Words in motion: struggles of translation, adaption, transposition, and ignorance

The increase in international pedagogical discussions in recent years has shown that dialogue is challenging since pedagogical notions often do not easily translate from one language into another. Adopting English as the lingua franca of the scientific community has merely covered up such differences, with the incongruences surfacing very quickly when discussions dive more deeply. It has become increasingly obvious that hasty translations of pedagogical terms from or into English (or any other language) increase the bewilderment instead of facilitating smoother communication. Over the last few years, interest in the numerous challenges involved in translating and rewriting educational theories has visibly increased (Biesta 2012; Friesen 2021). Thus, it has been recognized that, for all those who work and do research in the field of education studies, it is equally desirable and difficult to transcend the boundaries of one's own language – not only to be able to engage in meaningful communication with international colleagues, but also to broaden the conceptual horizons of often quite parochial educational reflections. Furthermore, it is indeed only from the viewpoint of an informed multilinguality that one can become aware of the often complex conceptual shifts that accompany those translations and transpositions.