Language enhancement for translation undergraduates: an evaluation of students’ reactions to and effectiveness of a comparable and parallel text analysis course

ABSTRACT

With increasing arguments and evidence suggesting its benefits, First Language (L1) use (including translation exercise) is experiencing a resurrection in Second Language or Foreign Language (SL/FL) classrooms. One form of L1 use is composing comparable and parallel texts, which can be an important pedagogical resource but which has received limited attention in SL/FL classroom research, both pedagogically and empirically. Based on theoretical justifications and an in-depth discussion of possible benefits of comparable and parallel text analysis, this paper reports on the design of a comparable and parallel text analysis course to enhance beginning trainee translators’ linguistic competence and on their reactions to the pedagogical design and its effectiveness. Data were collected from 19 trainee translators at the participating university through course experience questionnaires and retrospective then–now self-assessment questionnaires. The results suggest that the pedagogical design was well received by the trainees and effectively helped them achieve the course objectives.

KEYWORDS:

• Language enhancement
• comparable text
• parallel text
• translation
• reaction
• effectiveness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Xiangdong Li http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7483-6076

Notes

1 The text ‘Are strict Chinese mothers the best?’ is available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12249215.

2 The Chinese version was adapted from Pei Xuan’s (沛轩) translation published on page 67–71 in the fifth issue of The world of English (英语世界) in 2011.