Abstract:

Second language leaning and teaching has, over the past decades, been dominated by approaches that focus on communicative competence (e.g. Richards, 2006), which is often equated with the idea that interaction should be both the means and the ultimate goal of learning a language (e.g. Rivers, 2000), and many language learners are, indeed, interested in using the foreign language primarily to exchange thoughts and ideas in a variety of more or less formal settings. Translators, however, require language competence for a far more specific type of unidirectional (i.e. non-interactive), generally formal, written communication; they thus differ considerably from other L2 learners in the way they use the language, and their learning objectives should be adjusted accordingly.

Based on data collected in 3rd- and 4th-year Spanish to English translation modules at a Spanish university over the past decade, this chapter aims to identify the aspects that most commonly cause difficulties and errors in translations from Spanish into English by native Spanish translation students who have a good level of general English (B2–C1), but who have had little translator-specific language training. An analysis of the data reveals that the majority of these deficiencies are features and aspects of the language that tend to receive little attention in interaction-based English classes.

Examples that will be discussed in this paper cover the following types of errors:
(1) Syntax: Mistakes regarding constituent order in certain constructions
(2) Genre: Mistakes regarding the use of appropriate expressions and style
(3) Lexicon: Mistakes in the use of toponyms and other proper names
(4) Form: Punctuation errors

What all these mistakes have in common is that they are due to a lack of contrastive awareness of the two languages (cf. e.g. Carrasco Flores, 2019). It is widely acknowledged that language teaching for translators should differ from general foreign language teaching (e.g. Beeby, 2004) and lay a greater emphasis on those aspects of the language that are particularly relevant in translation; this paper argues that developing contrastive awareness should be one of the key elements of language teaching for translators, and that this can only be achieved by moving towards a more analytic approach in the language classroom.

References:
[1] Beeby, Allison. 2004. “Language learning for translators: designing a syllabus”, in Translation in Undergraduate Degree Programmes, ed. by Kirsten Malmkjer. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, p. 39-66.
[2] Carrasco Flores. 2019. “Teaching English for Translation and Interpreting: A framework of reference for developing the translator’s bilingual sub-competence”, Complutense Journal of English Studies 27: 121-137.
[3] Richards, Jack C. 2006. Communicative Language Teaching Today. New York: Cambridge University Press.
[4] Rivers, Wilga Marie (ed.). 2000. Interactive Language Teaching (10th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Keywords:

EFL, English for Translators, Translator training, Contrastive awareness, Spanish to English translation.