Teaching the art of “judicious” translators’ interventions

Abstract

In the capstone unit of a Master of Translation, students were required to write “judicious” interventions (Lefevere 1996) by way of peritextual commentary, be it an introduction, a preface, or a postface. Such interventions are at heart a reaction against the well-documented translators’ invisibility. The hope is that studying patterns of published translators’ interventions of this type and teaching trainee translators to write their own will foster self-reflexivity, confidence and “the virtues of courage and determination” (Chesterman 2001). The article describes how learners were encouraged to meet this outcome, the tasks involved, and how some students in the 2020 cohort fared. It concludes with some suggestions on how to promote best practice in teaching to combat translators’ invisibility.