Abstract
ARE YOU STILL TRANSLATING OR DO YOU UNDERSTAND? TRANSLATION PRACTICES AND THEIR ROLE IN GERMAN AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY
Translating and also mediating in one or more languages has become an indispensable part of everyday life in modern societies. This happens especially when one is subject to intercultural communication situations and has to cope in a multilingual world as an agent. On the one hand, it is the innate-language variables of individual language usage that sometimes even in the same linguistic community cannot be perceived at all or are very difficult to understand and can therefore be misunderstood. Complementary to this, the communication situation, the social environment of the speaker, and the reason for the communication are further variables that can play a role as non-linguistic factors in a conversation. When attempting to transfer the whole thing to foreign language teaching from these points of view, various aspects come into play. These are aspects that have to be learned, adequately tested and practiced as foreign language learners, how to construct the thoughts in German and conversely to accept what is meant in German. Translating in foreign language teaching, but how? Why and with what occasion? These are questions that will be addressed in this paper. In this respect, it is an action research which emphasizes the subject of translating in real lessons as an aid to understanding and presenting methods of mediation as exemplification. On this basis, the translation and its role in the foreign language teaching process with its limitations and possibilities should be highlighted.
Keywords
translation, foreign language, german as a foreign language, translation practices
