Review of Alan Duff's "Translation" (OUP/RBT)

Review of Duff's "Translation" (OUP/RBT) by David Owen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

The following blog post details some ideas on Alan Duff's Translation (1989), an OUP Resource Book for Teachers that was a significant step towards re-normalising the use of translation as a language-teaching tool after it had largely fallen from grace. The ideas are organised in question-and-answer format, as this text is the result of a series of online interviews, in which my response was canvassed, from May to June 2011.

As a language teacher, I became interested in translation studies because this area gave a theoretical framework to intuitions that I'd developed through classroom practice. Specifically—and in direct opposition to my own teacher training—I felt that it was at best counter-intuitive and at worse actually rather perverse to deny the naturalness with which students used translation as the most basic tool in their box when it came to comprehending or producing language. Shutting off this highly productive language-learning route led—in my view—to confusion, frustration and demotivation; facilitating it, on the other hand, appeared to me to show students that you really could cross that language divide in a fairly simple and effective way.

Also, I had become deeply suspicious of that old idea, trotted out time and again in EFL, that you really can learn to think in another language: the evidence that I've seen is either wholly inaccessible (stuck away in someone's memory) or else purely anecdotic. It may be true, though some fairly detailed psycholinguistic material from Translation Studies that I then went on to read about this suggested absolutely the opposite. In all events, even if it is possible to achieve some sort of "cross-thinking", I suspect that this can only occur after a very considerable immersion in a second language, by which I mean years, not months. Yet this idea—the notion that you can cognitively operate in another language— was and still is used as a central justification for prohibiting translation in the EFL classroom. Again, I found that this was unhelpful: since most students in my experience patently don't tend to think very much in the language of study (and how on earth do you demonstrate such a thing?!), why not focus instead on providing a scaffold for the ways that they evidently DO think, and which will allow them to construct valid, communicative meaning in a comprehensible manner? Certainly, I would never say that translation is the only way to do that (it's not) but it works for a lot of people a lot of the time. So my feeling was that it should be made equally available and should also be "taboo-free". I was attracted to Translation Studies because these issues were discussed intelligently and in an objective way, with no mention of prohibiting anything…

According to Duff, why has translation fallen out of favour with the language teaching community?

Why translation fell out of favour in EFL is relatively east to answer, I think. First, as a basic component to the infamous Grammar-Translation Method, a method that came into disrepute as early at the 1960s, and was then pretty definitively pushed aside by more communicative approaches from the 1970s onwards, translation as a language activity was found guilty by

association. Any use of translation was tainted—quite unreasonably—by the assumption that the teacher was trying to sneak in some grammar translation.

Beyond this, I also think that a major cause of its fall from favour, at least on the European EFL scene, was the mushrooming of minimally qualified EFL teachers produced in the UK through an RSA certification programme leading to the RSA Preparatory Certificate in EFL (the "Prep Cert"). There are similar programmes run by other organisations. By minimally qualified, I don't mean to disparage either the teachers—who were actually mostly graduates—or the RSA, which developed a pretty good course for the purposes in mind. What I mean is that the Prep Cert gave (gives) its trainees only 4 weeks to get classroom-ready, after which they can be deployed practically anywhere, though almost always abroad. So this meant that it made little sense to give over precious time to translation-related methodologies, since the trainees very rarely knew where they were headed and therefore which language/s they'd be working with, other than English. Beyond a very superficial introduction to a range of existing methodologies, the essential teaching methodology that was used and encouraged was the Direct Method. This has been around for a long time now, so it's durable; and one of its main ideas is that all classroom language (instructions, negotiations, etc) are exclusively in the target language. You can see, then, that it's sensible for a Prep-Cert course to opt for this approach. The problem is, though, that this has produced legions of teachers who—for whatever reason—never took their teaching studies beyond this initial stage and were therefore left with a sort of visceral feeling that using the students' own language (their "L1", as it's known) was a kind of pedagogical sin. I'd even go so far to say that anyone—such as me—who has been through a Prep Cert, but has ended up using translation intentionally and systematically, has had to struggle a fair bit (at least early on) with the idea that they're doing something wrong.

In his book Alan Duff highlights some reasons for using translation in the classroom. Please comment in some detail.

Okay, some reasons for classroom use of translation, according to Duff:

1. L1 influence. It's the single most obvious linguistic resource and is almost unlimitedly available to any language learner. Some linguists/anthropologists have (not without controversy) even argued that first-language characteristics actually define conceptual frameworks, so that, for instance, a Germanic speaker's underlying linguistic constraints and structures will shape his/her thoughts in ways that are different from someone speaking a Romance language. In the classroom, its immediacy (a sort of on-tap availability) is a potent resource for comparison, contrast, similarities, etc. with the target language.2. Naturalness. "The defence of translation in general starts with the immense advantage of abundant, vulgar fact" (George Steiner). It happens everywhere, always. No L1-L2 language exchange of any kind can ever occur without some more or less explicit form of translation taking place. Even non-native users of a second language are—in all probability—constantly translating from their L1, however strenuously they might choose to deny it. Its naturalness means that its exclusion from the classroom is simply absurd.3. Transferability. Language competence is not simply the ability to produce (the so-called active skills of speaking and writing) but also the ability to comprehend (the passive skills of

listening and reading). All these skills are translation-dependent. Fine-tuning them can be radically improved through systematic use of translation.4. Translation is not limited to the literary kind (a point that needed to be made more emphatically in 1989 than it does in today's Google-Translated world). By this, Duff simply meant that—as language learning should involve exposure to real language in its manifold forms, translation—which is suitable to all forms and styles of language—could be central to that process.

