Situated learning and situated knowledge: gender, translating audiovisual adverts and professional responsibility

ABSTRACT

This article is aimed at building bridges between translation studies and gender studies: we relate the concept of ‘situated learning’ in translation, as a context-dependent approach through which learners are exposed to real-life tasks, to the concept of ‘situated knowledges’ from a feminist perspective. These concepts inspire our teaching in that the curricular design of our courses is driven by contextual factors and professional demands, not by what students should know objectively. This article explores the varied situated knowledge of students, trainers and professionals as regards gender and professional priorities, as well as the way in which professional responsibility is perceived. We examine students’ and professionals’ attitudes to gender in advertising, through their responses to a questionnaire. The main results show partial agreement about the responsibility translators and advertisers have in the (re)production of gender stereotypes, and an agreement about the importance of including professional and ethical issues in education. This underpins the need to develop tailored gender-related activities across the curricula of translation and advertising courses. Our aim is to show that the concept of situatedness can contribute to the redefinition of syllabus design, the identification of pedagogical goals and task planning.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender awareness
• higher education
• audiovisual advertising
• audiovisual translation
• situated learning
• situated knowledge

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Ruben Giró for his help in the design of the questionnaire; Oreste Attardi for providing assessment and information about advertising agencies; Santiago Jordán for providing information about advertisers’ addresses; Jaume-Miquel March for his advice with cognitive validation of the questionnaire, and Jorge Díaz-Cintas for helping distribute the questionnaire.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. This research project was designed along with our dearest colleague Francesca Bartrina (†) from the University of Vic-UCC, to whom we fondly dedicate this article. Her contribution and participation in this study was of utmost inspiration for us.

2. See Appendix 1 for information on the advertisements used in our courses.