Teaching Translation of Phraseological Units Representing Family Values and Character Intelligence in The Great Gatsby

Abstract

This article examines the teaching of culture-bound phraseological units in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby from a linguocultural and pedagogical perspective. The principal purpose is to develop and justify a didactic model designed to strengthen students’ translation competence and intercultural competence in higher education. The research employs a qualitative textual and pedagogical design comprising analytical reading, contrastive interpretation, instructional modeling, and a small-scale descriptive classroom application. The textual corpus focuses on phraseological units associated with family values and the intellectual characteristics of fictional characters, both of which provide productive material for cultural mediation and reflective translation practice. The textual analysis identifies four principal categories of translation difficulty associated with these units: non-equivalence, pragmatic loss, register shift, and stylistic redistribution. Building on the textual findings and the descriptive classroom observations, the article proposes and illustrates a six-stage instructional sequence suitable for university courses in translation and foreign languages. The article concludes that the systematic teaching of literary phraseology can support critical interpretation, the mediation of meaning, and evidence-based decisions in translation practice.