Alan Duff gives six principles that can be used as strategies when the translator has got problems when translating. Please comment in some detail.

The 6 Principles:

Duff (10) makes it quite clear that his book is not a theoretical work; it's a teaching-resource handbook, and that needs to be kept in mind. That said, the principles he mentions—at least from the point of view of professional translators as opposed to teachers seeking to incorporate aspects of translation into their classes—are open to some degree of question or debate.

1. Meaning. Basically, Duff reinforces the conventional idea of fidelity to the source text (by which,passim, I mean spoken and/or written), suggesting that "arbitrary" additions should be eschewed. As a teaching principle for establishing guidelines for the effective and 'testable' use of translation in class, this makes good sense. In the real world of translation, however, there are many, many contexts in which this sort of close fidelity is untenable or unwanted (though there are also ambits—translations of contracts, for instance, or of scientific experiments—where it is obviously valid and required.2. Form. Duff refers here to "the ordering of words and ideas", that is, the manner in which the original text selects certain words and orders these in a particular way into ideas that are themselves then also ordered in a particular way. He suggests—rather like in his point 1—that this ordering be rigorously respected (and highlight those contexts in which this is obviously required: legal documents, contracts, etc.). But again, whilst this is solid enough advice for the general language class, professional translators in many contexts opt for a "horses for courses" approach, preferring to maintain flexibility in these issues where the source or target text may allow for or even call for such flexibility. This flexibility in the area of what Duff refers to as "form" (a term that is used differently in different circumstances in language and linguistics) may be essential if the translator is to achieve a sense of vitality in her work and, most especially, when the translator is shaping the text for the perceived requirements of a target audience, requirements that are given a greater premium than direct fidelity.3. Register. Translators must be sensitive to, and respect, levels of register and changes of register within a text. A very fair observation, though one that no professional translator would ever need drawing to their attention. Bearing in mind, however, that Duff is emphasising these principles for the effective use of translation in the classroom, making this point patent (i.e., for teachers) is reasonable enough.4. L1 Interference. One of the most frequent complaints made of translations is that the translated text is too close to the original, forcing the translator to live in a sort of permanent Scylla and Charybdis between the demand for fidelity to the source text and the requirement of native-likeness in the result. As with point 3, it's fair to underline the need for a good translation

to sound natural. Quite what that really means and how it is achieved, however, is a very complex question. If we're talking about certain types of written texts, where the translator has time to re-write and revise, this point is a very central concern; if we're talking about spoken translation (more or less formal interpretation), the issue cannot be given the same value, since time is limited and approximation to the source language may be all that can reasonably be achieved. So once again, decent advice for classroom use, but the world of professional translation is much more demanding, complex and multiple for this sort of comment to have anything other than a superficial validity.5. Style and clarity. Duff states that the translator "should not change the style of the original" (11). If we're talking about conference interpretation, for instance, or academic translation, this is clearly very good advice. But in other contexts, where does this "should not" come from? Why can't a translator modify the stylistic characteristics of a text? Once we accept that there are many different types of translation, not simply the "close and faithful rendering" type, stylistic modification presents itself as a highly interesting tool for the translator. In literary translation, for example, it can be a very valuable resource. Obviously, you have to have an objective in mind if you want to modify your source text in this way; but assuming that you have a decent reason for doing so—again, adapting things to audience requirements comes to mind—then why not? As for clarity (which means here the presence of things in the source text that decrease clarity), Duff suggests that the translator "may…correct the defects" (ibid). But how? Directly, thereby over-riding the source? By annotation? Through the use of translator notes/prefaces/introductions? Each one of these options brings its own problems and debates. One thing is the correction of an objective error (a typo, grammatical slip, faulty collocation…), but Duff's imaginary dodgy text, "sloppily written, or full of tedious repetitions" (ibid) is—I think—likely to prove itself a slippery customer. Your sloppy writing might be my idea of Shakespeare; my tedious repetitions might call forth your delight at my clarity.6. Idiom. How to take account of idiomatic language? A good question, relevant to a host of text types and language situations. Duff, drawing here—as elsewhere in these principles—on Frederick Fuller and Peter Newmark, rightly draws attention to the difficulty of this aspect of language, and rightly avoids against translating literally. In colloquial spoken Catalan, for instance, to say that someone's good at something they say the following: "en té els ous pelats", meaning that "his balls are skinned", a term that rarely gets applied to women… The suggested strategies for handling metaphor, simile, sayings and proverbs are standardtranslator handbook stuff, but none the less valid for that. Certainly, more or less literal translation of expressions that cannot usually be rendered effectively and comprehensibly into the source language is fairly typical of the inexperienced foreign-language user and, in this sense, this 'principle' is one that many a learner would do well to learn by heart, in parrot fashion, by rote or otherwise to get off-pat.

