- •Lecture 3. Teaching Translation of Text Types with mt Error Analysis and Post-mt Editing
- •1. Introduction
- •2. Text Types
- •3. Mt Errors and Post-mt Editing
- •4. Methodology
- •5. Findings. Students' mt error statistics
- •6. Using mt error analysis to identify text types
- •7. Learning dominant linguistic features of the three text types
- •8. Awareness of the relevance of text types to translation
- •1. Premises
- •2. Translation competence and its acquisition or concepts and misconceptions about translator training
- •4. Questionnaires
- •5. Forum
- •6. Learners' assessment
- •7. Achievements and limits of pedagogic technology
- •1. Introduction
- •1. Introduction
- •3. Corpora and trainee translator’s professional prospect
- •4. The Present Picture
- •5. Ailing System of Teaching Translation in Universities
- •6. Major Weaknesses of Translation Teaching at Universities
- •7. The Necessity of Viewing Translation as a Learning Process
- •Importance of Testing
- •1. Introduction
- •Introduction
- •2. Translation competence
- •3. The concept of text genre
- •4. Relation between the text genre and the different sub-competencies of tc
- •5. Teaching proposal
- •6. Conclusion
4. The Present Picture
There has always been some resistance against new ideas and corpus-based translator education is no exception. The very first proposals as for integration of corpora into translator education date back to 1990s. Zanettin referring to the considerable benefits of corpora for trainee translators puts forward the idea of Translator Trainee Workstations which asks for the integration of translation activities based on corpora into translation curriculum. According to Zanettin, “a translator trainee workstation comprising a word processor, bilingual corpora and facilities for bilingual concordancing together with other resources may constitute a valuable aid in the training of translators” Since then, there has been a large body of studies on the applications of different types of corpora in translation classrooms; however, the evolution is not complete yet.
Though corpora have found their real place in translator education in some countries (mostly in the West), it seems there is still a long way ahead to substantiate corpora as valuable tools in the context of translator education. There seems to be some major obstacles in this path. First, some translation teachers seem reluctant to make a change in what they have done for years. This resistance can be partly due to the fact that such teachers themselves were taught in the traditional way and they may have some fear of this novel method. Some of them may even need training as for working with corpora, corpus analysis tools and computers. Second, some students also seem unwilling to accept the change. They may either lack the computer skills needed to work with corpora or fear the burden of responsibility they may have in such classes. Third, the institution or the university may lack the facilities needed to run a corpus-based translation class. Extra funding is needed to equip classes with computers and projectors and to provide access to corpus analysis tools for all students. This especially imposes pressure on those institutions which have a traditional structure with only one or two computer laboratories intended for special courses on listening or audiovisual translation. Finally, most researches done on the applications of corpora in translation classrooms are limited to few countries and deal with few languages. This situation implies that similar researches are needed in different languages addressing the specific needs of educational settings of different countries. The results of such studies then can be used to convince the education authorities and universities to provide funding needed to run such corpus-based classes.
5. Ailing System of Teaching Translation in Universities
It goes without saying that translation plays a crucial role in human communications. In the process of transferring the sense form the source language (SL) to the target language (TL), translators play a pivotal role. At times they act like a bridge connecting two different cultures. By translation, new thoughts, philosophies and points of views are entered into different languages. In many countries there is a pressing need for the translation of scientific and socio-cultural knowledge. This requires expert and competent translators; those who have received adequate expertise through university education.
Many trainers and trainees cannot recognize the importance of translation teaching. In other words "those involved in the process of translation teaching and learning, namely trainers and trainees, should be informed of the importance of translation which is a major intellectual discipline and is the key to international understanding and also of the vast world of communication in which competent translators and interpreters are needed''. Through translation teaching, students would be able to deepen their understanding of two languages and two cultures, learn both the foreign language and their mother tongue thoroughly, and enhance their knowledge of structures. The purpose of translation teaching is to give students not only practical bilingual ability, but also to encourage the attitudes that will allow them to do the best possible translation work after graduation. From the students’ point of view, translation is a very useful skill to graduate with. The level of translation reflects comprehensive abilities in a foreign language and the mother tongue (including listening, speaking, reading and writing) and even a comprehensive understanding.