Major Challenges and Search for Solutions

While translation has become “a full-fledged craft and profession” (Király, 2003, p. 3), the research on translation pedagogy has been relatively new and largely dominated by “anecdotal evidence and case studies” (Colina, 2003, p. 29). Translation teachers and scholars are faced with various problems and challenges, such as the modes of teaching and the proper evaluation methods. It was in consideration of the problems and challenges that we started this book project to provide a platform for translation teachers and scholars around the world to share their studies, thoughts, experience, and practice. There was a time when translation teaching was undervalued, and it was believed that “translators are born, not made, or that translation is something that is learned on the job, not in the classroom” (Baer & Koby, 2003, p. vii). This view is reflected in such concepts as natural translation where translation is seen as a skill inherent in bilinguals (Harris, 1977). For this reason, translation pedagogy is confused with foreign language acquisition, and translator trainers have referred to methodologies developed for teaching foreign languages (Király, 1995, p. 7). However, the teaching of translation is not equal to that of a language, for translation or cross-cultural communication is a much more sophisticated process than the re-coding of linguistic structures (Olshanskaya, 2003, p. 173). It demands a wide range of analytical and creative skills and expertise, which requires a teaching methodology that is considerably different from traditional language training (Olshanskaya, 2003, p. 173). Trainers need both practical experience and theoretical knowledge in order to train functional translators. In addition to knowing the skills and abilities required in the profession of translation, trainers also need to know how to identify and recognize patterns of behavior and guide students to discover the underlying regularities (Nord, 2010, p. 214). In one word, there are many factors to be investigated and many challenges to be dealt with in translation pedagogy today.