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The Impact of Translation Strategies on Second Language Writing

Graff, Carine
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1532607114900787

Abstract Details

2018, PHD, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies.
This study explores the effect of translation strategies on undergraduate students’ second language writing in three French composition classes. After the grammar translation method was used in foreign language teaching, translation in the foreign language classroom was banned for a long time. It is now reappearing in those language classrooms and several studies, such as Karoly (2014) and Gonzalez Davies’ (2014) show its benefits in the foreign language classroom for enhancing students’ grammar as well as their cultural understanding of the language (Machida, 2011). The current study seeks to determine if translation, as informed by translation studies has an impact on students’ second language writing, and in particular on the naturalness of their writing. There were eight participants in each group of Fall 2014, 2015, and Spring 2016. The distribution of translation interventions per group was as follows: no intervention in the 2014 class, one in the 2015 class with the transposition translation strategy based on Vinay and Darbelnet’s (1995) indirect translation procedures, and several in the Spring 2016 class including formal lessons on Vinay and Darbelnet’s indirect translation strategies (e.g. transposition, modulation, and explicitation), approaches such as Skopos theory, as well as translation activities. Students’ writings were coded for wrong lexical/grammatical choice, grammatically and semantically deviant sentences, and naturalness before and after the interventions—at the beginning and at the end of the semester for the Fall 2014 class. Three native speakers, concordance search using Concordancier Corpus francais (https://lextutor.ca/conc/fr/), and Google.fr searches with quotes—results specifically included trusted websites or books—were used to evaluate the naturalness of students’ writings. Three repeated measures ANOVAs were performed, one for each dependent variable. Due to the small sample size, post-hoc one-tailed paired sample t-tests were run to see if there were less lexical/grammatical choice errors in students’ writing, less deviant sentences, and more natural sentences in each group. The data analyzed in this project showed that the use of translation strategies in an undergraduate upper level French composition course (Spring 2016) enhanced students’ second language writing naturalness as well as their lexical/grammatical and semantic choices. Translation as informed by translation studies is beneficial in the foreign language classroom and this study will hopefully encourage instructors and departments to collaborate and make interdisciplinarity a priority to give our students the best curriculum possible.
Richard Washbourne (Advisor)
Erik Angelone (Committee Member)
Brian Baer (Committee Member)
Sarah Rilling (Committee Member)
Sara Newman (Committee Member)
189 p.
Composition; Education; Foreign Language; Higher Education; Language; Linguistics; Multilingual Education; Pedagogy
Translation; Translation studies; Second language writing; Translation strategies; Pedagogy; French; Second language acquisition; Interdisciplinarity

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Graff, C. (2018). The Impact of Translation Strategies on Second Language Writing [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1532607114900787

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Graff, Carine. The Impact of Translation Strategies on Second Language Writing. 2018. Kent State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1532607114900787.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Graff, Carine. "The Impact of Translation Strategies on Second Language Writing." Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1532607114900787

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

kent1532607114900787
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This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.