2. Text Types

Text types can be taught in different ways. Hőnig, Kussmaul, and Nord have proposed several models of source text analysis for the research of text types within translation studies. Colina modified Nord's example to provide a theoretical model of parallel text analysis and raised two significant steps for the teaching procedure. One step is to "identify which features are indicators of text type and whether the same features are used in the target culture to make the same text types". The other step is to "decide, in combination with consideration of the translation brief and the norms for the TT and culture, which units are relevant to a translation purpose, which aspects need to be changed, whether the function/purpose of the translation can be the same, and what strategies will be used to accomplish the translation goal" (Colina). The purpose of this teaching is to help students to obtain generalization of language features and pragmatic functions with respect to a certain text type and to consider how to retain the same function in the target language text.

Another model of teaching text-types in translation, retrieved on the Internet, was provided by the University of the West of England. The teaching and learning procedures start with the reading of various text types, followed by the instructor's highlighting the problems areas and linguistic hallmarks of those text types. After that, students are asked to collect different text types with their translations. In addition, an online discussion forum is provided for students to analyze and discuss points of interest or translation difficulties. Finally, students are asked to submit a brief commentary on the translations of text types.

In this translation project, a different model of teaching text types will be conducted in the elective MT class. Neither games nor quizzes are used, nor there will be a formal lecture on the knowledge of text types at the beginning of this project. The translation instructor will simply ask students to analyze lexical-specific and syntactic-level problems in the MT outputs of informative, evocative and expressive text types. After that, the instructor will encourage students to think, judge and infer the distinctive linguistic features of the three text types while editing the MT errors and noting down their reflections. This teaching helps students to realize that the difficulties of post-MT editing vary according to the linguistic features of the three text types, and different diction categories and syntactic methods in the three text types have close bearing on the MT errors and the translator's decisions in the translation process.

The term "text type" refers to a specific "mode of discourse" or "mode of presentation" that aims to fulfill a certain rhetorical and communicative purpose. Neubert recognizes text types as "socially effective, efficient, and appropriate molds into which the linguistic material available in the system of a language is recast". Hatim and Mason look at text types as "a conceptual framework which enables us to classify texts in terms of communicative intentions serving an overall rhetorical purpose". These statements clearly define text types as the functional benchmark against which we may classify or categorize various texts into a certain type for achieving particular functions.

Classification of text types is controversial because a text type tends to be multifunctional and overlaps with certain textual elements of other text types. Nevertheless, for the convenience of translation studies, a number of ways of distinguishing text types have been suggested. Crystal and Davy classified texts according to field of discourse or subject matter, "giving rise to types such as journalistic texts, religious text, scientific texts and so on". Beaugrande and Dressler raised a "different classification of texts into types such as literary, poetic and didactic" based on domain. Hatim and Mason classified text types according to their rhetorical purposes: argumentative, expositive and instruction-based. Argumentation is subdivided into counter-argumentation "in which a thesis is cited, then opposed" and through-argumentation, "in which a thesis is cited, then extensively defended" (Hatim). Exposition is subdivided into descriptive, narrative and conceptual types. In addition, Bühler's theory of functional typology proposed a three-way distinction depending on the foci of "the producer (emotive), the subject-mater (referential) or the receiver (conative)". This functional typology labels three text types as expressive, informative and vocative. Similar to this functional typology is Reiss's three-way division of texts into "informative texts which convey information, expressive text which communicate thoughts in a creative way, and operative text which persuade" (Hatim).

We adopt Reiss's and Bühler's text typology that distinguishes one text type from the other two in terms of intention, function, and rhetorical purpose. We hope that students learn that each text type has predominant linguistic features that perform a particular function in the translated text. The linguistic characteristics for our check and classification can be borrowed from Hatim's and Munday's description. In the informative text type, the dominant form of language is functional and the text is "structured on the semantic-syntactic level". In contrast, the expressive text type is "doubly structured; first on the syntactic-semantic level and second on the level of artistic organization. The language used in this text type is artistic and creative. Finally, the operative text type is "doubly or even triply structured on the syntactic-semantic level (in some circumstances, but not necessarily) on the level of artistic organization and on the level of persuasion" (Hatim). Its language tends to be psychological or persuasive. These descriptions serve as linguistic norms to bring about some constraints that govern the translator's lexical choice and syntactic processing. These constraints also affect the success or failure of MT performance and the ease or difficulty of post-MT editing.