A Study on Implementing Sydney School Genre Pedagogy in Teaching Translation of Instructional Texts

Abstract

Translation, a key vehicle in spreading a country’s traditional culture, is an important skill for foreign language majors. For Chinese English majors, this means they should have the competence to translate traditional Chinese culture well in English. At present, there has been limited research on teaching translation of typical traditional Chinese culture, especially translating its food culture to the world. And recipe, a typical instructional text epitomizing features of its representative cuisine, plays an important role in this field. Given the situation, it is imperative to explore pedagogical possibilities in teaching translation of Chinese recipes to English. This paper details the implementation of Sydney School Genre Pedagogy (SSGP) in tandem with parallel texts. One translation lecturer implemented the pedagogy with one class consisting of 37 third-year English majors for 3 weeks. Translation pre-test and post-test were administered to the students before and after the intervention. Paired samples t-tests were applied to analyze the data generated from both tests. Comparison of students’ English translations of Chinese recipes before and after the intervention shows that students significantly improved their genre competence and produced better translations in terms of macro-structural and micro-lexical adjustments. These findings indicate the potential scaffolding effects of SSGP integrated with parallel texts in teaching translation, especially texts with distinctive generic conventions. The pedagogical efficacy observed may prove conducive to international communication of Chinese cuisine, and Chinese traditional culture at large.