Abstract
The article analyses various cultural translations (BACHMANN MEDICK: 1998BACHMANN MEDICK, D. „Dritter Raum: Annäherungen an ein Medium kultureller Übersetzung“. In: DÖRING, Tobias; BREGER, Claudia (orgs.). Figuren der/des Dritten: Erkundungen kultureller Zwischenräume. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998, 19-36.; 2019BACHMANN MEDICK, D. „Übersetzung und Transnationalität“. In: BASSELER, Michael; NÜNNING, Ansgar (orgs.). Fachdidaktik als Kulturwissenschaft. Konzepte, Perspektiven, Projekte. Trier: WVT, 2019, 257-270.), which means the dynamic negotiation of meanings, through a transcultural perspective (WELSCH: 2017WELSCH, W. Transkulturalität, Realität und Aufgabe. New Academic Press: Wien, 2017.) by teaching the German language in Brazil. Firstly, we present a historical retrospective of the textbooks used for teaching German, in which stereotypical representations can be observed. Furthermore, multi-sited ethnography examples (MARCUS: 1995MARCUS, G. E. Ethnography in/ of the world system: the emergence of multi-sited ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology, n. 24, 95-117, 1995.; 2011MARCUS, G. E. Multi-sited ethnography: five or six things I know now about it now. In: COLEMAN, Simon; VON HELLERMANN, Pauline. Multi-sited ethnography: problems and possibilities in the translocation of research methods. London: Routledge, 16-34, 2011.) from our ethnographic diary are provided. It contains participant observation, comments and conversations, recorded between 2012 and 2024, and refers to teaching German as a foreign language in class (to beginners, advanced and intermediate students) at a private language and cultural institute in Rio de Janeiro with the textbooks Menschen (A2.2Menschen A2.2 Kursbuch. München: Hueber, 2013., B1.1Menschen B1.1 Kursbuch. München: Hueber , 2014., B1.2Menschen B1.2 Kursbuch. München: Hueber , 2014.), Sicher (C1.1Sicher C1.1. Deutsch als Fremdsprache. München: Hueber Verlag , 2016., C1.2Sicher C1.2. Deutsch als Fremdsprache. München: Hueber Verlag , 2016.) and Auf neuen Wegen (C2). We especially refer to the cultural translation of the German speaking countries and people representations, as well as the dialogue with the cultural-other. Introduced are thus pedagogic practises beyond eurocentrism in class, during an excursion, and presentations on culture and German film screening in a cinema club. Finally, we refer to the multimodal interconnectivity of cultural translation activities. Accordingly, we describe the screening of the German film “The White Massai” (2005) set in Kenya. Together with the fiction film we describe classes in which the (neo)colonial relations of the German speaking countries are discussed.
Keywords:
teaching German; cultural translation; transcultural; ethnography; eurocentrism