EXPEDITION TRANSLATING MUNDUS

Transcription

1 EXPEDITION TRANSLATING MUNDUS We, the makers of Expedition Mundus, are very excited that you are going to translate our game. We hope that one day, children all over the world will be exploring the strange new planet of Mundus and learning about science along the way. Translating this game will be unlike translating a regular text or book: there is more here than meets the eye. Expedition Mundus has different layers of meaning. It is a scientific expedition on a strange new planet; it is a game that can be played and won; and it is educational material. All these layers have their own linguistic demands. Oh, and the Mundians also have their own language a language that pupils will be translating. One key aspect of the game is that many of the facts about Mundus, the research questions, the answers and the sources are interdependent. There are no straight lines leading from one question to one answer, or from one fact to one source. Rather, the game is a network of heavily cross-linked information. We put a lot of thought and work into making this information internally consistent. What that means is that careful, detailed, consistent translation is of the utmost importance. To make the game work well, you need to retain all the information and interdependencies. One piece of advice, based on our own experience: do not underestimate the time it takes to thoroughly check 30 sources, over 200 research question cards and over 200 answer cards for consistency. To help you produce a great, fun and consistent translation, we have formulated a list of important do s and don ts. Thank you for translating our game, and we hope you have a lot of fun in the classroom! The authors: De Jonge Akademie and De Praktijk

2 DO S & DON TS ON SPECIFIC WORDING Try to approximate a literal translation as closely as possible. Do not assume that the English text can be improved; the choice of wording is very deliberate and a lot of thought and work has gone into it. Take the vocabulary of your target age into account when translating. While a certain word in English may be commonly used even by children, the closest translation in your own language may not be. In those cases, please choose the closest translation that is part of your target group s vocabulary. For example, when translating from Dutch to English, the literal translation of Hoe lang is de draagtijd? is How long do they gestate?. However, whereas Dutch children would know what draagtijd means, English children would struggle with gestate. This is why, in the translation, we added (i.e. how long are they pregnant). When the text refers to Mundians, make sure the wording is neutral and does not includes implicit judgments or attitudes. Mundians are not necessarily stupid, primitive, funny, or animals. They are people in their own right. Check wordings that have a specific meaning for scientists with the relevant background. For example, the exact wording of the shellbeast ethogram in the observation of shellbeast behaviour source should be checked by a biologist. PRACTICAL REMARKS Make sure to translate the document names as well. The questions are divided into different levels, one of which is the basic level. Make sure you translate the word basic with a relatively neutral term not one that implies easy or simple. All quantities and measurements in the game were originally formulated in the metric system and are now given in both the metric and the US/UK system. Please do not use both in your translation, but choose the most appropriate for your country. The answer cards function as sources of information, once they are published. Make sure o that the answer states a fact, as in the English version, and does not consist of simply a yes or no ; o that you translate the entire answer on the answer card. Make sure that your translation of the answer card still provides a logical answer to your translation of the corresponding question. Expedition Translating Mundus p. 2 of 8

3 FUNCTION OF CERTAIN TEXT ASPECTS In the sources, capitals letters are deliberately used randomly at the start of words to give the impression of note-taking by scientists. Please retain this in your language if possible. o By contrast, the manual and the question and answer cards should be properly edited and punctuated. o This random use of capitals does not extend to spelling. Make sure that everything is spelled correctly. Please retain the use of parentheses. There is a reason for the use of these on the answer cards. Text in parentheses is not a part of the correct answer that students have to give; however, it is information that, once published, is required to answer the more advanced research questions. MUNDIAN LANGUAGE Take extra care when translating the language-related questions and answers. In some cases, it is more important to retain the information than convey the literal meaning. o An example: in the source interview with a Mundian, pay attention to the second note, which says, in English: talks about the dark era ; try to teach him the word dark, but he has trouble with it; half the time he says rark or radk or dadk The important information that must be retained is a word that has the letters D and an R in it, which are interchangeable for Mundians. Other words, questions and answers depend on this. Make sure that the spelling of fictional Mundian words is consistent throughout the game. Make sure that in your version, the fictional Mundian words: o do not give rise to negative or inappropriate cultural associations; o are not also existing words in your own language or another language that your pupils know. Where a fictional word does give rise to unwanted associations or is an existing word, please replace it with another suitable word. Please note: if you have to replace either word of the pair pi (danger) and pilo (shellbeast), you must be sure to adapt the other one as well. The Mundians derived one word from the other, a fact that plays a role in the game. Make sure that your translation of the English names of fictional Mundian plants and animals: o is not also the name of an existing plant or animal in your language; o does not give rise to negative or inappropriate cultural associations. Expedition Translating Mundus p. 3 of 8

