ReclaimingtheCommonsofDiscourseVerticalTranslation.docVIP

‘Vertical Translation’ into BASIC ENGLISH 850 as a Tool for Metalinguistic Awareness in the EFL Classroom Bill Templer, Bulgaria Bill Templer is a Chicago-born educator with research interests in English as a lingua franca, literature in the ESL classroom, critical applied linguistics and working-class pedagogies of TEFL. He has taught in the U.S., Ireland, Germany, Israel/Palestine, Austria, Bulgaria, Iran, Nepal, Thailand, Laos and Malaysia. Bill is also a widely published translator from German, is chief staff translator for the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture, University of Leipzig (http://www.dubnow.de ), as well as Editor, Eastern Europe at the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies ( ). He is presently based in northeastern Bulgaria. Email: bill_templer@ Menu Abstract Introduction BASIC 850 in a nutshell Introducing vertical translation into BASIC Working with vertical translation in the classroom Examples of vertical translation: a bit of poetry The Gettysburg Address in BASIC A ‘Basic Library of General Knowledge’ Simplish from Great Britain Conclusion References Abstract BASIC ENGLISH 850, the experimental venture in English simplification pioneered by Charles K. Ogden, Ivor Richards, A.P. Rossiter, William Empson and others, aimed to create and spread an English auxiliary means of global communication based on a vital core vocabulary of 850 headwords. From 1930 to the mid-1950s, inside TEFL it emerged as a major pedagogical movement for simpler expression (Templer, 2005). As Richards (1942) stressed: the BASIC words “form a language within a language—the words needed in explaining the rest of the language.” One of its principles was ‘vertical translation’ (Wynburne, 1957; 1960; Rossiter, 1935), ‘downshifting’ standard often complex English into its easier leaner equivalent in BASIC. This means asking students, in analyzing texts, to ‘translate’ more complex lexis and expressions into their BASIC equivalent. Wynburne argued t