From your point of view, does translated information give a reader the same sense as the original?

1. Does translated information give a reader the same sense as the original?

Unfortunately, without wanting to sound pedantic, the only fair answer that I can give to this one is "it depends". What it depends on is actually quite a wide range of things: the faithfulness of the translation, its linguistic quality, its attention to style, relevance and purpose, and so on. But it

also depends on what's called text typology. If, as you might be suggesting, the text is information-based (that is, predominantly factual), a good translation might indeed recreate the original so that the sense is essentially the same. An example of this might be a basic menu—as in "bacon, egg and chips", though not one of those ridiculous menus that say things like "essence of country-raised snail nestled in a soufflé of young wildebeest tails"—or a brochure listing 5 simple advantages of a given product/service, for instance. But, if you mean "does a translated text [in general, as opposed to simply limiting this to "information" texts] give the reader the same sense as the original?", that's much harder to determine. For one thing, how do we know with any tolerable accuracy what sense the original has for its target readers? What does it mean to them as a cultural and linguistic entity? Even worse, what does "mean" mean in this context?

Beyond that, even where we may have established a check-list of relevant and important features in both the original and translated texts so as to ensure that these features have been fully accounted for, we can't even then be sure that this equivalence guarantees that the translation attains the "same" sense as the original. Similar, perhaps, but not the same. A small example: translating Trainspotting will require the translator to have a shot at reproducing a certain type of Edinburgh dialect in whatever language is being translated into. For a good literary translator with a solid understanding of his or her own linguistic culture, this is a feasible task (though not an easy one). But, once the translation has been produced and we marvel at the translator's ingenuity, can we—even then—be sure that the "new" readers are getting the same sense as that conveyed by Welsh's original dialect? Are the connotations, the parameters, the innuendoes of the translated dialect, its distance from the hegemonic standard, its social and national significance, in any real sense the same as the original? That's a tough one.

What this tends to mean then, I think, is that certain types of text make direct equivalence more feasible; other text types (and not just literary texts) mean that this equivalence can only ever be approximate. And that may actually be enough. It all boils down to what and who the translation is for.

How does Duff define translation ( What is the importance of translation and why should we translate)?

2. How Duff defines translation/its importance/why we should translate…

In fact, I think that Duff fairly studiously avoids defining translation in any direct way. It's true that he begins his book with a quote from Ian Tudor that defines translation as "the process of conveying messages across linguistic and cultural barriers" (5), but never specifically elaborates on his own understanding of the term. I take it that this is, first, intentional, in the sense that the book itself is a sort of practical definition of what Duff probably means, and, second, that we—as readers—are to understand that he is in agreement with Tudor's very general (but entirely reasonable) definition. What's clear is that Duff emphasises, through his introductory comments and through the activities set out in the book—the basic purpose of translation as overcoming the obstacle of incomprehension. I would only add that this seems like a pretty sensible strategy on his part: attempting to give a satisfactory definition of something as complex and universal as translation is to invite a landslide of dissenting voices. What's important is not so much the precise definition but the notion that translation means more than just a bookish or boring

undertaking, that it's vastly more than a specialist activity restricted to highly particular moments. In fact, it's all about overcoming that wall of non-understanding between languages that are not mutually comprehensible; in this sense—though this is a slightly geeky point—it's worth recalling that the word "translate" is from Latin translatus, meaning "carried across". Translatus is the past participle of transferre, the etymological starting point for the modern English verb "transfer".

As for the other parts of this question, I think the clearest way to answer them is simply to repeat some of the things I've already said. Whether we're talking here about Duff's own views as expressed in Translation or whether we're referring to views held more generally, the importance of translation is that it's everywhere, always. From the smallest expression used simply for social cohesion (a quick "bonjour" even if you know practically no other French) through to enormously complex renderings of advanced thought and detailed ideas from one language to others, translation is an essential fact of multicultural, multilingual life. In an apparently monolingual community such as certain parts of the UK, for instance, that may seem an overblown claim; travel about a bit, though, and you'll see how weirdly unusual monolingualism is!

Finally, why should we translate? Well, if—as Tudor remarks—translation is getting messages across linguistic and cultural divides, not opting to do so is, in effect, opting for isolation. Translation is communication; the rest—so to speak—is silence.

Could you give us a summary of chapter One?

The book begins with a discussion of Context and Register, and Duff takes the opportunity from the outset to defend and justify this decision by suggesting—quite rightly, of course—that "all language must occur somewhere" (19). In other words, from the perspective of his general approach in this work, it is logical and necessary to begin not with nitty-gritty questions of grammar, but with, in effect, an assessment and understanding of how the macro area of context works, and how register—stylistic fluctuations that attend to context—is determined by this.

