Translation in foreign language teaching: Russian language teaching through English literary translations

Abstract

The following article focuses on the use of re-translations in the course Russian as a foreign language and suggests translation activities that help the students to improve their knowledge of the Russian language by reading, analyzing and discussing re-translations. This method was used in the second part of the 60-hour elective course Russian Language I, once the students were familiar with the Cyrillic alphabet and were able to read shorter texts. English re-translations of Russian literary texts were used. The students focused primarily on recognizing and translating culturally specific elements. The aim of the activity was to stimulate students’ interest in a foreign cultural environment and to enable them to use the existing knowledge of the foreign language and their imagination instead of dictionaries and glossaries. In the second phase of the activity, students presented their solutions and ideas and shared their experience with the professor.

Prispevek se osredotoča na uporabo povratnega prevajanja pri učenju ruščine kot tujega jezika in začrta predloge prevajalskih aktivnosti, ki bi lahko študentom pomagali, da z branjem, analizo in razpravami o povratnih prevodih izboljšajo svoje znanje ruskega jezika. Omenjena metoda je bila uporabljena v drugem delu 60-urnega izbirnega predmeta Lektorat ruskega jezika I, ko so se študentje že seznanili s cirilico in so bili sposobni brati krajša besedila. Uporabljeni so bili angleški prevodi ruskih literarnih besedil, študentje pa so se morali osredotočiti predvsem na prepoznavanje in povratno prevajanje kulturnospecifičnih elementov. Cilj dejavnosti je bil pri študentih spodbuditi zanimanje za tuje okolje ter jim omogočiti, da uporabijo obstoječe znanje tujega jezika ter svojo domišljijo in ne le slovarje ter glosarje. V drugi fazi dejavnosti so študentje predstavili svoje rešitve in ideje ter svoje izkušnje delili s profesorico.