Curriculum Renewal in Translator Training: Vocational challenges in academic environments with reference to needs and situation analysis and skills transferability from the contemporary experience of Polish translator training culture John Kearns B.A. (First class hons.), M.A. Thesis submitted for the award of PhD in Applied Language Studies under the supervision of Dr. Heinz Lechleiter, School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies, Dublin City University. Submitted for examination: July 5th 2006 Declaration I hereby certify that this material, which I now submit for assessment on the programme of study leading to the award of ph.D. in Applied Languages, is entirely my own work and has not been taken from the work of others save and to the extent that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my work. Signed: LL. John Kearns (Candidate) ID number: 52154335 Date: July 5th 2006 2 Dedication For my late mother, who sort of initiated things. 3 Contents Contents 4 Abstract 7 List of Tables and Figures 8 List of Abbreviations 9 Acknowledgements 10 A Note on Terminology 11 URL Activity 12 Introduction 13 Chapter 1 Challenges Facing Translator Training: Current Thoughts on the State of Play 24 1.1 Translator Training and the Rise of Translation Studies 25 1.2 How It Should be Done: Some Attempts to Identify Challenges Facing Translator Training Over Thirty Years 28 1.2.1 Critiques of the 1970s and ’80s: Wolfram Wilss 29 1.2.2 Don Kiraly: Nine Challenges for Translator Training 34 1.2.3 The ECML Report 43 1.2.4 Anthony Pym’s Ten Recurrent Naiveties 49 1.3 Training on a Traj ectory 5 5 1.4 What Should be Done? Translator Training and Translation Studies 60 1.4.1 Holmes, Toury, and the Descriptive Orientation in Translation Studies 61 1.4.2 Conceiving of Translation: Descriptive Translation Studies and the Equivalence Postulate 64 1.4.3 Translation Studies and the Competence Debate: Pym’s Minimalism 67 1.5 Conclusion 74 Chapter 2 A Curriculum Studies Approach 77 2.1 What Is a Curriculum? 81 2.1.1 Hidden, Tacit, and Latent Curricula 83 2.1.2 Curriculum, Reform, and Ideology: Bobbitt and Dewey 86 2.1.3 Curriculum Ideologies beyond Bobbitt and Dewey 90 2.1.4 Curricular Outcomes: Goals, Aims, Objectives, and Competencies 95 4 2.1.5 Curriculum Guidelines and Their Functioning 101 2.1.6 Mossop contra Gouadec via Pym: Can a Minimalist Competence Constructively Inform Curriculum? 104 2.2 A Survey of Some Curricular Guidelines for Translator Training 105 2.2.1 Leila Razmjou: Guidelines for a Translation Curriculum in Iran 106 2.2.2 Gabr’s Human Resource Development Approach to Curriculum Renewal 109 2.2.3 Defeng Li: Market-Oriented Curriculum Development in Hong Kong 116 2.2.4 Margherita Ulrych: The Variety and Flexibility in How Others Do It 125 2.2.5 Dorothy Kelly: The State of the Art 131 2.2.6 Skilbeck, White, and Richards: Situation Analysis in Curriculum Renewal 142 2.3 Conclusion 147 Chapter 3 Needs and Situation Analysis for Vocational Training in the Academy: The Challenge of Transferable Skills 149 3.1 Needs Analysis 150 3.1.1 Introduction: The Nature of Needs and Needs Analysis 150 3.1.2 Stakeholders in Needs Analysis 158 3.1.3 Deciding on the Purposes of Needs Analysis 162 3.1.4 The Relationship between Needs Analysis and Situation Analysis 164 3.2 Situation Analysis 166 3.2.1 Societal Factors 167 3.2.2 Project Factors 168 3.2.3 Institutional Factors 169 3.2.4 Teacher Factors 170 3.2.5 Learner Factors 171 3.2.6 Adoption Factors 173 3.2.7 Profiling All the Factors 174 3.3 The Academic and the Vocational in Translator Training: Challenges for Needs and Situation Analysis 175 3.3.1 The Cultivation of the Mind and the Vocational Impulse 177 3.3.2 Against the Academic / Vocational Dichotomy 183 3.3.3 Academic Rationalism and Translators: At Your Peril! 190 3.4 The Challenge of Skills Transferability in the University Curriculum 196 3.4.1 The Example of Transferable Skills at UK Universities 196 3.4.2 Determining Transferable Skills Societally 202 3.4.3 Vocationalising Translator Training: Byrne’s Freelance Training and its Transferability Potential 205 3.4.4 A Starting Point for Translator Training: Transferable Skills in the Modem Languages Curricula 208 3.5 Conclusion: Learner Empowerment in Translator Training 213 5 Chapter 4 Guidelines in a Time and Place: Translator Training, Bologna, and Poland 216 4.1 The Bologna Process 217 4.1.1 Bologna and Action Lines for University Education 218 4.1.2 Criticisms of the Bologna Process 223 4.1.3 Bologna and Translator Training: The Germersheim Declaration 225 4.2. Coming to Terms with Bologna: Translator Training in Poland 235 4.2.1 Education in Poland 236 4.2.2 Poland and the Bologna Process: An Introduction 245 4.2.3 Polish and its Translation Culture 247 4.2.4 Translator Training in Poland: Recent Trajectories 258 4.2.5 Bologna Reforms in Philologies in Poland 266 4.2.6 Quo Vadis Germanistyko? 