His basic concern here appears to be written rather than oral language, and certainly the points that are being made in this opening chapter are far more easily demonstrated in written form. In this respect, one of the underlying notions that is helpfully touched on is the concept—familiar to literary theory—of the implied reader; Duff cites Tricia Hedge's introduction to Writing, an OUP Resource Book for Teachers, in which she makes the evident but important point that "most of the writing we do in real life is written with a reader in mind…" (Hedge in Duff, 20). Why is that important? Because this implied reader provides a genuine purpose for that writing, a purpose that (whatever it may specifically be aimed at) is, in effect, a context. We need not take things quite as far as certain literary theorists who say that the "text"—any text—is actually written not by its author but by its reader, in the sense that the text comes into being with that reader's requirements in mind. It is enough, here, to understand that writing does not occur in a vacuum, and that the idea of a reader, his or her values, ideas, status, age, profession, world-view, beliefs, needs and a long list of etceteras will inevitably shape the outcome of writing itself.

From this stems the related notion of register. Clearly, not all implied readers are the same: some are more formal, others less so; some will have a professional connection with the writer, others are family or friends. These are only some of the possible variants that configure register, and each one of these variants brings with it stylistic parameters and expectations. A clear example of this is Duff's invented sentence that deliberately blends two basically incompatible registers, the scientific and the leisure-related, resulting in a hybrid account of an experiment tinged with the tourist brochure:

"Samples of sand taken from the sun-kissed, palm-fringed beaches of Goa revealed abnormally high concentrations of sodium chloride" (20).

Recognising register, accounting for it and replicating its equivalent stylistic level and objectives is a fundamental task in translation. Failure to carry this out effectively may—and probably will—result in a text that is inadequate for its intended purposes. This is at once a sophisticated requirement in language use but is also completely routine: all of us, many times every day, modify our language for particular purposes, whether it's for telling a bedtime story to a little child, trying to sound posh on the telephone or slipping into (or out of) professional jargon with colleagues. The more advanced language learner needs—like the translator—to be sensitive to the nuances of such shifts in register, to understand why these have occurred, and to be able to replicate them when that may be required. No easy task. Comparative analysis of language from written contexts that translation provides is therefore an ideal tool for the study and teaching of shifting register.

Duff suggests that to ignore register in translation "is to translate words rather than the meaning" (21), which is a nice way of putting it; but—since this is not a translators' handbook but rather a resource book for teachers trying to help language learners to become more effective users of English, the additional point needs making that ignoring register in language learning is equally unsatisfactory. Put simply, it leads to language that is unsuitable to context. In short, adequacy to context is the basic objective of register; otherwise we really are just left with what Hamlet would call "words, words, words".

Can you give us a summary of Duff's second chapter "Word order and reference" regardingA- "stress and emphasis" ,B- "reformulation and repetition" andC- "articles in English and L1"?

So, Word Order and Reference:

Before getting into the specifics of the sections you asked me to comment on, the first thing to say about this second chapter is the justification Duff gives for focussing on this area. Basically, this comes down to three points:

1. The centrality of syntax to meaning2. The relative inflexibility of word order in English (compared, say, to Latin), and therefore the importance of getting it right

3. The significance of items that provide emphasis, such as the word "do" in "I really do agree", forms that are essential to constructing/negotiations English meaning but whose use—and correct intonation—is often very difficult for learners.

These things are all issues that can be especially well highlighted through an emphasis on translation. Particularly, in the area of Stress and Emphasis, Duff's basic point is to show that apparently insignificant "grammatical words" (i.e., words whose primary function is not to express lexical meaning) can actually profoundly alter meaning just as much as any card-holding lexical word. Examples of this, as given by Duff (50, 51) are the emphatic "am" in "I am talking properly" and the emphatic "does" in "…but he does try".

Reformulation and repetition. Meaning is constructed in a huge variety of ways. This is even the case in fairly fixed contexts, by which I mean for example written texts that, traditionally and by their nature, were not negotiated "in situ", which, in contrast, is what often/usually happens in speech. Actually, word-processing tools for collective editing are forcing us to rethink this distinction, but that's another story. Reformulation/repetition is a basic rhetorical strategy aiming to ensure that meaning is successfully communicated, particularly—perhaps—where this meaning may be complex or delicate in content. Different languages have different approaches to this, and translation helps to highlight that what may appear to be unnecessary repetition is actually a careful strategy directed towards consolidating and confirming meaning.

