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Instrumentalising Foreign Language Pedagogy in Translator and Interpreter Training: Methods, goals and perspectives
Edited by Olaf Immanuel Seel, Silvia Roiss and Petra Zimmermann-González
[Benjamins Translation Library 161] 2023
► pp. 138–155

Chapter 8
The scaffolded language emergence approach in translation programs

A monolingual, nonlinear path towards additional language emergence

| University of West Bohemia , Czech Republic
| Johannes Gutenberg University , Germany

This chapter introduces the epistemological foundations of the Scaffolded Language Emergence (SLE) approach to promoting the emergence of additional languages in adults and suggests some ideas and techniques for its implementation in the classroom at university level. Developed over a period of some 20 years by Don Kiraly at the School of Translation, Linguistics and Cultural Studies (FTSK) of the University of Mainz, Germany, the SLE approach has been used successfully to introduce hundreds of translation students at that institution to one or more of 15 additional languages.

The authors have found this approach to be an innovative way to foster additional language acquisition in the context of translator training. They believe that adopting such an approach at an early stage of one’s translation study program can provide a fertile environment for adults to establish a basis in a foreign language. Its early adoption can also help adult language learners develop and rediscover their natural skills for learning a language by means of personalized, embodied and authentic learning activities.

Keywords: SLE, scaffolded language emergence, language learning and acquisition, translator training
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The essence of the approach
  • 3.The monolingual initial language experience
  • 4.What actually goes on in an SLE class
  • 5.Rationale for the use of SLE in translation and interpreting degree programs
  • 6.Some core ideas for implementing a language course based on SLE
    • 6.1The facilitators’ roles
    • 6.2Setting the stage for an SLE course
    • 6.3Authenticity and complexity
    • 6.4Drawing on affordances
    • 6.5Collaboration, autonomy, and affect in the classroom
    • 6.6Embodiment and grammaticalization
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 1 June 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.161.08kir
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