Machine Translation Shortcomings and Teaching Translation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18662/rrem/15.3/764Keywords:
Translation errors, machine translation, comparative analysis, incorrect equivalence, lack of semantic correspondence, teaching translationAbstract
Nowadays, machine translation is considered to be a frequently used tool to render various types of texts related to such different spheres as science, film industry, etc. Statement of the problem: currently, as the higher school system in Kazakhstan starts its’ integration process into world education (Kolomejceva & Makeeva, 2004), together with the re-structuring of the system itself it is a priority to translate course books and manuals from English into Kazakh and Russian and to adapt them for Kazakhstani students. A significant amount of information to be translated and the need to do it at the short notice might cause the use of machine translation tools to speed the translation process up. To clarify advantages and disadvantages of machine translation (especially for manuals and course books), the author applied such methodology as comparative analysis of the source text and its’ translated version. As a result, it is possible to state that machine translation tools are not able to replace the human translation of such complicated texts; moreover, the need of meticulous proofreading of target text is obvious as well as the urgent necessity of translation quality improvement. On the other hand, all the errors which have been observed in the target text, should be specified, categorized, and used in teaching scientific text translation to make it better. The exercises based on comparative analysis and target text proofreading can be considered as an effective tool for translators’ skills development. The author had chosen the course book Natural Gas Processing from Midstream to Downstream by Elbashir et al. (2019) and its Russian version as a research material for pre-translation and comparative analysis and then for the target text proofreading. So the main goals of the given research consisted in (1) finding out the inappropriate cases of translation; (2) explaining the type of error and (3) preparing the exercises to prevent making such mistakes by our students in Translation Studies and, generally, to improve pre-service translators’ competencies.
References
Basil, H. (2013). Teaching and researching translation (2nd ed.) Routledge.
Borishanskaya, M. M., & Kurbakova, M. A. (2014). Ob osobennostyah perevoda nauchnogo teksta. Izvestiya MGTU «MAMI», 4(22), 165–168. https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/ob-osobennostyah-perevoda-nauchnogo-teksta/viewer
Elbashir, N. O., El-Halwagi, M. M., Economou, I. G., & Hall, K. R. (2019). Natural Gas Processing from Midstream to Downstream. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Garbovskiy, N. K. (2007). Teorija perevoda [Theory of translation]. Izd-vo Mosk.
Khomenko, S. A. (2013). Osnovy teorii i praktiki perevoda nauchno-tekhnicheskogo teksta s anglijskogo yazyka na russkij [Fundamentals of the theory and practice of translating a scientific and technical text from English into Russian]. BNTU.
Kolomejceva, E. M., & Makeeva, M. N. (2004). Leksicheskie problemy perevoda s anglijskogo jazyka na russkij [Lexical problems of translation from English into Russian]. Izd-vo TGTU.
Komissarov, V. N. (2011). Sovremennoe perevodovedenie [Modern Translation Studies]. R. Valent.
Kunilovskaya, M. A. (2008). Ponjatie i vidy perevodcheskih oshibok [The concept and types of translation errors]. In Perevodcheskaja oshibka v teorii i praktike perevoda [Translation error in the theory and practice of translation]. Tyumen.
Mossop, B. (2014). Revising and editing for translators. Routledge.
Ordyan, L. A. (2018). Tipichnye problemy i osobennosti perevoda nauchnogo teksta [Typical problems and features of scientific text translation]. Molodoj Uchenyj, 48(224).
Popescu, T. (2013). A Corpus-based Approach to Translation Error Analysis. A Case study of Romanian EFL Learners. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 83, 242-247. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.06.048
Petri, T. A. (2019). An Analysis of Types and Causes of Translation Errors. Etnolingual, 3(2), 93-103. https://doi.org/10.20473/etno.v3i2.15028
Sdobnikov, V.V. (2007a). Kriterii ocenki kachestva perevoda i tipologija perevodcheskih oshibok. Problemy lingvistiki, perevoda i mezhkul'turnoj kommunikacii [Criteria for assessing the quality of translation and the typology of translation errors. Problems of linguistics, translation and intercultural communication]. NGLU.
Sdobnikov, V.V. (2007b). Perevodcheskie nesootvetstvija: kommunikativno-funkcional'nyj podhod. Jazyk, kommunikacija i social'naja sreda [Translation inconsistencies: a communicative-functional approach. Language, communication and social environment]. VGU.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 The Authors & LUMEN Publishing House
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant this journalright of first publication, with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work, with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g. post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g. in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as an earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
Revista Romaneasca pentru Educatie Multidimensionala Journal has an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
CC BY-NC-ND