Articles. This is a notoriously pitfall-ridden area! Articles are actually not a feature of all languages (Duff cites the example of Serbo-Croatian as an article-less language) but even where they do exist and appear to correspond directly to those in English (a, an/the), their use may be frustratingly distinct. For instance, one of the functions of the definite article in English is to specify ("the music" as opposed to simply "music"). In many other languages, however, the article is required to do precisely the opposite, that is, to make the word non-specific. That's why non-native speakers often end up saying things in English that we sometimes find slightly comic, along the lines of "in the life, most of all I like the music". These problems are not usually impediments to general comprehension, but they are fairly tough obstacles to precision, and linguistic accuracy is a highly prized asset. Duff correctly suggests that back-translation exercises (translating back into the language that you have just translate from) can be useful in bringing this problem to the fore and thereby heightening awareness of when it's happening and what it signifies. Above all, language activities such as this help students ascertain and eventually understand the differences and peculiarities of their L1 and their target L2/3/4…

Could you please talk more about stress and emphasis ?

If I were to add to that—and keeping myself within the bounds of Duff's own concerns—I'd draw further attention to the fact that this sort of emphasis derives principally from a phonetic feature (the modulation in pitch that is an indicator of importance, hence—of course—Duff's use of the word "inflection"), one that can therefore be entirely overlooked or misunderstood in written contexts. Duff (50) makes exactly this point, calling such emphasis "a feature of the language which can easily be overlooked, particularly in writing, where the emphasis is not often marked. Yet in translation it is vital to the meaning of the sentence". What does he mean by this? Well, consider the following forms:

(a) The boy likes playing with his dog(b) Does the boy like playing with his dog?(c) The boy doesn't like playing with his dog(d) The boy does like playing with his dog

Examples (a) to (c) are familiar even to low-level students of English; they follow a clear pattern that says that verbs such as Like (a so-called 'lexical' verb) use an auxiliary verb (in this case, Do) to form negative or interrogative sentences. Example (d) would be confusing to many students, at least those who are currently at a pre-intermediate stage. They'd want to know what on earth that negative/interrogative marker was doing in an affirmative utterance. They could well even conclude that the sentence is erroneous. Recognising that it's not an error, and—what's more—that it has a function (e.g., emphasis) more complex than simply negating or questioning is an important development in language-learning competence. Learning to recognise and replicate this form at an oral/aural level is more progress still. Coping with, accounting for and effectively reproducing such emphatic forms is a basic objective when translating, and, once again, translation is an ideal activity for testing and assessing these features.

Could you please give us a summary of Duff’s work regarding tense, mood and aspect (passive, conditionals and prepositions)

Chapter 3: Tense, Mood, Aspect.

Tense (a set of forms taken by a verb to indicate the time of its action in relation to the time of its reporting),mood (a category of verb use that indicates things such as fact, question, command, wish or condition) andaspect (a category or form of verb that shows how time is expressed by the verb: in English this means whether the verb is progressive [Mary's speaking] or completed/"perfected" [Mary's spoken]) are—evidently—issues that affect verbs. As Duff (73) recognises, these issues are a question of "structure, more than lexis. That is, with the overall way in which a sentence is shaped rather than with the individual choice of words".

Surely a verb is a verb is a verb? Once we recognise that "-ed" is a regular past tense and have taken the trouble to learn a decent-sized list of irregular verbs (in English, those whose past and past participle vary from the "-ed" form) and that the future is expressed by "will + infinitive", that's the end of it. Unfortunately not. It's not hard to find correspondences at a lexical level amongst verbs in different languages; for example, it's not usually a problem to find the corresponding verb for "open" or "eat" or "think" (though it may well be that the best correspondence sometimes needs the help of other words), but how those verbs function, and how they express things like action, duration, state and completion, is far more complex.

Think of a language's verb system as a great big cake. Then imagine that every language has a generally comparable cake. This might lead you to conclude that, at least as verbs are concerned, translation should be fairly straightforward: you just select the bit of cake corresponding to your own…and voilà. What happens, though, is that while the Verb Cake might be pretty universal, the way in which every language cuts up that cake into various parts is not.

Here's a simple example. In English, to express the length of time you've lived somewhere, you'd say something like this: "I've lived in England for five years". The verb form here is the so-called present perfect (in effect, a compound tense that combines the present tense and perfect aspect). One of its uses is to indicate something that began in the past and is still continuing as we speak. In Catalan, to say the same thing, you'd say something like this "fa cinc anys que visc a Anglaterra" (literally, "ago five years that I live in England", or more reasonably "I live in England since five years ago"). What's important to see in this context is that, for English speakers, the present perfect is the most suitable verbal form, since the present simple (for example, "I live in England") expresses a more or less permanent state and could not therefore adequately convey the nuance of a past event ("I moved here five years ago") that has present consequences ("I'm still here now"). But for Catalan speakers, in this context the present simple ("visc" is first-person singular indicative of the verb "viure" meaning "to live") is an entirely adequate manner to express a verb whose action is currently occurring, irrespective of when that action may have begun. The cake's the same, but it's sliced up differently.

