Translation as an integrated approach in elt

Abstract

This study was designed to investigate the problematic areas in paragraph translation from Turkish into English and to examine the effect of interaction on group work while students translated from Turkish into English in translation courses at Hacettepe University, School of Foreign Languages, Department of PostPreparatory English Courses, in which the final stage is a translation course. The translation course, which combines previously learned skills in reading, writing, listening, and speaking, attempts to develop the awareness of differences between Turkish and English in grammar, semantics, and discourse. In order to collect data, error analysis and interaction analysis were used. While the first stage of the study investigated translation as product in English, the second stage dealt with the process of translation as well as the analysis of students’ written translations. Observation of errors revealed that students produced errors in the areas grammar, semantics and discourse. Problems with grammar included the present perfect tense, past progressive tense, and the passive voice. Problems with semantics included issues such as collocations and deciding which terms to use when an L1 term had multiple equivalents. Students were also observed to perform translation work better when working in groups rather than when working individually.