An Eclectic Approach to Translation Teaching: A Pedagopgical Perspective

Abstract

In teaching translation, each individual method has its strengths and weaknesses and a single method has a narrow theoretical basis, a delimited set of activities and therefore inflexible. The motivation to write this paper is to present the conceptualization of the eclectic method. Further, the paper adopts the rhetorical typology to be an instrument for applying the eclectic approach to translation teaching. An eclectic approach has been suggested whereby the suitable theory of translation (solution) is determined according to the situation of the text, i.e. the choice of a translation problem should precede the development of the theory. Instructors need to identify and make their students recognize where their skills are lacking when support is needed and what measures are to be taken. This can be achieved by being able to demystify text-type forms through the application of a broad view of the text typological model that incorporates insights from other models of translation.