Sprachmittlung / Mediation
Sprachmittlung in the Schleswig-Holstein Abitur tests adressaten- und situationsgerechtes Übertragen, not translation. You receive a source text - usually German, to be mediated into English, though the reverse direction occurs - plus a scenario: an email to a partner school, a briefing for a host family, a summary for a blog, a message to a colleague. The scenario names the addressee, the medium, the purpose and often a word limit, and those details are part of the task.
Core rules
- Read the scenario before the text: who writes to whom, formal or informal, what the addressee actually needs.
- Select: keep what serves the purpose; compress or drop statistics, examples and repetitions that add nothing.
- Explain culture-specific terms instead of transliterating them: “das Abitur” → “the German university-entrance qualification, awarded after twelve or thirteen years of schooling”. Never invent a false equivalent (“Beamer” is not “beamer”, “Handy” is not “handy”).
- Stay faithful: keep names, figures and dates; add no opinion unless the task asks for a comment.
- Write the required text type in the target language throughout - email with salutation and sign-off, article, set of notes.
Worked example
Source: “Wer in Schleswig-Holstein das Abitur ablegt, hat in der Regel dreizehn Jahre die Schule besucht; die Prüfungen umfassen drei schriftliche Fächer und ein mündliches Fach.” Task: informal email to a British partner class, about 40 words. Mediation: “In Schleswig-Holstein you normally spend thirteen years at school before taking the Abitur, our university-entrance exams. They cover three written subjects and one oral subject.” Reasoning: the culture-specific term is explained rather than left opaque, “in der Regel” becomes “normally”, the word limit is respected, and nothing about grading points is added because the addressee did not ask.
Traps that cost marks
- Literal translation that keeps German word order, compound nouns or passive habits.
- Mediating everything and blowing the word limit, or omitting a detail the scenario explicitly asks for.
- Ignoring register: addressing a host family as “Dear Sir or Madam”.
- Slipping your own opinion into a neutral information task.
- Forgetting the reverse direction: when mediating English into German, case, tense and register count in German.