- •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
6. Major Weaknesses of Translation Teaching at Universities
a) A field With No Specific Aim and Identity
A glance at the program of English translation program in Ukrainian universities reveals that the course of translation constitutes an important component in the English BA program. However, the objectives of this course have either been misunderstood or difficult to achieve. Virtually all descriptions offered by English departments state that the aim of the course is to introduce students to translation theory and train them to translate from English into Ukrainian and vice versa. Nevertheless, there is a wide consensus among teachers of translation that the training falls short of its expectations.
b) Wrong Translation Teaching Methods
Our observations revealed that, Ukrainian instructors of translation employ only one method so as to teach various translation courses, i.e. a traditional approach towards translation teaching. Translation students are often given a de-contextualized text, and are required to write a translation in their own time, hand it in for marking by the lecturer who then spends most of the class hour going over the piece, highlighting problems.
c) Ukrainian Translation Students’ Problems
Ukrainian translation students’ problems are largely attributable to the following factors: (1) Attitude toward their occupation: they do not recognize the importance of translation, so they do their homework casually and carelessly; (2) Weak bilingual foundation: both their comprehension and expression of Ukrainian and English languages are not good enough. They often make grammatical and spelling mistakes, create Ukringlish sentences when they do translation, and sometimes use non-standard Ukrainian and incorrect punctuation marks. (3) Rhetoric and style: students have no clear consciousness of style, and have had little chance to appreciate various styles before they begin to study translation. Correspondingly, they translate without considering the style of the original and often mix different styles together.(4) Translation students can not use reference books: students often ask their teachers the meaning or spelling of a new word rather than looking it up in a dictionary. The teacher is the sage on the stage! All these problems are due to our educational system and traditional teaching method, and indicate that we must pay more attention to students’ study and thinking methods.
d) Inefficiency of Instructors of Translation
Many experts in the field of translation do believe that translation instructors must be highly qualified, and have extensively studied the theories of translation, linguistics, literature and other related branches of learning. They should be able to connect translation theory with practice and to apply the theory to translation skills. Instructors of translation should have a rich experience in the practice of translation and have published books or articles on translation studies. They should be familiar with English and American literature and with the cultural systems of both Ukrainian and English. They should also be aware of the mistakes most often made by students, and be able to accurately analyze the causes of these mistakes from the theories of linguistics, culture, literature, rhetoric, style, aesthetics and so on. Nevertheless, not many teachers of translation have received proper training in translation.
The absence of continuous training programs for university translation teachers has contributed to the current status quo. Teachers may very well take personal initiatives and train themselves. However, their efforts can hardly come to final result. This is because they are overworked and they teach various courses, including a hybrid of language courses and content courses at various levels.
Proficient trainees should enjoy the following characteristics:
"Sound knowledge of the SL and the TL, translation theory, transfer procedures, cognition and methodology
Comprehension of what translation is and how it occurs
Permanent interest in reading various kinds of texts
Ability to communicate ideas clearly, empathically and openly
Ability to work out synthesis and interrelationship of ideas
Capacity to create, foster and maintain a warm work environment, "an atmosphere of sympathetic encouragement"
Capacity to foster research
Accuracy and truthfulness; critical, self-critical and analytical capacity
Clear assessment criteria