Serial applied linguistics: the use of TV series in a TEFL experience in translator training

Abstract

This article describes a teaching experience with translation students that involves the use of fictional TV series and documentaries. First, there is a description of the activities, organised in Audiomedial Projects (AMPs). These projects’ main objective is to encourage the critical analysis of language use from the points of view of syntax, lexis, rhetoric, discourse analysis and translation. Another objective of the AMPs is to foster exposure to authentic communicative situations, in which register and lexico-grammatical choices tend to be dissimilar to those taught in textbooks. AMPs also aim to favour collaborative teamwork, and to develop students’ cognitive and metacognitive skills. The theoretical and pedagogical rationale underlying AMPs includes task-based learning and the teaching of ESP (English for Specific Purposes), as they combine language acquisition and recycling with some tenets of Translation Studies (discipline-specific knowledge) and the development of translation competence (as defined by PACTE 2002). Finally, the results of the use of AMPs in the last three years are presented and briefly analysed.

Keywords

• formación de traductores
• ipe
• aprendizaje basado en tareas
• textos audiomediales