Translation as a reading strategy

YOSHIDA, Takashi : Translation as a reading strategy
73
Translation as a reading strategy
（Research Notes）
YOSHIDA, Takashi
Professor Emeritus, Fukushima University
Abstract
In TEFL in Japan（hereafter, TEFLJ）, when we speak of communication, it usually indicates aural-oral
communication. Communication means English conversation, no more or no less. ‘Communicative skills’ refer exclusively to listening and speaking skills. As a result, although communication in the strict sense of the term involves
the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, the skills of reading and writing are, more often than not,
made light of in pedagogical consideration, especially in the beginning stage of teaching where reading and writing are
introduced and utilized merely with a secondary purpose of reinforcing oral skills of listening and speaking.
The present research notes attempt firstly to delineate the four skills in terms of channel and style in order to offer an appropriate frame of reference in discussing reading in TEFLJ. It then focuses on the role of translation as a
teaching and learning strategy for developing reading skills. Finally, proposing knowledge of grammatical terms as
meta-linguistic knowledge useful for both teachers and learners, the research notes site examples of meta-linguistic
and cultural awareness across English and Japanese.
Key words : communication skills, reading, translation, teaching and learning strategies
Prologue
This paper is aimed at those Japanese TEFL teachers who are teaching ‘reading’ to the learners of English at university level. This entails that ‘communication’（and its teaching in the classroom）refers specifically to ‘reading’ and does not focus exclusively on listening and speaking activities. All the input is, by way
of visual medium, organized around helping students to accurately comprehend the content of the written
English text or discourse. Teachers are not supposed to ‘get carried so far away that they find themselves
requiring students to give complete and beautiful Japanese sentences as the product of their translation from
English after quibbling over lexical, syntactical and semantic niceties. We are not interested in bringing up
good translators. Throughout this paper, ‘translation’ is looked upon as the fifth skill of communication. The ultimate goal of our reading class should be to familiarize students with the strategies for accurate
comprehension. ‘Translation’ is one of the important and efficient means to achieve this goal and not the goal
in our teaching activities. Our experience of teaching reading tells us that even partially translated version
produced by the students can function as a window through which to quickly look at their unsuccessful processing of the sentences. ‘Translation’, therefore, can be the effective and swift way to accomplish the purpose of teaching reading comprehension. How do you tell your students about their erroneous processing of
written language ? What is the meta-language to use in communicating the problem to the students ?
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Bulletin of Faculty of Human Development and Culture Fukushima University No. 17 June, 2013
We propose English grammar as a set of meta-languages functioning as a frame of reference for both
teachers and learners to resort to and interact in teaching reading comprehension. Yoshida（2006）categorized all strands of meta-linguistic knowledge into two levels based on the perspectives of Widdowson’s
（1978）distinction of Usage and Use and demonstrated how translation activity based on such knowledge
functions both as teaching and learning strategies. Motive behind this research
After the introduction of the（aural-oral）communicative approaches in TEFLJ, our students’ ability to
read English has deteriorated beyond doubt. They just can’t read English !! Their knowledge of English
grammar has become so poor that they just cannot talk about the English language they are learning. I feel
an urgent need of teaching English grammar which is basic enough to understand and express their trouble
spots to teachers when pointed out during reading comprehension activities. I also believe that this proposal
is valid and justifies the motive behind this research if we remember, as teachers, that classroom learners are
not so much interested in communicating（incl. comprehending）meaning as learning explicit and grammatical
forms in the classroom. ‘…it is likely that learners will approach the L2 as an object to be studied and intentionally learnt.’（Ellis, 2008 : 773）
Introduction
Delineation of aural-oral communication and visual communication :
Lawrence makes distinctions of channel and style in her 1977 paper ‘Writing as Thinking Process’. Channel
a. listening and speaking : language（message）in the aural-oral（spoken）medium of communication
b. reading and writing : language（message）in the visual（written）medium of communication
In a, the message flows along the ‘sound’ channel［mouth（speaking）
→ ear（listening）and in b, the
message flows along the ‘letter’ channel［hand（writing）
→ eye（reading）］
Style
c. message which is originally designed and stylized for aural-oral（spoken）discourse
d. message which is originally designed and stylized for visual（written ）discourse
In c, the message is communicated in conversational style and in d, in literary style.
At the time of communication, c requires the presence of both speaker and listener. Ordinary conversation,
public speech, lecture, oral report are the typical examples of c, while d does not presuppose the face-to-face
presence of writer and reader at the time of writing and reading. Letter, diary, newspaper, novel, essay are
the examples of d.
Four genres of style and channel combined
i. c-a Message in conversational style flows along spoken channel
ii. c-b Message in conversational style flows along written channel
iii. d-a Message in literary style flows along spoken channel
iv. d-b Message in literary style flows along written channel
YOSHIDA, Takashi : Translation as a reading strategy
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i and iv are the commonly observed genres of language activities. ii is the case where aural-oral
conversations are printed in the novel or textbooks for spoken English, for instance. iii is the case where letters, newspapers, essays and written reports are read aloud. （There are peculiar genres such as the written
novel stylized originally for listening or the conversation deliberately designed for reading but these need special treatment.） It is the distinctions of ii and iii above that need to be taken into consideration when spoken
and written discourses are discussed in TEFLJ. When reading is discussed in association with translation, it
is the genre delineated by iv.
