Subtitle Translation for Japanese EFL Students -- Translation as an Act of Mediation Between Different Cultures

Abstract

Translation has been an outcast in the language teaching theories of the 20th century. But now there is a strong interest in revisiting it, especially in European countries spurred by CEFR’s increased emphasis on the notion of “mediation.” However, theoretical accounts and methodologies to introduce translation into language teaching have not been fully committed. According to Gutt (1995), translation is a process of finding “interpretive resemblance” beyond the surficial differences between the two languages concerned. The author firmly believes that among all kinds of translation, subtitle translation is particularly conducive to teaching students the notion of mediation in the process of searching for interpretive resemblance between the source and target texts. This paper uses Relevance Theory to analyze subtitle translation by university students and provides an observation and discussion on how and why subtitle translation contributes to the enhancement of Japanese EFL learners’mediation competence.