The viability and sustainability of the use of South Africa’s indigenous languages depends on a strong foundation of their effective use in the schooling system as well as in larger society. This is according to Professor Njabulo Ndebelo, past University of Cape Town (UCT) Vice-Chancellor, who cites the Ministerial Committee Report on the ‘The Development of Indigenous Languages as Mediums of instruction in Higher Education’ (2005), Ministry of Education, in his forward to the Multilingual Maths and Science Concept Literacy Book.
A pioneering work, this book written in Xhosa, Zulu, English and Afrikaans, and published by Maskew Miller Longman, has been awarded the South African Translators' Institute (SATI) prize for "Outstanding Service Translation 2009".
The South African learners’ poor performances in the 1995 and 1999 TIMMS (International Mathematics and Science Surveys) have in large part been ascribed to problems many learners and educators experience when studying or teaching these subjects through English when it is not their first language.
“Given the scarcity of (and, by inference, a huge demand for) technical literature in the South African indigenous languages, this seminal work is deemed to have the potential to change the South African educational landscape forever and to provide a powerful incentive for many similar endeavours,” said the SATI judges.
The book is the outcome of The Concept Literacy National Project, an extensive three year, continuing UCT research and in-service education project involving collaboration with mathematics, science and language education experts and their postgraduate research students at UCT, Rhodes University, and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN).
The UCT and UKZN teams collaborated closely to validate the science units and translate these and the mathematics units from English into isiZulu and isiXhosa. At Rhodes, FirstRand Foundation Mathematics Education Chair, Professor Marc Sch?fer, validated the mathematics units while leading this component of the project.
The project was about aiding educators by enhancing their understanding and use of key mathematics and science curriculum concepts and their related language forms in classrooms where English is the language of teaching and learning. This is the first time such concepts have been translated into isiXhosa and isiZulu, said Prof Sch?fer.
The judges, it seems, were blown away by the project which offers hope to the majority of educators and learners in the country who struggle with issues of accessibility to education in their mother tongue.
“Given the magnitude of the specific segments (isiXhosa and isiZulu), which in terms of numbers are a very large majority in the country, and the deficiency of such texts in these languages, one can deduce that works of this calibre should have a major significance in laying a foundation for effective mother-tongue educational instruction for all.
“Beyond the classroom, for which it is primarily designed, this kind of work should also be of profound value to other stakeholders. For scholars and students of Translation Studies, the novel publication should help point the direction for the exploration of the whole question of the standardisation of scientific terminology in all affected languages as well as in defining strategies to be used for such standardisation.”
Detailed, contextualised meanings of 56 mathematics and science concepts are given in IsiXhosa, Afrikaans, IsiZulu and English. Prof Sch?fer emphasises that the book goes beyond terminology to aid in the understanding of specific concepts. It addresses particular mental ideas or images of an object or process in an attempt to make high order and complex mathematics and science accessible, educationally appropriate and relevant to classroom needs and language understanding levels.
“The book has been readily received by most provinces and it has already gone into a second print run,” said Prof Sch?fer. “There has also been a call to extend it to other languages and to go beyond maths and science.”
While the Afrikaans translation was highly successful given the readily available pool of translation tools, the isiXhosa and isiZulu versions were highly demanding as translators had to play a complex, multifaceted role of translator, terminologist, subject expert, etc. armed with virtually nothing beyond a grounded understanding of the source and target languages and the subject matter under discussion.
Ensuing editions will hold to the authors’ promise to continue to refine the translation until a point is reached where these concept translations have been fully standardised to attain the level of accuracy and consistency that befits a scientific text.
The FET volume, which includes a foreword by Rhodes Vice-Chancellor Dr Saleem Badat, has extended its application to the senior grade and includes geography and biology concepts. This edition will come off the printing press by the end of the year.
According to Prof Sch?fer the prize money of R10 000 awarded to The Concept Literacy Project will go the purchase of books for and distribution to educators in disadvantanged schools.
中国足彩网 the SATI Awards
As part of its celebrations for International Translation Day, the South African Translators’ Institute on 2 October 2009 awarded its 2009 Prizes for Outstanding Translation and Dictionaries, which recognise excellence in published translations and dictionaries in South Africa’s official languages.?
These awards were initiated in the year 2000 to encourage the publication of translations of original works in the indigenous languages of the country. The competition is held every three years and the winners announced around International Translation Day (30 September).
Associated objectives are to improve the quality of such translations, to promote multilingualism and in particular the use and development of the indigenous languages, to promote cross-cultural understanding and to raise awareness of the role of translators in uniting the people of South Africa.
A record 34 entries were received for this year’s competition, which was divided into five categories – literary translation, translation of non-fiction work, translation of children’s literature, service translation and dictionaries. Thanks to generous sponsorship of R50 000 by the Via Afrika Books Group each of the five prize-winners received R10 000.
Through the awards SATI also acknowledges South Africa’s publishers, which are publishing more and more translations in an effort to make books available to readers in their language of choice.
The 2009 winners are:
? SATI Prize for Outstanding Literary Translation: Michiel Heyns for Agaat, the translation into English of Marlene van Niekerk’s novel Agaat [Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers & Tafelberg]
? SATI Prize for Outstanding Non-Fiction Translation: Elsa Silke for Charlize: Life’s one helluva ride, the English translation of the Afrikaans version of this biography, Charlize: Ek leef my droom, written by Chris Karsten [Publisher: Human & Rousseau]
? SATI Prize for Outstanding Translation of Children’s Literature: Jaco Jacobs for Willemien en die Geel Kat, the translation into Afrikaans of Chris Riddell’s book Ottoline and the Yellow Cat [Publisher: LAPA Publishers]
? SATI Prize for Outstanding Service Translation: The Concept Literacy Project for Understanding concepts in Mathematics and Science: A multilingual learning and teaching resource book in English, IsiXhosa, IsiZulu and Afrikaans [Publisher: Maskew Miller Longman]
? SATI Prize for Outstanding Translation Dictionaries: The editorial team for the Oxford Bilingual School Dictionary: Northern Sotho and English (Editor-in-Chief: Gilles-Maurice de Schryver; Chief compiler: Mamokgabo Mogodi; Chief Linguist: Elsabé Taljard; Publisher: Megan Hall; OUP SA editor: Phillip Louw)