4 BEHIND EXPEDITION MUNDUS QUALITY IN FOUR DIFFERENT LAYERS AT ONCE Expedition Mundus is a science education game that consists of four interdependent but separate functional layers. Our object in developing Expedition Mundus was for the end product to deliver very high quality in all of these layers. That means that we aimed to produce, in one end product: 1. high-quality educational material; 2. a high-quality simulation of scientific practice; 3. a high-quality game; 4. a high-quality story about an unknown world. To ensure this high level of quality, we took a number of core aspects into account. EDUCATIONAL QUALITY: CATERING FOR HETEROGENEITY NOT ABOUT FACTS We decided at a very early stage of development that the educational materials should teach children about the essence of science rather than about specific scientific content. We would not restrict the game to a certain subject area, but rather introduce general aspects of scientific practice to children. We decided to make Expedition Mundus entirely fictional and not focus on pupils learning real-world facts. This means that we effectively eliminate any dependencies on pre-existing knowledge. Advantages of this are: the game is suitable for use in all age groups and for all knowledge levels; within a group of players, there is no advantage for children who know more than others. Care should be taken to maintain this independence from the real world in any translation. This is why we stress that the fictional Mundian plants and animals should not be given the names of existing plants and animals. VARIATION The game covers a number of different subject areas in science and the humanities: arithmetic, physics, earth sciences, biology, history, culture and language. This means that the game can be played in classes devoted to all these school subjects (and more). There is also variation in the pupils cognitive load. The research questions they have to answer come in three different levels of difficulty, and the specific cognitive activity also varies within those levels. Moreover, the sources present the information in different Expedition Translating Mundus p. 4 of 8

5 ways (drawings, diagrams, text, graphs), challenging children to use different cognitive abilities. All this variation offers differing talents an opportunity to shine. BASICS Two more aspects of educational quality need to be mentioned. The first is that Mundus is a game, not a traditional educational module. A good game stimulates and motivates children. When they want to play and win, they learn automatically, something that applies to educational games as much as it does to regular games. Second, if we want our materials to be used in the classroom, we have to make life easier for teachers. That means being clear about the learning goals, about the preparation needed and about how to play the game. We have also facilitated follow-up lessons by including a number of different lesson suggestions in the teachers manual. SCIENCE SIMULATION QUALITY The aim of the game is to teach children about certain important aspects of scientific practice. Those aspects are woven into gameplay so that pupils learn about them implicitly, by doing. After the game, the teacher makes those aspects explicit and points out similarities and differences (shortcomings of the simulation). As we describe in the teachers manual, the aspects are: ENQUIRING ATTITUDE Scientists are constantly asking questions of all kinds. They try to understand the world around them. The question cards in Expedition Mundus also ask all sorts of questions about the planet. Real scientists naturally don t have ready-made research questions handed to them. They have to think up the questions themselves. PUBLICATION Scientists share the results of their research by publishing them in a scientific journal. Scientific knowledge is public information, in other words. We can compare that to the answer cards: pupils who answer a question correctly place the relevant answer card on the table so that everyone can read it. Scientific results really only count once they have been published. That s because scientific journals are always peer-reviewed. In other words, the articles are checked and evaluated by fellow scientists before publication. When something is published in a more important journal, it has higher impact equivalent to the higher score you get for more difficult research questions. REVIEWERS Before an article can be published, it is sent around to a few other scientists who often remain anonymous so that it can be checked thoroughly. The reviewers assess whether the research has been carried out correctly (for example were there control experiments Expedition Translating Mundus p. 5 of 8