The same is true for aspects of the verb such as state or mood. As far as state (or stativeness) is concerned, in some contexts, some verbs in English cannot be expressed in a continuous manner: you'll sound like King Julien XIII if you go around saying things like "I am seeing a problem with your argument", although "seeing", in other contexts is perfectly okay). And mood covers a host of verb functions such as command or wishes. One of these functions is hypothesis, which is the territory of the subjunctive. It's often said—quite wrongly—that English no longer has a subjunctive as there is no entirely separate subjunctive form (though the verb To Be is a partial exception to this, with its now increasingly optional "If I were you"). The subjunctive, as a notion or concept, of course exists. But English—most treacherously for its learners—hides it within the form of an apparently innocent past tense. Look at theses two sentences to get an idea:

When she lived in Germany… she spoke good GermanIf she lived in Germany… she'd speak good German

Both sentences use identical forms ("she lived") but only the first is a real past form; its point of reference is the past. The second sentence really does use the past tense, but its meaning is not past. It is hypothetical, imaginary, subjunctive. We might even say that, in the sense that this imaginary situation could one day come true, its point of reference is actually the future. No wonder people despair at ever mastering English: it uses the past tense to talk about the future!!

Duff effectively recognises the complexity of these issues and—in this chapter—makes two important points as a means of helping approach the problems involved. First, he gives far greater contextualisation than in the other sections of the book; second, he encourages the use of oral translation as a means of breaking free from producing an overly direct translation that a written rendering might produce. He argues, quite fairly I think, that these often complex verbal uses are sometimes formulaic in different languages and that "not without thinking but without too much pondering" (74) students may perhaps more successfully hit upon what Duff calls the target-language openings that are the most adequate translation for the English forms under discussion.

To repeat myself yet again, translation is a particularly suitable language activity to examine and practice the differences between L1 and L2 verb systems.

Could you please send me a summary of the fourth chapter "concepts and notions" regarding choice of words , possibility and ability and "causality , consequence" , "effect and result"?

Duff titles this chapter "Concepts and Notions", generally referring to those areas of meaning that are abstract and therefore difficult to indicate with ease or transparency. He makes a well-illustrated point about the difficulty of 'accessing' this type of meaning, precisely because of its abstractness, reminding us that—for concepts and notions—the words used for these ideas "do not refer to any concrete, tangible thing" (97).

This brings us to a common problem in translation, which is the degree to which any word can be said to have a true equivalence with the vocabulary of another language. In the area of nouns, this is rarely a major obstacle when we restrict ourselves to objects, though in fact what is meant by an equivalent word for such a concrete object may be enormously different (think of what House means to you, or to a Tuareg, an Eskimo or an Amazon-forest dweller…). It's not that tangible nouns are problem-free, but when and where problems arise, we can usually sort them out by simple illustration. That's not possible with abstract nouns, such as valour, courtesy, concupiscence or evil, terms that Duff highlights in making this very point.

The deeper—and very controversial—issue at play here is the idea that it is our native language itself that determines the way we, as individual speakers of that language, perceive and understand our world. It is inevitable, I think, that this section of the book should make reference to this idea, and indeed Chapter 4 begins with a partial quotation from Benjamin Whorf. Though Duff gives only a fragment of this, I think that this fuller quotation gives a much better idea of what Whorf was on about:

We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds - and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way - an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language. The agreement is, of course, an implicit and unstated one,but its terms are absolutely obligatory; we cannot talk at all except by subscribing to the organization and classification of data which the agreement decrees. (Whorf 1940 'Science and Linguistics',Technology Review 42(6), pp. 213-14; his emphasis).

Working in the 1930s and 40s on this question and jointly with his mentor and teacher, Edward Sapir, Whorf put forward a theory (known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, or Worfianism, and also referred to as linguistic relativity) that says "it's not primarily your culture that defines your language, and therefore your way of expressing the world, but is actually your language that shapes your culture by constructing the ways in which it gives expression to reality"; another, though more superficial, way of saying this is that language influences thought rather than the other way round. Of course, this summary simplifies Whorf's views enormously and ignores the

fact that there are actually two versions of the theory, the strong and the weak, which have been received with differing degrees of acceptance by linguists and anthropologists. It should also be said that influential linguists such as Chomsky and Pinker, whose views are more 'universalist', have strongly opposed Whorf's line of thought and have tended to dismiss its conclusions.

In all events, and now back to translation, we cannot dismiss out of hand the idea that abstract thought—in itself complex enough—is made more complex still by not directly corresponding to an equivalent abstract thought in another language. In short, translators need (a) to be aware of this lack of equivalence and never fall into the trap of assuming the transferability of abstract notions, and (b) find ways to ensure that the abstract concept in question is successfully communicated in the other language.

In Chapter 4, Duff provides a range of activities that seek to work on precisely these issues, highlighting especially the ambit of definitions, the concepts of possibility and ability, causality, and perception. The basic strategy of the chapter, beyond basic consciousness-raising, is to work on evaluating the suitability of equivalence (having by now accepted that direct equivalence is not available) and on assessing those strategies that might be developed when a concept simply does not exist in the L1. This is useful classroom stuff, but for me the most interesting material comes in the final sections of Chapter 4 in which the activities look at L1 and L2 expressions commonly associated with specific concepts, and to enquire into the parameters of the differences amongst them.