Translation as a teaching and reading strategy
Translation, or more specifically, the Grammar-Translation Method, has long been made to play a role of
villain in TEFL in Japan（TEFLJ）
, especially since the introduction of teaching methodology associated with
the Communicative Approach. However, if we assume that translation is one of many means to achieve the
end product of reading, i.e. comprehending the message the text conveys and if we think of the statistically
established fact that the correlation between reading skill and other 3 skills in English is the highest, we
should emphasize more the role of ‘translation’ as an important strategy for reading in TEFLJ.
The Output Hypothesis（Swain, 1985）and Form-Focused Approach（DeKeyser, 1998）have been accepted as approaches which, at least theoretically, could support a restoration of translation as a teaching
methodology in TEFLJ. The present research notes are an attempt to give translation a legitimate place and
role in the teaching and learning of ‘reading comprehension.’
Translation as a means of reading comprehension
Based on the view that translation is not the end product of education but a means（strategies）to reach
the goal of teaching comprehension, we propose ‘translation’ as one of a series of reading strategies for teachers to teach and learners to learn and practice, if learning itself is a mirror image of teaching and teaching a
mirror image of learning.（Yoshida, 2013）
Widdowson（1978）distinguishes ‘Usage’ and ‘Use’ as follows :
Usage … ‘that aspect of performance which makes evident the extent to which the language user demonstrates his knowledge of linguistic rules’.
Use …that aspect of performance which ‘makes evident the extent to which the language user demonstrates his ability to use his language rules for effective communication’. （In Ellis, 1994）
Yoshida（2006）categorized all linguistic knowledge into two levels from the point of view of its Usage
and Use.
Usage of knowledge（Knowing）
Use of knowledge（Using）
Structural knowledge
Associative use
Procedural knowledge
Automatic use
Metalinguistic knowledge is the equivalent of a conscious Declarative knowledge, which is comprised of
Structural knowledge and Procedural knowledge. Yoshida proposed to organize and compile Usage of knowledge from the direction of Use of knowledge（Associative use and Automatic use）and redefined the School
Grammar as Neo-prescriptive school grammar. Notice at this point that the traditional direction has been
that from Usage to Use. 76
Bulletin of Faculty of Human Development and Culture Fukushima University No. 17 June, 2013
A conscious manipulation of the linguistic knowledge redefined is required in the decoding process of
translation（e.g. from English into Japanese）that leads to effective and accurate reading comprehension. Thus, the Grammar -Translation Method as a teaching strategy provides teachers with a quick way to identify
and correct learners’ errors in reading, making it easy for teachers to discover and pinpoint the trouble spots
learners are struggling with. If we check the result of our students’ translation in Japanese, we will easily
notice problems with their processing of reading in English, and may comment, e.g., “Ah, you have taken the
object noun for the subject noun,” “You haven’t realized the objective complement noun in the sentence,” “You
were not aware that the sentence pattern here is S + V+ O + C,” or “You were not able to identify the antecedent noun of the relative clause in the sentence.” Examples such as these are easy to cite from our classroom experience. Grammatical terms are utilized as ‘meta-language’ for both teachers and learners to resort
to and interact. The meta-linguistic consciousness fostered by translation activities will sensitize learners
towards the linguistic saliency – points to pay attention to – in reading materials. Another advantage of translation as a teaching strategy
Another advantage of conceptualizing ‘translation’ as a teaching strategy can be noted if we recall that the
processes involved in translation often produce an awareness of meta-linguistic differences between English
and Japanese, which subsequently leads to a recognition of cultural differences as well. This has underlain
one of the long term goals of English Education in Japan for many years（Yoshida, 2006）.
To cite only a few examples of these differences :
English : SVO（process focused cognition）vs. Japanese : SOV（result focused cognition）.
English : elder brother, younger brother（reflecting a horizontal societal and cultural orientation）
（difference non-lexicalized）vs. Japanese : 兄，弟（vertical societal and cultural orientation）
（difference lexicalized）
English : What makes you laugh?（fact-centered way of cognition）vs. Japanese :
どうして君は笑うの？（lit. Why do you laugh ?）
（human-centered way of cognition）
English : pragmatic（suprasegmental, paralinguistic, nonlexicalized）honorifics（situation-dependent
representation） vs. Japanese : lexicalized honorifics（language-dependent representation（Cf.
Sapir-Whorf pseudo -Hypothesis））
（Yoshida, 2011）
Readers of this paper are also invited to read Yoshida（2006）: ‘Issues of English Language Education –
Kyoyoo-shugi（教養主義）and Jitsuyoo-shugi（実用主義）─ A Search for Compatibility’, which was read in
1994 at Southern Japan Seminar, Panama City, Florida, U.S.A.. The advantageous function of translation discussed in this section is given its place in supporting Kyoyoo-shugi.
（2013 年 4 月 12 日受理）
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「日・英敬語＜politeness expression＞対照研究「日本語の敬語表現は英語ではどのように表
わされるか」─ 川端康成『雪国』
（昭和 12 年（1937））の敬語表現と Edward G. Seidensticker による同
著英語翻訳書 Snow Country（Tuttle Publishing Co.）中の英語翻訳文を資料として─．
吉田孝．2013. 「文法の知識（knowledge of grammar）とその運用（use of grammar）
」
．福島大学総合教育研
究センター紀要第 14 号．
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to the members of Fukushima Second Language Acquisition Research Seminar（FSLARS）
for their insightful comments on this paper. Also, he is thankful to Prof. Sean Mahoney of Fukushima University for
his proof reading of the early version of the paper.

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