Using Manga translation for deeper understanding in the language classroom
Robert S. Murphy
TRIDENT (Triangular Denary System for Translation Disparity) is a triangular grid devised by Robert Murphy as a tool for making such dimensions of language as uniqueness vs. universality and figurativeness vs. literalness more tangible for students. Within minutes we had grasped the use of the grid and were able to assign words from a text to each of the nodes.
Recent brain research from Harvard has shown that emotional connection is as effective as repetition in moving learned material into long-term memory, and Murphy argued that manga provide that kind of emotional connection for students. If you accept Lange and Piage's premise that we are all cultural beings and that language is the quintessential expression of culture, it makes sense to incorporate occasional translation exercises into TEFL lessons. In the Kitakyushu dialect cartoon with which we experimented, the pictures made the context very clear. Using the TRIDENT grid, we could physically measure the distance between the colloquial language of the manga and the flat and flavorless English phrases students meet in their textbooks. Working out a range of translations for various nodes on the grid has led Murphy's students to ask important questions and feel at home with English.

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