In short, though it wisely sidesteps the hot potato of linguistic relativity by mentioning it but not really evaluating it (though Duff takes issue—p.98—with Whorf's use of the word "dissect"), this chapter still engages with the issues of language and thought that are central to Whorf's theory. In doing so, Duff takes an interesting and useful look at "where…two languages overlap and where they do not" (99).

Could you please send me a summary of chapter five regarding idioms (from one culture to another) ?

Having been through a pretty broad range of issues (context/register; syntax and reference; tense/mood; concepts/notions), Duff ends by bringing the book "full circle" (123), as he idiomatically explains it. We're back with context and register again, but now with a difference: "[w]hile in the previous four sections we were concerned primarily with language, with the transfer from one language to another, here we concentrate rather on expression, on the transfer from one culture to another" (123).

If we chose to, we might pick holes with that observation (idioms are—evidently—an aspect of language that also need transferring into the L2, and those other "primarily" linguistic issues focussed on in earlier chapters also very much involve cultural transference), but generally it's an understandable distinction. Most especially, that part of the dictionary definition that Duff opens the chapter with, informing us that an idiom is a "peculiarity of phraseology approved by usage though having a meaning not deductible from those of the separate words" (COD) hits the nails on the head—so to speak—in helping us see how this sort of language is difficult for learners to understand, to replicate and to transfer from their L1 to L2, or the other way round.

The difficulty with idiomatic language, as with issues of register, is—from the point of view of recognition—being able to understand the communicative purpose underlying the expression, or—from the point of view of transferring an idiom from L1 to L2—being able to sythesise its essential meaning (rather than external form) and express it adequately in the target language.

For instance, it's not inconceivable that we might find the closing season of a professional footballer's career described as his "sporting swan song", a term that would be quite meaningless if it were translated directly, that is, without attending to the non-literality of its meaning. The trick here, for the learner, is (a) recognising that this is not literal and (b) sufficiently appreciating the general context so as to understand its likely meaning (when coming across the expression for the first time). A further trick is being able to express the idiomatic term in a way that suitably captures its basic meaning. Some idioms might transfer sufficiently well; as a rule of thumb, most don't; this means that a more prosaic rendering of the essential purpose of the idiom may well be the safest option if you're trying to translate, especially if that's in a spoken context where you don't have the necessary time to search for a nicely equivalent idiomatic expression.

A further difficulty for learners of English is that of gaining enough L1-L2 sensitivity to separate themselves from their own L1 idiomatic language in order to convey—when the need arises—its basic meaning independent of its particular form. This may sound obvious, but anyone who speaks a second language reasonably well will in all likelihood have the experience of having struggled to translate something idiomatic in a more or less literal way, only to be met with incomprehension. Recognising an idiom as an item that probably needs paraphrasing is a useful strategy, but one that takes time to develop well. And obviously, not all idioms present the same degree of difficulty. In French, the expression "quand le chat n'est pas là, les souris dansent" literally translates as "when the cat isn't there, the mice dance", close enough to our "when the cat's away the mice will play" for it not to present great difficulties. But how about the Catalan expression "d'on no n'hi ha no en raja"? Literally, "where there isn't any, none of it leaks", a pretty common utterance, usually used critically of someone (or, more broadly, of an institution or group), and meaning that the native absence of a certain quality—intelligence, say—implies that you'll never find it however much you look. Hence, this might be said of a rather slow-witted person. Clearly, a literal interpretation would not help us much here, and the ability to opt effortlessly for something like "not the sharpest tool in the shed" is not within reach of most L2 speakers.

As I've already said about the content of every other chapter, translation is a highly suitable approach to appreciating, negotiating and coping with this area of language. Personally, I particularly like Duff's 5.3 ("On the beaten track: familiar expressions"), which helpfully reminds us—teachers, learners, translators alike—that idiomatic usage is not always the most colourful, vivid and dynamic aspect of language; one of the most frequently used type of idiom in everyday speech and writing is the cliché, a dead or dying expression whose real purpose is a sort of stand-in for genuine thought. The challenge here is to learn that—despite their moribund quality—these clichés, jargon-like phrases and clapped-out metaphors are actually, pragmatically speaking, very appropriate language. Good writers and good speakers will be encouraged to avoid them ("like the plague"), but part of the reason for their continued use is precisely their perceived suitability to context, which means that, as "set expressions" able in effect to be

learned as-is and applied when needed, they have considerable value (Duff's examples on p. 133 include "in the author's opinion", in all probability" and "…remains to be seen"). Sensitive use, even of clichéd idioms, requires the ability to correctly assess context and underlying meaning, and to be adequate to register.

