Productive Bilingualism and Translator Education - Political, Sociocultural Background

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Productive Bilingualism and Translator Education

by Mr. Wanwei Wu
Post Box 52# School of Foreign Languages,
Wuhan University of Science and Technology
964 Heping Avenue Qingshan District,
Wuhan 430081,
P. R. China
Tel: 85+27+68862581
E-mail: wuwanweione@yahoo.com.cn

Chapter 5.
Political, Sociocultural Background

This chapter is concerned with the political and sociocultural environment of translator training and the far-reaching influence on translators’ personality and works if productive bilingualism model is used in translation education. To some extent, this chapter serves as a link to connect the previous chapters on the author presented productive bilingualism model of TEFL, translation education and the relationship between TEFL and translation as a comprehensive whole.

Linguistic Identity
There are some personal and social reasons for bothering one’s identity. “At a personal level, to learn about our own identity is a way to be at peace with ourselves in order to freely engage in other types of learning. At a social level, the world is full of violence and crimes perpetrated against persons solely because of their identity: race, religion, national origin, ethnicity or sexual orientation. To learn about our identity is a prevention mechanism that would allow us to conceive of others as an opportunity for exchange and not as a threat.” (Bers, Marina Umaschi and Rabbi Sergio Bergman “A constructionist perspective on values: a response to postmodern fragmented identity”)

Longman Language Activator gives an definition of identity like this: “the definite character that a person or group sees themselves as having, which lets them feel different and separate from everyone else.” (edition of SFLEP 1997, p.203) In other words, one’s identity is the “relationship between the individual and group in a given environment,” (Aronson 1972) (Gao, Mobo C F “Influence of Native Culture and Language on Intercultural communication: the Case of PRC Student Immigrants in Australia”) which can be reflected in terms of ethnic origin (racial identity), citizenship (national identity), religion (religious identity) and language (linguistic identity) and culture (cultural identity).

“Language is considered to be at once a collective and a personal matter, a token of group identity as well as personal character.” (Walt Wolfram) It is “the most important among the symbolic elements transmitted from generation to generation by the reproduction of the social practice in human groups.” (Belzunce “Ortzi”, Francsico Letamendia “Reflections on the Nature of Stainless Nationalism”) “It connects people with something greater than themselves. It allows people that share a language to identify with each other although they are different.” (Mabele, Mlungisi C. “Linguistic Identity”) “You are what you speak. The language I learned as I grew up became who I was. I identified with its history and the political or social state of the time.” “Taylor states: “Language makes us declare our identity. Without language our identity stays unknown and hidden” (qtd. in “A Journey Through Narrative”)

However, linguistic identity is complex in that one may have more than one for instance, national language and ethnic community language. “Language does not always imply identity. People also use language to achieve intelligibility in a wider community than their own ethnic, regional or national one.” (Walter, Catherine “The Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights”) In this case, the language, national or foreign is “more a means of intelligibility than a feature of identity.” (Walter, Catherine “The Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights”)

Linguistic identity arises when we learn a new language. “A new language makes you notice things that you have always missed. It leads to an appreciation of things that you never knew existed. And, in doing so, a new person is formed; the old is not gone but is somehow different.” (Mabele, Mlungisi C. “Linguistic Identity”) In other words, the acquisition of a new language is not just a kind of practical skill that one can acquire value free. A learner has to take an attitude of engagement in order to be competent in that language. (Gao, Mobo C F)

Cultural Identity
In the previous sections, we have learned that language learning entails culture learning and that culture exerts tremendous influence on our lives, values, world outlook, and our responses to experience and everything.

Cultural identity, like linguistic identity tells who we are as individuals and what makes us different from others. Acknowledging our cultural identities makes us share and hear each other’s stories and relate to the individual struggles, joys and shared realities as well as stereotypes and discrimination. (Naomi Ross et al)

Cultural identity, like linguistic identity is not obtained naturally but acquired with effort. It is “’socially constructed’ and requires continuous negotiation among the individual, the community, and the society at large.” (Andres Torres) Therefore, education plays a crucial role in the formation and dynamic development of one’s identities by means of transferring cultural heritage. (Lasonen, Johanna “Internationalisation of vocational education: a case of a music teacher becoming multicultural”)

Multicultural Person
Foreign language learning and translation offer an excellent opportunity of intercultural communication, a very complicated and difficult process requiring multicultural competence and sensitivity to cross-cultural differences. This is because “a person’s world view, self-identity, his systems of thinking, acting, feeling, and communicating, are disrupted by a change from one culture to another.”(H. Douglas Brown “Learning a second culture” in Joyce Merrill Valdes, 1991 p.34)

Cultural conflicts occur when there are misinterpretations, ethnocentric attitudes, negative stereotypes and prejudice about individuals and groups different from us. In order to prevent such conflicts, learners have to develop intercultural sensitivity which means recognition and respect of divergent cultural influences rather than a loss of one’ own cultural identity. As a matter of fact, “The striking contrasts of a second culture provide a mirror in which one’s own cultures is reflected.” (Deena R. Levine et al, 1982, p.200)

Cultural adjustment is another result of intercultural communication. Different versions of acculturation processes are provided such as 1) five stage theory (honeymoon period, culture shock, initial adjustment, mental isolation, acceptance and integration. (Deena R. Levine et al, 1982, p.199) 2) four stages: tourist, survivor, (the learner is psychologically still anchored to the L1 identity) immigrant, citizen (requires the learner to possess a new relatively autonomous L2 identity) (William R. Acton and Judith Walker de Felix “Acculturation and Mind” in Culture Bound by Joyce Merrill Valdes) 3) six stages: “The first three stages (denial, defence and minimisation) reduce ethnocentrism, the idea that one's own group is absolutely unique. The next three developmental stages (acceptance, adaptation and integration) increase ethnorelativism, helping one to see one's group as one among many others.” (Lasonen, Johanna) In spite of differences, the highest stage of acculturation process is the same: integration. In other word, to be a multicultural person is the aim of intercultural communication or education of any kind. Definition and features of multicultural person are to be discussed in the next section.

According to Peter Adler, a multicultural person is an ideal person with both knowledge and wisdom, both integrity and direction, both principle and fulfillment, both balance and proportion, a person upholding universal harmony and reserving and appreciating the differences. (Adler, Peter S “Beyond Cultural Identity: Reflections on Multiculturalism”) His multicultural identity is “based not on a “belongingness” but on a style of self-consciousness that is capable of negotiating ever new formations of reality” (Adler, Peter S “Beyond Cultural Identity: Reflections on Multiculturalism”)
This does not mean the multicultural person’s own personal, ethic or cultural identities are of no value to him. Instead, a clear understanding of these constant and unchanging things in his life form the basis on which adaptation and adjustment are made possible. Just as William R. Acton et al puts it, “one’s experience of acculturation, from Guiora’s perspective, very much depends on the psychological health of the first language ego. If learners have strong self-esteem in their own culture, their chances of becoming true “citizens” of another culture are enhanced significantly.” (William R. Acton and Judith Walker de Felix “Acculturation and Mind” Joyce Merrill Valdes, 1991 p.28)

For EFL students in China, specially translation trainees who are at a higher stage of English learning, improved English and Chinese aptitude, increased cognitive ability, strengthened and enriched Chinese culture identity, and enhanced foreign culture empathy should be the meaning of multicultural person. This is exactly the very place where productive bilingualism model and translation education meet each other.

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