Language learning and translation

Kirsten Malmkjær
The University of Leicester

Table of contents

While language learning or acquisition is an obvious prerequisite for translation, the part that translation might play in language learning and acquisition has been the subject of debate in both Translation Studies and language pedagogy in the West. Here, after the dismissal by proponents of so-called “natural methods” of language teaching and learning of the grammar-translation method, very few experts in language pedagogy have felt inclined to recommend translation as a fruitful method of or aid in language pedagogy, particularly at the primary and secondary levels of the education system – even though many teachers have continued to find it beneficial. For example, Harvey (1996: 46) describes the situation in France as follows:

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