Introduction

In this chapter I want to make a plea for reintroducing the cross-cultural practice of translation to increase language learners' pragmatic competence. It is high time I believe that the dominance of monolingual practices in language teaching is overcome, and contrastive, transcultural techniques be adopted to enrich the repertoire of pragmatics teaching. The restriction in much of foreign language teaching to monolingual methodologies derives from a mistaken belief that using students' mother tongue endangers their nascent competence in foreign language use, the myth of the negative effect of transfer from the mother tongue and last but not least the influential impact of Anglophone teaching philosophies, and their profit-driven English-only teaching methodologies and textbook industry. Against all this I will argue in this chapter for a reconsideration of translation. The structure of the chapter is as follows: first, because translation is all but forgotten in mainstream foreign language teaching, I will deal with the nature of translation and also present my own translation theory. Secondly, I will give a brief historical outline of how translation has been used in the past in language teaching. Thirdly, I will make a number of suggestions as to how translation might be fruitfully used to improve learners' pragmatic competence.

What is Translation?

The German poet and novelist Heinrich Heine once compared translation with a dance in chains. Others have compared it to a kiss through a handkerchief or the back of a carpet. These metaphors imply that translation is somehow 'not the real thing'. But what exactly is it about translation that makes it so different from 'proper' original text production? Translation is a universal cross-linguistic and cross-cultural social practice at least two millennia old.