All of the activities in this final chapter are sensible, highly practical forms of looking at and practising the many ways in which idiomatic expressions are present and can create both difficulties and opportunities in L1-L2 language use. But, although there is an implicit warning in all of this as regards an unthinking approach to idioms when translating, there is a need, I think, to make that message just a little clearer from the outset. It would be useful, in that sense, to begin the introduction to the chapter with some basic guidelines: learn to recognise the challenge represented by idioms (structure, context, register, meaning) in accordance with your level, of course, but from the outset; be more prepared to paraphrase than to search for direct equivalence to these forms; above all, be aware that idioms are densely packaged bundles of cultural significance, succinctly conveying a huge range of extra-linguistic information about which users may only be dimly aware. To say that a situation is akin to crossing the Rubicon tells us one sort of thing about the speaker; to say that an intractable issue really does your head in tells you quite another. Native speakers will probably see huge differences between the pragmatic quality of these two expressions; many learners may well not. Caveat emptor!

Could you please introduce Alan Duff's book as a whole ( please include a brief synopsis for each chapter )?

Alan Duff's Translation (1989) followed the basic pattern of the OUP Resource Books for Teachers in that it finely balanced a reasonable grounding in basic theoretical notions with the obvious need for tested, feasible and engaging classroom activities. By this I mean that the titles in this series approach teachers' needs in a way that take for granted that real classes with real students are waiting to be taught, but that the teachers addressed by the series are also professionals interested in rather more than a few photocopiable lesson plans. All the same, Duff's book was somewhat distinct from the other titles simply by dent of the subject itself. As Alan Maley, the series editor, comments in the foreword, translation had "long languished as a poor relation in the family of language teaching techniques [and has been] denigrated as 'uncommunicative', 'boring', 'pointless', 'difficult, 'irrelevant' and the like, and has suffered from too close an association with its cousin, Grammar". He was referring, in part, to the infamous grammar-translation method of language teaching, a centuries-old methodology that had fallen into considerable disrepute in the 1960s and was basically abandoned in the 1970s (though the news of its downfall certainly never made it through to the Latin and French teachers who I was taught by). But another cause for the poor image that translation had—at least on the European EFL scene—was the mushrooming of minimally qualified EFL teachers produced in the UK through certification programmes such as that leading to the RSA Preparatory Certificate in EFL (the "Prep Cert"). By minimally qualified, I don't mean to disparage either the teachers—who were actually mostly graduates—or the RSA, which developed a pretty good course for the purposes in mind. What I mean is that the Prep Cert gave (gives) its trainees only 4 weeks to get classroom-ready, after which they can be deployed practically anywhere, though almost always abroad. So this meant that it made little sense to give over precious time to translation-related methodologies, since the trainees very rarely knew where they were headed and therefore which

language/s they'd be working with, other than English. Beyond a very superficial introduction to a range of existing methodologies, the essential teaching methodology that was used and encouraged was the Direct Method. This has been around for a long time now, so it's durable; and one of its main ideas is that all classroom language (instructions, negotiations, etc) are exclusively in the target language. You can see, then, that it's sensible for a Prep-Cert course to opt for this approach. The problem is, though, that this has produced legions of teachers who—for whatever reason—never took their teaching studies beyond this initial stage and were therefore left with a sort of visceral feeling that using the students' own language (their "L1", as it's known) was a kind of pedagogical sin.

Duff's Translation bravely stood up to all this and basically announced that it was okay to use translation in language teaching (it's worth emphasising the obvious, at this point, that this book was not a coursebook for translators, nor a book about how to teach translation; rather, it attempts to show how teachers can usetranslation as a teaching tool). It's not that Duff was the first to express an approval of translation, but the institutional "force" of an OUP Resource Book for Teachers lent huge weight to the issue. In effect, the book formed part of a shift in attitudes in EFL, I think, and added its own quite considerable grain of sand to the growing eclecticism that now characterises much good EFL practice, with its willingness to try and possibly even endorse any approach that helps learners learn.

The book is divided into five chapters, each one with a short introduction that provides some reflection on the importance of the chapter's subject to language acquisition and use, followed by practical classroom activities. These, in turn, provide teachers with preparation and in-class instructions, as well as useful comments. Chapter One takes on the complex question of context and register; a good starting point since, as Duff observes "all words are shaped by their context [and so] we can say—very broadly—that context comes before language" (19). Subsequent chapters look at ways in which translation can help the teaching of syntax and reference (Ch. 2), with a close focus on, amongst other areas, stress and emphasis, reformulation and articles; tense, mood and aspect (Ch.3), which assesses the manifold and particular ways that languages have of referring to time and tense; concepts and notions (Ch.4) a rather fundamental ambit of language study not least inasmuch as this engages with the hugely controversial question of how different cultures may perceive reality through the influence, primarily, of their language; and idiomatic language(Ch.5), a notoriously slippery aspect of language learning whose successful use often escapes even the most advanced and effective of learners.

To newly qualified EFL teachers in today's far more heterogeneous teaching contexts, Duff's book may now seem entirely natural and obvious (though this would not make it any less useful in class). Back in 1989, though, things were very different. Just having this book up there on the prep room bookshelves was something of a godsend, and a very significant voicing of support for those of us who had always thought that the use of translation in language teaching was self-evidently justifiable, but had had to swim against the current to get others to accept that.