Abstract
This paper describes the design of a small action research project conducted in a course on translation of general texts from German into Spanish. The project methodology combines creative writing techniques with those of data-driven learning put forward by Johns (1991)Johns, Tim. “Should you be Persuaded: Two Examples of Data-Driven Learning.” Classroom Concordancing. ELR Journal (1991): 1-16. for foreign language learning and applied by Laviosa (2014, in press)Laviosa, Sara. “Corpora and Holistic Cultural Translation.” Corpus-Based Translation and Interpreting Studies: From Description to Application / Estudios traductológicos basados en corpus: de la descripción a la aplicación. T. Sánchez Nieto (Ed.), Berlín: Frank & Timme Verlag für wissenschaftliche Literatur (2014): 31-51. to translator training, as well as with the methods of corpus use for learning to translate proposed by Marco and Van Lawick (2009)Marco, J. y Lawick, H. v. “Using Corpora and Retrieval Software as a Source of Materials for the Translation Classroom.” Corpus use and Translating: Corpus use for Learning to Translate and Learning Corpus use to Translate. A. Beeby, P. Rodríguez-Inés y P. Sánchez-Gijón (Eds.), Amsterdam: John Benjamins (2009): 9-28.. The aim of the project is threefold: (i) raising the students’ awareness on the possibility of interference between German and Spanish past tenses when translating narrative sequences; (ii) allowing the students practicing data-driven learning about translation issues, and (iii) observing if these interventions bring about a qualitative change in their translation performance, specifically in the decrease of interference when translating narrative sequences with past tenses from German into Spanish. In the paper, special attention will be paid to the theoretical basis of the project, as well as to the methodological decisions involved in its design.
Keywords
Corpus-driven translation teaching and learning; Creative writing; Linguistic competence; Mother tongue; Action research
