The question of translatability of education in comparative and international education studies

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday I)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Role of comparative studies in education policy

Proposal

As the Eurocentric modernist perspective has triumphed in the field of comparative and international education, it has homogenized research space at the expense of diverse research practices that draw on local and indigenous knowledges (Rappleye & Komatsu, 2015; Silova, Rappleye & Auld, forthcoming; Silova, Millei & Piattoeva, 2017; Takayama, 2018). Such a force of convergence made not only diverse education policy and practice impossible but also standardized language describing an educational phenomenon, thus monotonizing education research overall (Cowen, 2009, p. 322).

This is partly because English sustains the majority of current comparative and international education studies as a medium of communication. In order to publish articles in major journals and edited books in this monolithic culture, comparative education scholars studying non-Anglo/Western education systems and cultures are required to write in English, which often requires a hefty amount of translation of local languages, cultures, and concepts into English (Mazenod, 2018; Takayama, 2011). As Bourdieu (1977, p. 648) once said, a language is not just ‘an instrument of communication’ but ‘an instrument of power.’ The standardized terms and expressions of education structures and phenomena - accompanied by translation into English - have imposed common language, thus causing linguistic and conceptual isomorphism of education globally. Furthermore, in this unequal context, the translation of non-Western education into the English language has resulted in the imposition of the Western perspective, which has been widely identified as the common problem of translation practice in literature and other social sciences (Price, 2008). As a consequence, we have lost local meanings of education, which would have otherwise survived and enriched our knowledge base in comparative education studies.

However, while the issue of translation has been marginalized in the academia, the practice of translation unquestioned. Thus, this research aims to interrogate the perspectives, strategies, and epistemologies of education scholars publishing in English about non-Anglophone countries and their education and cultures. More specifically, this research examines which terms and concepts are considered to be translatable into English and which ones are left untranslated - and why. This research will thus reveal which education features are recognized as culturally and conceptually unique to the local cultural contexts and therefore are left untranslated, and vice versa.

For the purposes of this research study, I will use the case study methodology to analyze two English language books, which introduce the educational system and culture of South Korea - one is “Education Fever” written by Michael Seth (2002) and another is “Education and Social Change in Korea” written by Don Adams and Esther E. Gottlieb (1993). The preliminary findings indicate that the authors tend to easily find equivalence between Korean and English education terms when they relate to institutional features such as school system and administrative system while having more difficult time in translating terms pertaining to culture and philosophy. In most of the cases, however, the loss of meaning in translated terms appears unavoidable. In conclusion, this research suggests alternative options of translating local terms into English, borrowing strategies from other disciplines and pursuing the decolonial turn in translation.

Author

• Byoung-gyu Gong, Arizona State University