270 4.2.7 The Example of Torun 277 4.3 Conclusion 284 Conclusion: We Do Not Train Translators, We Teach Translation (And Other Things As Well...) 286 Bibliography 294 Appendix A Key Research Findings, Conclusions and Recommendations of the Surveys of Stakeholders in the Transferable Skills in Third Level Modern Languages Curricula Project Appendix B The Bologna Treaty Appendix C Germersheimer Erkldrung - Translationswissenschaftliche Studiengange und der Bologna-Prozess / The Germersheim Declaration: Translation and Interpreting Studies Programmes and the Bologna Process Appendix D Quo Vadis, Germanistyko? / Quo Vadis German Studies? 6 Abstract Curriculum Renewal in Translator Training: Vocational challenges in academic environments with reference to needs and situation analysis and skills transferability from the contemporary experience of Polish translator training culture John Kearns This work examines the principles underlying curriculum renewal for the training of translators. It considers recent work from Translation Studies on the nature of translation competence, arguing that a more dynamic understanding of the nature of translation must be reflected in a departure from traditional transmissionist pedagogical practices. Consideration of these issues in a curricular framework must also acknowledge the ideological potential of curricula themselves to prioritise certain relationships between the learner and society, relationships which are investigated from the perspective of a socially situated view of the translator. With regard to determining curricular orientation, a methodology of needs and situation analysis is suggested as a means of profiling essential characteristics of the translator’s work in specific contexts, informed by such issues as changing notions of translation, changing employment norms in the language services sector, locally prevailing norms in the educational environment, etc. Major issues impacting on the situational consideration of needs in translator training are examined, in particular the way in which the vocational / academic dichotomy may problematise training in academic environments. The notion of skills transferability is presented as a theme which is important both to the training of translators and to maximising social reconstructionist potentials in university curricula. In the final chapter, the issues presented in the first three chapters are discussed in relation to the challenges facing translator training in Polish universities with the implementation of Bologna Process reforms. In particular, Polish notions of academic and vocational education are analysed and the experience of one particular university philology is presented as a case study. The conclusion takes the themes discussed in the work and presents them in terms of the opposition between ‘training translators’ and ‘teaching translation.’ Future research trajectories are also proposed. 7 List of Tables and Figures Tables Table 1. Dollerup’s stages of language teaching and translation in society (Dollerup 1996) 56 Table 2. Stimulus questions from Innovation and E-Learning in Translator Training (Pym et al., 2003) 78 Figures Figure 1. Holmes’s ‘map’ of Translation Studies (Adapted from T oury 1995:10) 62 Figure 2. Comprehensive Quality Control Model (CQCM) (Gabr 2001a) 110 Figure 3. Gabr’s Cycle of Program Design and Development (Gabr 2001b) 111 Figure 4. Moustafa Gabr’s Model of Curriculum Development (Gabr 2001) 114 Figure 5. Kelly's curricular design process (Kelly 2005:3) 132 Figure 6. Summary of Skilbeck’s situational model for curriculum renewal 145 Figure 7. Adaptation of White’s and Skilbeck’s situational model of curriculum renewal (after White 1989) 146 8 List of Abbreviations AIIC International Association of Conference Interpreters CAT Computer Assisted Translation CIUTI Conference Internationale Permanente d ’Instituts Universitaires de Traducteurs et Interpretes [International Permanent Conference of University Institutes of Translators and Interpreters] CQCM Comprehensive Quality Control Model DCU Dublin City University DES Department of Education and Science (UK) EC European Community ECML European Centre for Modem Languages ECTS European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System [originally European Credit Transfer System] ELT English Language Teaching ESIB The National Unions of Students in Europe EST European Society for Translation Studies EHE Enterprise in Higher Education EHEA European Higher Education Area ERA European Research Area EUA European University Association FIT Federation Internationale des Traducteurs [International Federation of