Abstract:

According to a common adage, translation is not about translating words but about translating meanings. One and the same meaning, thus, in different languages can be rendered by different linguistic means. Mastering the art of translation often means juggling a variety of these linguistic means in two or more languages.

Traditionally, translators for international organizations have worked from a foreign language (so-called languages B/C) into their native language (so-called language A). Today, however, in the increasingly global world, translators are more often than not required to be able to work into at least one, usually two, foreign languages. Moreover, sometimes translators may find themselves tasked with working from language C into language B, i.e. from one foreign language into another, leaving their native language out of the equation altogether. Schools of translation do not normally offer this kind of training. To respond to the growing professional demand, however, there emerged a need for research and teaching strategy development for such a course.

This paper outlines a sequence of teaching activities for a group of Russian speaking students majoring in International Media and Communication Studies at MGIMO-University (Moscow State Institute of International Relations). The students, all of whom are native Russian speakers, have reached CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference) C1 level in English and CEFR C2 in Spanish, and are currently taking two professionally-oriented translation courses, from English into Russian and from Spanish into Russian. The paper puts forward a lesson plan where the students are taught translation from Spanish (language C) into English (language B). The activities are aimed at identifying syntactical and lexical differences and similarities between English and Spanish, as well as conducting a comparative analysis of the students’ native language, Russian.

The paper argues that translation from one foreign language into another is facilitated by linguistic intercomprehension, a field in linguistic research that emerged relatively recently and has so far mainly focused on intercomprehension in language teaching.

Keywords:

Translation, intercomprehension, directionality, vocational translation training.