligent and well-educated translators who put great effort into learning about mechanical engineering or patents or pharmaceuticals, for instance, seem to have absolutely no interest in learning about their own profession beyond the nuts and bolts aspects. Admittedly, much translation theory is not easy to follow at first-but nor is mechanical engineering until the basic concepts and terminology have been mastered. And it is very enlightening to broaden one's horizons by learning that there are many more issues involved and more possible approaches to translation than people seem to realise. Having learnt so much from my 先輩 in various fields over the years, I am very open to 'standing on the shoulders' of those who have thought longer and harder about translation than I have. An understanding of translation theory offers students principles on which to base their decision-making. The ability to explain and justify one's choices is also a necessary skill when dealing with clients, and to this end we require students to append commentaries to each translation, discussing any comprehension or formulation difficulties and the steps taken to resolve these problems or the principles on which the decisions were based, as well as any reference sources used.
Technological competence is obviously an essential skill for professional translators today. Students are expected to be familiar with the basics of word processing before entering our program, and they pick up more advanced techniques during their studies. Our reference librarians provide formal training in Internet and database search techniques, and students are introduced to technical aids for the translator such as voice recognition and translation memory software. The university is purchasing a licence for Trados this year so that students will have the opportunity for individual hands-on practice. Technology is clearly an area that will assume increasing importance in the future, and our training needs to reflect this changing market reality. Technology is, however, something that translators can teach themselves if necessary, whereas it is not easy to obtain sustained and intensive feedback on one's work, so this is what we emphasise in our program.
One area that is important for translators but in which we do not provide formal training is cultural competence and general world knowledge. By this point in their careers our students are well acquainted with Japan, and all they need is to become more consciously aware of the differing sociocultural contexts within which Japanese and English texts are received and acquire meaning, so that they will be equipped to resolve any problems specific to the cross-cultural transfer of texts. The fact that most of our students are under 30 years of age means they lack extensive knowledge of current affairs or historical events, so we strongly encourage them to watch the Japanese and English news each day and to read newspapers and journals in both languages in their spare time.
Fred also asks "Are there any special hints?" Well, yes-far too many to enumerate here or even in the hundreds of pages of handouts I give my students. Most hints pop up in class discussion and in the individual feedback on students' work each week. From the teacher's perspective, correcting students' homework is also the most demanding aspect of teaching translation in terms of the sheer workload involved. Although there are some ways around this (e.g., peer correction), this feedback is the most valuable aspect from the students' viewpoint. Workshopping students' homework in every class can, however, become rather monotonous, so we try to introduce variety in the form of various exercises. For instance, we occasionally work together on a translation that is projected from the teacher's computer onto a large overhead screen as the translation evolves through combined brainstorming amongst the students with some input from the teacher. Students find this very useful and enlightening, although we never manage to cover much text in one session. Occasionally students also work in pairs, or we do 'think-aloud' translations or sight translations-both of which reveal problems and inefficient strategies not evident in students' finished translations. Such techniques allow us to focus more on the creative process of translation, rather than on the end product. Examining various versions of the same text by different translators is also very instructive, particularly when students have already produced their own version.
As frustrating as it can be (pointing out the difference between restrictive and non-restrictive clauses yet again!), teaching translation gives me a real 'buzz', akin to the 'translator's high' I get when I finally come up with that perfect expression for which I've been casting around for the last ten minutes. It's very rewarding to be able to pass on some of what I've learnt through trial and (much) error over the years. As for Fred's deliberately provocative suggestion that teaching translation might be 'impossible', the proof of the pudding is in our graduates who have been out working as professional translators around the world for the past two decades.
Judy Wakabayashi worked as senior translator at the Australian Embassy in Tokyo and then as a freelance translator in Japan before completing a Ph.D. on Japanese-English translation. She currently teaches translation in the Master of Arts in Japanese Interpreting and Translating at the University of Queensland, and has published various articles on translation. From September 2002 she will be teaching in the new MA program in Japanese-English translation at Kent State University in Ohio.