ABSTRACT
Nowadays, international mobility and globalization have generated the need for linguistically prepared citizens with a developed mediation competence. Moreover, findings in neuroscience and a growing awareness of the key role played by heritage languages regarding identity issues, now favour research and best practices to explore the potential contact areas between languages and disciplines and to suggest optimal translanguaging practices. Here we will explore the use of translation in learning contexts that are not exclusively related to training professional translators. This suggests that certain distinctive traits may be discerned between what may be called Translation for Other Learning Contexts (TOLC), here defined as translation to acquire linguistic and intercultural mediation skills in fields other than translator training, and translator and interpreter training, that is, translation to acquire professional translator competence. In this chapter, we will briefly outline how ideas regarding the integration of previously known languages in foreign language learning have evolved from the grammar-translation method and the communicative approach to an informed integrated plurilingual approach (IPA). We will then explore how the students’ linguistic repertoire can be integrated in the language learning process and will finally focus on translation as a key skill and a strategy for advancing mediation competence.
