Taking the Time. Studying language effects in the translation class

The current translation market places growing emphasis on technological tools that assist or even replace the translator in quickly producing adequate target texts. As a person involved in cultural processes that affect public discourse and society at large, both as a literary translator and as a teacher of translation, I feel that academia should not only pursue market-oriented translation skills, such as procedural knowledge of computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools and machine translation (MT), but also aim at strengthening would-be translators' processes of interpretation and making them autonomous language experts, aware of both the effects generated by language and their responsibility in using it. To support my position, I will draw on cognitive linguistics and critical discourse analysis (CDA). Adopting a constructivist approach, I will then refer to works by Kiraly (2000), Venuti (2013) and Laviosa (2014), and add some methodological proposals. Students will initially work individually and in groups, focusing on source texts, their translations and comparable texts in order to identify key language items and work toward meaning. By deploying CDA analytical tools, they will discuss the role played by individual items as well as the overall effect of both STs and TTs. New source texts will then be analysed in preparation for translation. The actual translation, effect analysis and final editing, carried out as team work, will complete a cycle aimed at 1) helping students to build knowledge through experience; 2) sensitising them to the complexity of the translation process and the paramount value of meaning-making within every single context.