A text-linguistic approach to teaching translation and the impact on Iranian students

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Date
2009
Authors
Mohammad Ali Falahati
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Abstract
The present study investigates the influence of a text-linguistic course on some Iranian university students. Two groups of subjects were examined during a semester to find out how the text-linguistic model employed as a treatment affect their performance in translating texts. One of the groups received the treatment during the first half of the semester while the second group was learning the more traditional material common in Iranian universities, as called the Structure and Texture in this study. Conversely, the second group received the treatment when the other one was doing the Structure and Texture Course. So each group acted as a control group for the other one alternately. There was a pre-test at the very beginning of the study, and a mid-test in the middle of the semester just before interchanging the two courses. Finally, a post-test ended the process of data elicitation. The translations were assessed from different angles by three independent raters. Analyzing the data led to the conclusion that knowledge of text-linguistics applied in the form of text analysis is beneficial to the students and is, in fact, a determining factor for their translation decisions. The traditional method improved the structural and textual considerations of the translations to some extent, but was proved ineffective in teaching them other influential considerations such as register, pragmatics, semiotics, etc.
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PhD
Keywords
Humanities , Text-linguistic approach , Teaching translation
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