The splendor and misery of "Intercultural Communication" teaching modules

Dmitry Yermolovich; Pavel Palazhchenko

doi:10.33919/esnbu.16.1.1

The splendor and misery of "Intercultural Communication" teaching modules

Authors

Dmitry Yermolovich Independent Researcher
Pavel Palazhchenko Independent Researcher

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33919/esnbu.16.1.1

Keywords:

intercultural communication, intercultural competence, translation, European project, teaching materials

Abstract

The paper examines in a critical light the approaches and theoretical grounds of certain educational projects seeking to promote "intercultural competence" in translators, both in Russia, the contributorsâ€™ home country, and in Western Europe, as exemplified by a European Union project. Some textbooks as well as teaching material and recommendations are placed under scrutiny for consistency, relevance and value to the training of professional translators/interpreters, especially at postgraduate level. It is shown that some guidelines presented as an improvement on current translation teaching practices repeat or repackage ideas developed decades ago by Russian and Bulgarian translatologists. The paper argues that there is no special need for artificially implanting or isolating an "intercultural communication" module in translation teaching, as translation is itself a primary form of international and, therefore, intercultural communication, and the best practices of its teaching, at least in the leading translator/interpreter schools of Russia, have incorporated the cultural component in harmony with other essential translation competences for at least half a century.

Author Biographies

Dmitry Yermolovich, Independent Researcher

Professor Dmitry Yermolovich, PhD, DSc (MSLU), is a Russian linguist, translatologist, lexicographer, conference interpreter and literary translator. He has taught translation for many years at Moscow State Linguistic University and is now Editor-in-Chief of Auditoria Publishers (Moscow). He is the author of more than 100 academic papers and books on translation theory, teaching of translation, onomastics, lexicography, and other areas of language studies. His works include the Comprehensive Russian-English Dictionary, the most complete Russian-English dictionary since 2004, the U.S.-published Russian Practical Dictionary, and the university textbook â€œRussian-English Translationâ€ that has come into nationwide use. His literary translations include two annotated volumes of Lewis Carrollâ€™s verse and prose in Russian.

Pavel Palazhchenko, Independent Researcher

Pavel Palazhchenko was a high-level Soviet conference interpreter and, as such, he participated in all US-Soviet summit talks leading to the end of the Cold War. He is the author of a personal and political memoir, My Years with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze: The Memoir of a Soviet Interpreter. He is now Chief of the International Department of the Non-governmental Foundation for Socio-Economic and Political Studies (or The Gorbachev Foundation), and President of RPK, a Moscow-based translation services company.

References

GruÅ¡evickaja, T. G., Popkov, V. D., Sadokhin, A. P. (2003). Osnovy meÅ¾kulturnoj kommunikacii: uÄebnik dlja vuzov [Fundamentals of intercultural communication: university textbook]. Moscow: UNITI-DANA.

Hall, E. T. (1976). Beyond Culture. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/Doubleday.

Komissarov, V. N. (1973). Slovo o perevode [Essay on translation]. Moscow: MeÅ¾dunarodnye otnoÅ¡enija.

Ter-Minasova, S. G. (2000). Jazyk i meÅ¾kulâ€™turnaja kommunikacija [Language and intercultural communication]. Moscow: Slovo.

Vlakhov, S., Florin, S. (2006). Neperevodimoe v perevode [The untranslatable in translation]. 3rd edition. Moscow: R.Valent.

English Studies at NBU, Volume 2, Issue 1, 2016

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Published

2016-08-20

How to Cite

Yermolovich, D., & Palazhchenko, P. (2016). The splendor and misery of "Intercultural Communication" teaching modules. English Studies at NBU, 2(1), 5–16. https://doi.org/10.33919/esnbu.16.1.1

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Issue

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2016)

Section

Articles

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