On The Function Of Pedagogical Translation In College English Teaching

Translation has been playing an important part in the practice of foreign language teaching although it has, in the theoretical circles, weathered stages from thriving to dismissal and back to revival. In the end of 19th century many scholars claimed that traditional grammar translation method might decrease students'learning efficiency due to the effect of mother tongue transfer and student's excessive dependence on mother tongue. Then communicative approach was adopted in English teaching in order to stress listening and speaking skills. In the recent years, the weakness of communicative approach has been gradually recognized. Both linguists at home and abroad made reappraisal for the function of pedagogical translation. This article tries to restudy the relationship between pedagogical translation and foreign language teaching from historic angle and the reality of college English teaching in China.Language transfer, which was put forward in the 1960s, is a common phenomenon in the process of second language learning. The term"transfer"was a psychological term originally. It refers to the influence that the mother tongue exerted on the target language. The influence can be positive or negative, so transfer can be classified as positive or negative transfer. Positive transfer promotes learners' comprehension of target language, while negative transfer impedes the process of target language learning. Transfer has close relationship with behaviorism whose representative is Robert Lado. He believed that the differences between the two languages caused learning difficulties which may lead to errors and the similarities were helpful for learning. However, this opinion was challenged by Chomsky who stands for cognitivism. He emphasized the importance of human mind's internal factors but not that of transfer in foreign language learning. Although there are different views on this issue, the author of this paper advocates the importance of language transfer for Chinese learners in the practice of pedagogical translation. The author takes the characteristics of the environment of college English teaching into consideration, such as college students, teachers, teaching materials and text formats. According to the result of my survey by means of questionnaires and my own teaching experience, the author attempts to explore the necessity and feasibility of pedagogical translation in college English teaching and elaborates the specific measures of promoting positive transfer and avoiding negative transfer in detail. Moreover, aiming at the actual problems, some instructive suggestions are given.