Vita Traductiva is delighted to announce the publication of a Brazilian Portuguese translation of Agnes Whitfield’s article: “Towards a Socio-Cultural Turn in Translation Teaching: A Canadian Perspective.”

The translation was published in the Brazilian journal Belas Infiéis, in a special issue edited by José Luiz Vila Real Gonçalves and Patrícia Rodrigues Costa, entitled “Translators' Education in Undergraduate Programs,” and can be viewed at: https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/belasinfieis/issue/view/2142.

The translation was carried out by Myllena Lacerda, a Ph.D. candidate in Translation Studies at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil, and Marcelo Aguiar who holds a master’s degree in Translation Studies from the University of Brasília, Brazil.

Whitfield argues in favour of a socio-cultural turn in translation pedagogy and curriculum design, with reference to the social, political and economic dimensions of the practice of translation in the broader area of inter-cultural communication in the Canadian/Québec context. She looks at how translator training curriculum could be redesigned to highlight the socio-cultural functions of translation and how culture and pedagogy could be integrated. The article was originally published in the University of Montreal based Translation Studies journal Meta and can be accessed at:
https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/meta/2005-v50-n4-meta1024/019906ar.pdf.

Lacerda and Aguiar say they were interested in translating the text for Belas Infiéis because of its continued relevance for teaching translation:

"In recent years, research related to translation education and training has received more attention, and several conferences, books, and papers have been published and organized in Brazil. We thought the article was a significant contribution to the current reflections regarding the design of curriculum and the considerations about the socio-cultural turn in the classroom, despite the evident differences between the Brazilian and the Canadian contexts."

"Since the profession has not been regulated yet, despite being acknowledged by Brazilian legislation, students and professors still struggle trying to find a balance between the theoretical aspects of the university and the reality and social demands of the translation market. We hope this translation can contribute to this ongoing discussion, alongside the other papers published in this thematic issue."

 

Myllena Lacerda and Marcelo Aguiar can be reached by email at: myrlacerda@gmail.com and mar_cello@hotmail.com respectively, and Agnes Whitfield at agnesw@yorku.ca.