Translation course: Guide of contents:

PART 1: Introduction

Chapter 1-2:

What are International norms for the presentation of a translation?

Chapter 3:

What are the differences between learning a foreign language and learning translation?

Answer: In translations, the documents are usually authentic.

Chapter 4

Affectivity and learning:

The learning of a native language is an unconscious process where affectivity plays a key role. The development of language is tied to “relationship of significance between the child and the person or object or action intended by the use of that particular word or locution.”

Chapter 5

Foreign languages and linguistic awareness

Plurilingualism: Applies to children who have learned several languages since birth

Multilingualism: Applies to children who have learned foreign languages at school

“Studies carried out on plurilingual children have shown that code switching implies an early knowledge - although it may be incomplete - of the varieties of the languages. From the moment in which a language is no longer a spontaneously used instrument, but becomes an object of meditation, i.e. when language is used to describe a language, we are talking about "metalanguage". In the case of plurilingual children, we can, therefore, talk about "metalinguistic conscience"⁶”

“When a multilingual individual learns a language at school, he is in fact living a metalinguistic experience: nothing is any longer spontaneous or automatic, nearly everything is subject to rules explicitly explained and to be learnt in a rational way. Even in this case, the affective component is very important: the relationship with the teacher, the environment in which the language is taught can determine in a substantial way the student's attitude towards the learning of a foreign language. The best results are obtained when there is a strong and positive relationship with the teacher (a sort of didactic transference) or with whoever one is learning the language from, or when there is a strong tie (aesthetic, ideological, affective) with the culture or the countries in which the language is spoken.”

Chapter 6 and 7: READING

Part 1:

- What are the phases of the DECODING process or reading a word?

- What are Homophones and homographs

- What means the ARBITRARY relation between significant and signified?

- What are the notions of Co-text and Context?

- Perception and selection of auditory and graphic matches. (Astronomy-gastronomy)

- Reading transforms a document into a part of the reader’s “inner language”.

Part 2:

- We classify our perceptions into cognitive types (or inner language) (example of the mental representation of the horse)

- First we “match” our perceptions to our cognitive types (ex:Tonite-tonight)

- Second, once we have a “match”, we must determine the specific meaning of the word. Individually, we will relate the word “horse” to different and specific personal memories…

- Reading implies reconstructing the elements of the sentence together (=syntactic process)

- Reading implies identifying the relevant areas within the semantic field (=paradigmatic process)

- Micro-analysis (cohesion of the elements of the text) and macro analysis (pertinence in relation to its field of reference or “model”)

- Bottom-up analysis: One semantic element at a time.

- Top-down analysis: From the general idea and structure of the text to its details.

Chapter 8:

Mental processes linked to writing:

- Every language categorizes the human experience in a different way.

- In our minds, the verbal language works to communicate with others, while we use our inner language to think, or “communicate with ourselves”: These are two different systems: Our inner system and our verbal categorizing system.

- For example, dreams are a direct expression of our inner system of language, and that’s why they are subject to analysis in psychology and psychoanalysis.