translation-issues - Documentational approach to didactics - Multilingual

This page is dedicated to keeping traces of the emerging translating issues. We received feedback from the scientific committee (1), and the reflections of the translators-reviewers for each language (2), supported by a model of Translating issues report (initial version here, revised version here)

1. A first feedback of the scientific committee (June 2020)

In April 2020, the scientific committee was asked to propose scientific references that could support the translating process; and to comment on the initial model of « Translating issues report ». We obtained four answers:

Kenneth Ruthven (link to his contribution) draws attention to the source language, with four fundamental questions: 

In such cases, the support of dictionaries (e.g. Cambridge dictionary) and the already accepted translated term in the specialised domain (e.g. in the case of ‘scheme’ the psychology domain) should be followed.

Nicolas Balacheff (link to his contribution) recalls that “The issue of language is not just a question of words, as is too often stated, but of expression and the circulation of meaning” (Balacheff 2018). The minimal condition for doing this work should be to complete the choice of translated terms with authority quotes attesting to their use, and allowing to take into account the “finesse” of the concepts.

Jill Adler (link to her contribution) considers that the focus on DAD concepts as isolated words is too narrow. She suggests to take into account the context in which these concepts are used (see also Arcavi et al. 2016; Pepin 2002; Setati 2003), and raised the issue of the link between teachers’ discourse-resources (Adler 2012), and the theoretical discourse analyzing them.

Janine Remillard (link to her contribution), building on her experience in the Math3Cs project (Remillard 2019), evokes Osborn’s (2004) discussion of different types of equivalences in cross-cultural research and Clarke (2013)’s notions of validity when doing cross-cultural research. As Jill Adler, she underlines the importance of the context, the words themselves being “the tip of the iceberg”. For facing these issues, the team needs to develop what Andrews (2007) calls prerequisite intersubjectivity, leading to a shared understanding of the core concepts (see also Pepin et al. 2019). In this perspective, the design of a multilingual glossary of key terms seems crucial – this is actually one of the objectives of the DAD-Multilingual project, already evoked at the Re(s)source 2018 conference (Trouche 2019). Include in the process people who are NOT specialists about the concepts?

These contributions led to a revised version of the Translating issues report (link). For taking into account the link between teachers' discourse, the cultural context, and the conceptualization of teachers' interactions with resources, Michèle Artigue, involved in the Lexicon Project (Artigue et al. 2017, Mesiti & Clarke 2018), has been invited to join the scientific committee.

2. The Translating issues reports

3. References

Adler, J. (2012). Knowledge Resources in and for School Mathematics Teaching. In G. Gueudet, B. Pepin, & L. Trouche (Eds.), From Text to Lived Resources. Mathematics Curriculum Materials and Teacher Development (pp. 3-22). New York: Springer.

Andrews, P. (2007). Negotiating meaning in cross‐national studies of mathematics teaching: Kissing frogs to find princes. Comparative Education, 43(4), 489-509 (link)

Arcavi, A., Boero, B., Kilpatrick, J., Radford, L., Dreyfus, T., & Ruthven, K. (2016). Didactique Goes Travelling: Its Actual and Potential Articulations with Other Traditions of Research on the Learning and Teaching of Mathematics. In B.R. Hodgson et al. (Eds.), The Didactics of Mathematics: Approaches and Issues (pp. 15-41). Springer

Artigue, M., Novotná, J., Grugeon-Allys, B., Horoks, J., Hospesová, A., Moraová, H., Pilet, J., & Žlábková, I. (2017). Comparing the professional lexicons of Czech and French mathematics teachers. In B. Kaur, W. K. Ho, T. L. Toh & B.H. Choy (Eds.), Proceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 2, pp. 113-120). Singapore: PME (link towards the PME proceedings)

Balacheff, N. (2018). Les mots de la recherche sur les EIAH, enjeux et questions. STICEF, 25 (link) 

Clarke, D. (2013). The validity-comparability compromise in cross-cultural studies in mathematics education. In B. Ubuz, Ç. Haser, & M. A. Mariotti (Eds.), Proceedings of the Eighth Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education (pp. 1855-1864). Ankara: Middle East Technical University & ERME (link)

Mesiti, C., & Clarke, D. J. (2018). The professional, pedagogical language of mathematics teachers: A cultural artefact of significant value to the mathematics community. In E. Bergqvist, M. Österholm, C. Granberg, & L. Sumpter (Eds.), Proceedings of the 42nd Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 3, pp. 379-386). Umeå, Sweden: PME (link towards the PME proceedings)

Osborn, M. (2004). New methodologies for comparative research? Establishing ‘constants’ and ‘contexts’ in educational experience. Oxford Review of Education, 30(2), 265-285. 

Pepin, B. (2002). Methodological issues of cross-national comparisons: efforts to establish equivalence in a cross-national study of mathematics teachers’ work in England, France and Germany. In A. Fries, M. Rosenmund & W. Heller (Eds.), Comparing Curriculum Making Processes (in the series “Explorations”) (pp. 269-80). Zurich: Peter Lang 

Pepin, B., Artigue, M., Gitirana, V., Miyakawa, T., Ruthven, K., & Xu, B. (2019). Mathematics Teachers as Curriculum Designers: An International Perspective to Develop a Deeper Understanding of the Concept. In L. Trouche, G. Gueudet, & B. Pepin (Eds.), The 'Resource' Approach to Mathematics Education. Advances in Mathematics Education (pp. 121-143). Cham: Springer (link). (This chapter originates from a panel given to the Re(s)sources 2018 International Conference. Video in English, link)

Remillard, J. (2019). Teachers’ Use of Mathematics Resources: A Look Across Cultural Boundaries. In L. Trouche, G. Gueudet, & B. Pepin (Eds.), The 'Resource' Approach to Mathematics Education. Advances in Mathematics Education (pp. 173-194). Cham: Springer (link). (This chapter originates from a lecture given to the Re(s)sources 2018 International Conference. Video in English, link)

Ruthven, K. (2019). The Construct of ‘Resource System’ as an Analytic Tool in Understanding the Work of Teaching. In L. Trouche, G. Gueudet, & B. Pepin (Eds.), The 'Resource' Approach to Mathematics Education. Advances in Mathematics Education (pp. 43-59). Cham: Springer (link) (This chapter originates from a lecture given to the Re(s)sources 2018 International Conference. Video in English, with French subtitles, link) 

Setati, M. (2003). ‘Re’-presenting qualitative data from multilingual mathematics classrooms. ZDM Mathematics Education, 35, 294-300 (link)

Trouche, L. (2019). Evidencing missing resources of the documentational approach to didactics. Towards ten programs of research / development for enriching this approach. In L. Trouche, G. Gueudet, & B. Pepin (Eds.), The 'resource' approach to Mathematics Education. Advances in Mathematics Education (pp. 447-489). Cham: Springer (This chapter originates from a lecture given to the Re(s)sources 2018 International Conference. Video in English, with French subtitles, link)

Textual resources