The development of L2 sociolinguistic competence in translation trainees: an accommodation-based longitudinal study into the acquisition of sensitivity to grammatical (in)formality in English

ABSTRACT

As expert intercultural communicators, translators constantly face the challenges of comprehending and producing language that is stylistically appropriate in various communicative contexts. To scale these challenges, they must acquire advanced levels of sociolinguistic competence. Although sociolinguistic competence is considered an essential component of translation competence, to date no study has investigated how sociolinguistic competence, in the form of sensitivity to grammatical (in)formality, develops in translation trainees. Using style-based grammaticality judgement tasks, we collected data from 21 Dutch-speaking undergraduate trainees over a three-year period. We asked participants to revise sentences for style and investigated their accommodative competence in L2 English. We looked at participants’ ability to accommodate language to social context through style-shifting, mapping how they detected and/or corrected (in)appropriateness in formal contexts. Our results show that trainees’ overall accommodative competence initially improves, but subsequently stagnates. In the final year of testing, they barely score 50%. Receptive and productive sensitivity to grammatical (in)appropriateness follow similar developments, with trainees consistently performing better for receptive than for productive sensitivity. Our findings highlight the need to design effective sociolinguistically responsive (foreign-language) instruction in translation training to further develop sensitivity to grammatical (in)formality and to heighten sociolinguistic awareness and the controlled use of stylistic variation.

KEYWORDS:

• accommodative/sociolinguistic competence
• grammaticality judgements
• (in)formality
• L2 English
• translation training

Disclosure statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Notes

1. The concept of style has a longstanding history in various fields (e.g., rhetoric, semiotics, sociolinguistics and stylistics). We narrowly define style from a variationist–sociolinguistic perspective as the (in)formality-based correlation between extralinguistic factors (socio-demographic and/or contextual variables) with grammatical elements at the subsentential/sentential level.

2. Research into accommodation has investigated verbal and nonverbal communication adjustment in interaction. We use the concept of accommodation to focus on verbal accommodation in the form of style-based grammar adjustments resulting from L2 English learners’ deployment of sensitivity to grammatical (in)formality.

3. A widely used performance model for language proficiency is the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) (Council of Europe 2001). Instead of using references to competences, CEFR scales use functional language to refer to what learners ‘can do’ in communicative contexts.

4. Labov’s (1966) work in variationist sociolinguistics investigated how speakers paid attention to speech. The focus on speech was typical of much research in this initial period of sociolinguistic inquiry. Contemporary sociolinguistic research also addresses other forms of communication (e.g., digital communication and writing).

5. Examples of stylistic variation in lexical (in)formality are kid–child–infant and in phonological (in)formality are singin’–singing.

6. Our (in)formality continuum is not a rating scale. Any scale used for rating/measuring language users’ perceptions of linguistic (in)formality must be empirically grounded and well-anchored.

7. The study we report on here is part of a larger project, in which we collected quantitative and qualitative data about grammatical and lexical (in)formality.

8. The sentences were kept the same throughout the three years of testing. Such a test–retest approach to data collection has advantages and disadvantages. Some might address the use of the same sentences as a threat to internal validity. This is a valid point, especially in short-term testing. However, by allowing for ample time between testing (12 months in our study), collecting data as part of a larger test (50 items) and randomising sentences for every participant during testing, we minimised this threat to internal validity. In so doing, we were able to use the same data-collection tool and the same items, which provided a valid and reliable data set for our comparisons.

9. We checked general and test-specific assumptions underlying the selected tests and found no violations.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Antwerp [STIM–2018–36426].