6 or any calculation errors?) and whether the conclusions are sound enough to be published. This is comparable to the teacher checking whether a pupil has found the right answer before allowing that answer to be published. BUILDING ON EXISTING KNOWLEDGE Some of the more difficult questions in Expedition Mundus can only be answered by knowing the answers to other questions. That is the same in real science. A research question builds on existing knowledge. Or, as Sir Isaac Newton once said: If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. COOPERATION Scientists seldom work entirely alone. That is why pupils are allowed to work in twos in Expedition Mundus. It often takes a lot of time to conduct research (for example to carry out experiments), and two heads are better than one. Scientists also work together because they may be building on other scientists results. COMPETITION Scientists also compete with one another, of course. As in Expedition Mundus, they do that with their publications. The more articles and books a scientist publishes, the higher his or her status. Prestigious journals, books or conferences are worth more (more points ) than unknown journals. NO RIGHT ANSWERS There are, of course, also differences between Expedition Mundus and the real world of science. One difference has to do with checking the answers. At school and in the game, the point is to give the right answer. Is the answer correct or incorrect? That usually isn t possible in science, because scientists can never know for sure whether their answers are right. Science is based on cumulative insight and human endeavour. It sometimes happens that a published article later turns out to make incorrect claims. Science, then, involves searching for and defending the best answer that we can find at a given moment. DISCIPLINES Science refers to the natural sciences, but also to the humanities and the social sciences. Science can be divided into many different disciplines. Some of these can be seen in the game s sources and questions, i.e. linguistics, art and culture, history, geography, biology, physics and mathematics. SPECIALISATION Scientists are often very smart in one particular discipline. After all, it s easier to answer questions about something that you are already familiar with. Depending on how you play Expedition Mundus, teachers can have pupils specialise. For example, they can place Expedition Translating Mundus p. 6 of 8

7 the stacks of unanswered questions with the text facing up, so that pupils can choose the questions themselves. Or they can allow pupils to swap questions cards with one another. QUALITIES For the youngest ages, the focus is on the qualities a scientist must have (analogous to the traits of the protagonists of the read-aloud stories): being curious, knowing a lot and the ability to solve puzzles. GAME QUALITY: STRICT EDITING A game only works well if it is good as a game. The success of Expedition Mundus depends on the quality of the game. Game quality therefore has top priority. A good game is easy to learn. That means that the rules have to be clear and not too complicated. In addition, in a competitive game, winning has to be unambiguous. Either you win or you don t. And, for children to be motivated to do their best, the playing field should be (perceived to be) level. We have ensured this by eliminating the advantage of pre-existing knowledge and by varying the questions and sources (see above). Clarity and a sense of honest gameplay has also been ensured by very strict editing of the questions and answers. We ensured that they were answerable by looking at the sources and that they provided enough information for higher level questions to build on. This is why we put so much emphasis on producing exact translations. The same goes for the clear and high-quality illustrations, which were also closely edited for information relating to the research questions. These same illustrations are available for you to use in your translation. Finally, the information we want children to learn is not presented in a separate game layer that can be skipped at will or when a player is in a hurry. In the case of Expedition Mundus, players who want to win must employ a strategy that combines a number of the aspects of science that we want them to learn. Playing the game well means automatically working to achieve the game s learning goals. STORY QUALITY: RICH, CONSISTENT, OPEN ENDED Curiosity drives research. The world of Mundus had to be rich in the sort of details that children will want to know more about. Some of these details are obvious; you can learn a lot about Mundus just by looking at the illustrations. But much more is hidden below the surface. The most interesting facts can be discovered only by combining information and drawing logical conclusions. To ensure story quality, we paid painstaking attention to the internal consistency of Mundus and its people. Language, arithmetic, anatomy, history and culture are all interwoven on Mundus, as they are in real life. This is another reason for asking you to translate very carefully. Take, for example, the special significance of the climb-up flower for the Mundians. While playing the game, pupils will find out that 150 years ago, a volcano erupted on Mundus, Expedition Translating Mundus p. 7 of 8

8 plunging it into a dark era. In this dark era, food was less plentiful and the climb-up ceased to flower (since it needs sunlight for that another fact the pupils may discover). The sighting of the first new climb-up flower hailed the start of the current era, including a new year zero. Nowadays, Mundians decorate their houses with stylised paintings of the sun, which is depicted in the same way as a climb-up flower: a yellow circle with four yellow triangles radiating from it. Those four yellow triangles are themselves also used for decoration and are then associated with the number 144, which is written as four triangles in the base-6 number system the Mundians use (since they have six fingers instead of our ten). The story of Mundus is open ended literally so, in the wrap-up read-aloud story that ends with one of the protagonists descending into a mysterious tunnel, but also figuratively, in that the strange language invites children to think up new words, and the biology invites them to create new animals and plants. The teachers manual offers activities to tap into this potential for creativity. *** Expedition Translating Mundus p. 8 of 8