Translation as a communicative unit in language

Why translate to learn a foreign language?

Why translate to learn a foreign language?

Nowadays, pedagogical translation is a subject of debate between educators and “didacticians”. The discussion is not only about its usefulness, but also about the danger that it can engender against a “healthy and good” learning of a foreign language. This situation seems quite logical. To reject the effectiveness of translation in perfecting a language is to go against the scientific works dealing with this issue. It is also to deprive the student of his own intellectual strategies of learning a foreign language at a time when his needs and abilities have to be respected, as the principles of the new pedagogy claim.

All recent studies on the process of acquiring a foreign language consider that there is a general mechanism that uses the mother tongue and escapes from the learner’s consciousness. Researchers speak of the existence of intermediate languages: a set of structures and semantic values ​​transferred from one “a well-known language” to another “less well-known”. Translation, therefore, whether we like it or not, plays an important role in the structuring and evolution of these intermediate languages ​​that facilitate the learning of a foreign language.

All recent studies on the process of acquiring a foreign language consider that there is a general mechanism that uses the mother tongue and escapes from the learner’s consciousness. Researchers speak of the existence of intermediate languages: a set of structures and semantic values ​​transferred from one “a well-known language” to another “less well-known”. Translation, therefore, whether we like it or not, plays an important role in the structuring and evolution of these intermediate languages ​​that facilitate the learning of a foreign language.

However, if we take into account the multidisciplinary nature of translation and its communicative function, the teaching / learning of translation must aim at both linguistic competence (the language and its rules) and translation competence ( translation techniques, documentation, research, etc.). To learn this means of communication that is translation, one must first understand the ST statements and re-express them adequately according to the conditions of communication. And the practice of translation according to this principle can only accumulate and improve the communicative competence of the learner.This is the principle adopted by the communicative method in teaching foreign languages. According to the communicative method, translation is an authentic activity, since it is on the one hand, practiced constantly in real life, outside the classes, and on the other hand, it is the only activity in relation with the foreign language. This leads us ultimately to the following question: