This article dwells on the significance of translation training in gender-related issues. It focuses on raising the question of gender bias in audio-visual translation (AVT). The latter is posited to maintain the same patriarchal visions found in language use as in culture. To this end, the classroom is viewed as the perfect space where prospective translators are engaged in questioning how gender is part and parcel of the source texts as multi-dimensional and ‘polisemiotic’ in nature, and how lexical and semantic choices are significantly powerful to reveal underlying ideologies, subjectivities, attitudes and mind-sets. This research is corpus-based. It was carried out with my under-graduate students studying the module of ‘Translation 2.’ Multi-modal text samples containing problematic gender issues were purposefully selected to bring forth the reactions that I sought to make. By adopting critical discourse analysis (CDA) with its three dimensional framework: the descriptive, interpretive and explanatory, in a pedagogically collaborative learning environment, the subtitled texts with the classroom activities and the group discussions were meant to measure how training in AVT translation can practically sensitize future translators to the salience of gender-bias in mainstream media hence triggering in them the need for change. Through all the covered phases of the classroom training, gender is duly addressed to have an all-encompassing approach to subtitling in English, French and Arabic. The main goal is to gauge the consistency of a male-dominated discourse that permeates all media channels. It is geared towards helping trainees as individuals, rather than professionals, to overcome the challenges posed by all the patriarchal ideologies from one language to another.
One of the perennial controversies in an EFL/ ESL classroom is whether to use or not to use translation in bi/ multilingual contexts. And here, I am referring to the use of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA)/ Moroccan dialect (Darija), Amazigh, or French in the Moroccan English classroom. To understand the complexity of this inter-lingual aspect, this paper aims at verifying the impact of using translation on the learning process of bilingual/ multilingual learners of English. It espouses the contention that the use of the existing linguistic repertoire is cognitively and practically unavoidable, especially in a mobile digital era. For assessing the credibility of this claim, a mixed methods approach is chosen to weigh out the adoption or rejection of using translation in foreign language learning and teaching. 52 middle and high school teachers were randomly selected to investigate the amount of translation used to teach English in their classes, and how it affects the students’ acquisition of this language. Through classroom observations, unstructured interviews, and a questionnaire, the data were collected to measure the consistence of an inter-language phenomenon that has kept haunting EFL/ESL theoreticians and practitioners alike. The findings show that more than half of the instructors favor the moderate use of translation in their teaching. By taking into consideration the learning experience of the teacher, the age of the learners, and the motivation factors that correspond with the rising of the mobile and communication technologies available, the need to use translation is seen as inescapable. Hence, it is calling for a judicious adoption that would prioritize the fulfillment of communicative, cross-linguistic, and cross-cultural competencies in foreign language learning.
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