DEVELOPING A MOODLE COURSE FOR TRANSLATION THEORY AND METHODOLOGY: THE IMPORTANCE OF THEORY IN TRANSLATION STUDIES AND ITS APPLICATION

There are many divergent views on how the science of translation should be taught in academic institutions or colleges, that is, as an independent study area or as part of Linguistics, Literature or Foreign Languages Departments. A much more debated issue refers to the question of whether translation theory should be included in syllabuses and study programs or the focus should be solely on practicing the profession, meaning translating texts. This paper examines prevailing views on the significance of translation theory in translation studies in order to design an open course on Moodle. Taking into account that there is a remarkable percentage of translation professionals who are self-taught and have not completed any specific studies, the course aims at helping either translation students or professional translators familiarize with concepts, methods and problem-solving strategies that are considered necessary during the process. It is organized in four modules where the learner is guided through a series of topics (register, equivalence, decision-making, level of naturalness, Skopos theory etc); the course discusses several topics and, at the end of each module, learners are given assignments (further reading) and texts to work on in order to practise the skills obtained. The course does not focus on a specific language pair and therefore is suitable for every individual who needs a theoretical background to boost their performance or for institutions seeking to save classroom time but not at the expense of learners' skills.